musescore / musescore/MuseScore

Improve empty states of 'Score' and 'Publish' tabs

Open
#26,231 3 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

needs design UI
Dominant language
C++
Stars
15.1k
Forks
3.3k
Avg merge
2d 2h
Merged PRs (30d)
91

Description

If you haven't opened a score yet, there is no use in opening the 'Score' or 'Publish' tabs because you can't do anything in them.

A user reported this issue (video below), which suggests some confusion around what is possible to do in those tabs when no score is open.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/fd8003f8-7278-4028-8fef-a3cbc4dcf838

Potential design ideas:

Disable the tabs

  • Disable the 'Score' and 'Publish' tabs if no score is open

OR

Provide a quick action to open a score

  • Add CTAs in the blank canvas area in those tabs, i.e. 'Open score' and 'Create new score'
  • Hide any open panels (i.e. Properties/Instruments/Palettes) in the 'Score' tab

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 reproducing the empty 'Score' and 'Publish' tabs with no score open, using the linked video and issue description as context. Inspect the tab behavior and empty canvas, then confirm the intended design direction before changing anything. Done means users are clearly guided or prevented from using those tabs when no score is open, with the relevant panels behaving consistently.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
design, desktop
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.