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The Edit Menu and Edit Selection Options

The Edit menu provides options that include undo and redo, and the Clipboard Management tools and are meant to provide a location to utilize the Object selection Edit Selection features quickly and easily. 

When a measure or part of a measure, or even some objects are selected, the Edit selection property panel appears and lets you apply specific changes to the selection.  According to the context, these changes are the following.

  • Transpose: you can select the details of the transposition you want to apply.
  • Change layer: the selection can be moved from one layer to another.
  • Notes & Symbols: here you can change the properties of symbols or notes that are inside the selection.
    • Flip note stems, single symbols, slurs, hairpins & dynamics
    • Mute/Unmute notes
    • Show/Hide notes
    • Show/Hide courtesy accidentals
    • Enable/Disable AlphaNotes (Letter Names)
    • Add/Remove most symbols and ornaments to a note
    • Change the note heads

Click Apply to apply the changes.

  • Measure notation: change the appearance of the measures, like a repeat (for bar line repeats see Bar lines and measure resizing), double repeat, hiding content, or note heads.
  • Multimeasure rests: create, break, or split a multimeasure rest.
  • Staff lines: define which lines of the staff are visible
  • Transcription: used to re-transcribe the selected measure content, as though it was played from a real-time MIDI recording.  There are 3 possible modes used by the transcription engine and with this option, you can change its default behavior for the score and also apply it to change the way the existing measure content is transcribed.  The 3 transcription modes are :
    • Simplified notation - Uses one layer, with single chords (a note that is longer on a chord won’t be visible as such).
    • Single rhythmic line - Uses one layer, combining multiple chords with ties, so that the music is represented as close to its playback as possible.
    • Multiple rhythmic lines - Analyze voicing for multiple layers, to make the music as readable as possible

According to the type of music, each mode has its pros and cons. Here is a simple example showing the difference of notation, for the same playback:

Object selection and clipboard management

As mentioned in this article, clicking on an object will select that object and display its property panel for editing that object. The selected object can also be copied into the clipboard using CTRL+C or the icons, located in the Edit menu.

It is possible to select more than one object. In this case, the property panels of the objects are not displayed, but you can use the selection for copy/paste operations and for some global changes applied to the selected areas of the score.

In Compose, you can choose to select objects individually, in full measures or stack of measures, and partial measures. Depending on what type of area has been selected, the Edit menu and properties panel can vary. 

Selection of individual objects

  • Click on the object: it is selected and its property panel is displayed.

  • Click while holding the CTRL key: this object's selection is toggled; use it to add another object to the selection or to deselect an object that is already part of the selection.

  • Click while holding the SHIFT key: only valid for a note, it will extend the selection from the last selected note to the current note. It is an easy way to select a melodic line.

  • Starting outside a measure and with no highlighted object, drag a free rectangle. When released, the objects inside that rectangle will be selected. If done while holding down the CTRL key, the objects are toggled in/out of the selection. If done while holding down the SHIFT key, they are added to the selection.

    

Selection of a block of measures for one or more staves

  • Click inside a measure to select it.

                                 

  •  Clicking while holding the SHIFT key will extend the selected block

                       

  • Clicking while holding the CTRL key will add the measure to the existing selection; this makes non-consecutive measure selection possible.

  • Double-clicking to the left of a staff will select the whole staff (from first to last measure of the score); holding SHIFT will extend the selection and CTRL will toggle that staff.
  • Double-clicking just above a measure will select the stack of measures below that location; holding SHIFT will extend the selection and CTRL will toggle that stack of measures.
  • Double-clicking elsewhere will select all measures on all staves (the full score). It can also be done with CTRL + A  (select all)

Selection of a partial range of measures for one or more staves

  • Click inside a measure and drag the mouse to select the expected time section, on one or more staves. Holding the SHIFT key will extend the closest range of selected measures. Holding the CTRL key will add the new range to the existing selection.

                          

                        

  • You can build a selection that combines one or more of each of the 3 selection operations.

              

  • An additional and specific mode enables to select one or more symbols, like this:

                     

  • The sequence of symbols can then be copied and applied on any other sequence of notes. For this to happen, there must be no other types of selection than symbols.

Cut/Copy/Paste/Delete

Based on the current selection, the standard cut/copy/paste/delete operation icons can be used.

  • Copy the selection into the clipboard (also by CTRL + C )
  • Paste the current clipboard content to the current selection (also by CTRL + V ). In case of a complex type of selection combining all the above described modes, the exact location of the destination of the operation is determined by priority to be:
    • The beginning of the first measure and first staff of the first block selection.
    • If no block selection exists, then it is the beginning of the first measure and first staff of the first partial range selection.
    • If no partial range selection exists, the first individual object determines the location where the paste operation will be executed.

When pasting a complex and/or non-consecutive selection, the content is first concatenated into a continuous and time-ordered sequence, and then pasted at the destination. If more than one staff is copied/pasted, the destination offsets of the staves stay consistent with the source of the original staves.

  • Makes a copy of the current selection to the current clipboard and deletes the selection from the score (also by CTRL + X ).
  • DEL or Backspace deletes the content of the current selection.
     
  • When combining a paste operation with the SHIFT key, you will be asked how many times you want to paste the content of the clipboard to the destination measure and Compose will then paste that content several times, one after the other.

Clipboard manager

  • The clipboard manager is displayed with the icon:

                                          

  • When the clipboard contains music data, it is displayed as a miniature:

                                        

  • You can save the content of the current clipboard as a “saved clip” to be used later. There can be as many of these saved clips as you want. They are associated and saved with the current score. They are displayed in the lower part of the clipboard manager:

                                         

  • You can delete the clip or use the clip. When clicking on the Use button, the content of that clip will follow the mouse cursor as a “ghost score” and will be pasted at the exact location of the next click:

          

  • New : If you hold down the SHIFT key, you will be asked how many times you want to paste the content of the clipboard to the destination measure and Compose will then paste that content several times, one after the other.
  • If the clip contains only individual symbols, they may be applied (dragged) on the current selection and the symbols will be applied to all the notes of the selection. This can be used to apply an articulation (or a sequence of articulations) to a set of measures in one shot.

Drag and drop

  • The copy/paste operations may be executed based on an intuitive drag-and-drop feature.
  • Clicking inside an existing selection in the score and dragging the mouse will initiate a drag & drop operation. A “ghost score” follows the mouse and will be pasted at the exact location where you release the mouse.
  • This operation does not affect the current content of the clipboard.

New : If you hold down the SHIFT key before dropping the content (but after dragging it), you will be asked how many times you want to paste the content to the destination measure and Compose will then paste that content several times, consecutively.

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