musescore / musescore/MuseScore

Always show trait dropdowns in the Instruments dialog

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#20,959 4 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
C++
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Description

Your idea

So, when you start working on a new piece, whether it be a solo piano piece, a trio, or an orchestral piece, you are presented with this:
image
Seems easy enough, right?
You click on the instrument you want, press on the arrow, and MuseScore automatically adds it to the score!
Ok, I want to have a piano... easy enough.
image
Then, I want to have a trumpet in Bb...
image
...and a clarinet in A.
Alright, a clarinet is a woodwind instrument, so...
image
Oh. MuseScore only has a clarinet in Bb. And that's what you might think.
...
And you'd be wrong.
Actually, MuseScore has clarinets in Bb, Eb, D, C, A and G.
But where are they?!
Sure, you can search for "clarinet" and..
image
There it is! Just click on the dropdown and select "A".
...
But why do you have to do it like this?
How about this:
If I want to add an instrument in another key (like a clarinet in A or C), I expect MuseScore to do this,:
image
and not this:
image
where, again, if I want a clarinet in A, I have to either search for "clarinet", or, do it the harder way: go to "all instruments", "woodwinds", scroll down a ton and find "clarinet".
It's ridiculous.

Problem to be solved

Many orchestral writers' time.

Prior art

No response

Additional context

No response

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the Instruments dialog and the code that decides when instrument trait dropdowns are shown. Reproduce the add-instrument flow with clarinets and other instruments that have variants, then verify that their available trait choices are visible without searching or navigating through All instruments.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
desktop
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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