yes, but musescore offered a very powerful method of having it all in SVG.. there is no comparison with native OS type that only take a normal picture. So... not the same, I hope Musescore doesnt take a turn towards hidding and changing things that were already proved to be useful and superior next to other software.
Good point about SVG! Anyhow, if you check out the various posts about this, you'll see this wasn't a decision to remove functionality, just an unfortunate and temporary side effect of the change to an entirely new UI system - the old code for the old image capture simply didn't work with the new system and there was no simple way to adapt it. So rather than delay the entire MuseScore 4 project while this is implemented, the decision was made to release 4.0 without this (and the very small handful of other features that had to be temporarily dropped for similar reasons, like the score comparison tool), and then redesign and reintroduce new versions of these tools in an update later.
"Meanwhile, as far I know all OS's come with built-in screen capture facilities that work well."
Right, but OS level screenshot facilities don't have the "size to fit" functionality MuseScore's image capture has.
As Marc has mentioned, this was most certainly not an intentional move to lift out useful functionality. In particular the SVG output was a nice touch. The problem we faced was that the older solution for it was technically incompatible with our new system. This simply means that it would have taken a large amount of time to rebuild and test. We felt it was much safer (and would speed up our release) to bump it to a smaller release. Apologies about this.
what about JACK, today I discovered that v 4 is out and to my surprise it does not support JACK anymore... this is exactly what I was fearing. I am not saying I use musescore as a sequencer, but the fact that I use Linux allows me to be customisable and modular with my work flow. The fact that musescore removed the ability to use the software in an open and free way is definitely troublesome for me. Is this feature coming back? will musescroe allow their users to configure and work on their own systems as they please or are you moving to a more closed and centralized way of doing things... this really got me upset.
true... but as Marc said, some features are gone are planned to come back later... where can I know which are these features. How can I find out what functionalities is musescore dropping? I will open a feature request if possible.
It's difficult to predict the future. Right now I don't think there are imminent plans to reimplement JACK, but that doesn't mean it won't happen, especially considering this open-source software so anyone really could decide to take up the task at any time.
Better to start a new forum discussing your usage of JACK. My sense is, the vast majority of people would prefer not to have to deal with JACK, but some of the things that JACK formerly made possible could still be of interest to many. So seeing those implemented more directly. That's already happened with VST of course - not yet on Linux, but that's definitely planned.
In https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/12775 Tantacrul said:
"I'm moving Jack issues to 4.x, which is when we will begin to address them."
So just maybe there is still hope (just like there is hope for Linux vst's ...)
That would depend on your OS, I guess - you’d have to consult the documentation for its capture facility to learn what options it provides. But if white background won’t work for your purpose, pretty much any image editor should be able to convert that to a transparent image.
As a teacher who uses this software to create warm-up sheets for my students, this feature was the best tool that MuseScore had above other software. I downloaded MuseScore 4 for the awesome playback sounds, and I am really disappointed to see this feature go. I hope to see it roll out soon.
I'd like to say that, although I really understand the fact of the technical incompatibility of the old capture tool with the new UI system, I don't agree with Marc Sabatella's argument that the OS's built-in screen capture facilities are a suitable workaround to the original feature. JRSV already mentioned the ability to export to SVG, but not only this, also the ability to export in high resolution is critical to anyone who needs to put music fragments into other apps. As a university professor I always prepare exams and music theory texts using SVGs exported from MuseScore. Also I always criticize students who present assignments with low-quality or low-resolution musical examples (which is what you get with standard OS screen capture). I my music publishing class I teach them to export music fragments as SVG files, and even use them to create some tricky things in MuseScore itself (see for example Bartok's Mikrokosmos where there is small staves showing the pitch range). The lack of this feature simply makes MuseScore 4 unsuitable for a large part of my job. So, I think bringing back this feature should be a high-priority task for MuseScore 4.
For the record, I'm not saying a third party capture completely replaces the builtin tool forever and thus it will never be reimplemented. I'm just saying, it's a workaround for now. Which it is. Slightly more effort on some systems - might need to zoom in to get the same resolution, might not support the same formats or might require editing to get the transparent background if that's important, but still, it's an option we can be using today while we wait for the new facility.
That may well be, but I don't think they are using the issue tracker to make the development plans. It's definitely known as a feature to be designed & developed even without an issue, though. And in any case, having the issue remain open here where the developers are not looking isn't useful, so no point in keeping this open. Wouldn't hurt to open an issue on GitHub of course.
@Marc That is not what github says! There is explicitly requested to register feature requests here!
See:
This issue tracker is used only for tracking development events.
If you want to create bug reports or feature requests, please go to the forums or the issue tracker on https://musescore.org/.
Oh, that's a shame. I was looking for the capture icon but couldn't find it. I like to catalogue main motives and themes, especially for large-scale works, so I can reference or develop them. It's nice to have them all inhabit a document for reference.
The message you refer to is not what it says on the main issue reporting page.
But, it is true that in order to avoid deluging GitHub with low-quality reports (eg, bad title, bad description, no clear steps to reproduce, etc) the development team has stated they don't want users turning there first. They want musescore.org to be the initial triage center. Once something is confirmed as a real bug and not a duplicate and with a clear description that allows people to reproduce the problem, then they want the issue reported on GitHub.
In order to make this process work, it's pretty important that we don't allow this issue tracker here to be cluttered with open issues that don't need to be, either. The triage process involves marking an issue needs info if ity, like the majority of issues here, are not yet sufficiently clear and reproducible. Or if it's known to already be on the radar, issues here should be closed so we don't waste further time on them.
What's missing is a new status that would mean "confirmed here but not yet reported n GitHub or otherwise made known to the development team".
Anyhow - getting back tot he issue at hand - every OS comes with a built-in image capture facility, and there are many free third-party tools available as well. So even though the native feature within MuseScore is not yet implemented in the new design, you can still create the same sort of theme catalogs as always.
I'm not sure I'm following you.
Are you saying that feature requests must be marked as duplicates just because you happen to know that somebody is aware of it even when that feature request isn't registered in any system or at least any system users can access?
I'm saying there is no point in having an issue "active" here if it is already being tracked by the developers elsewhere. And yes, whether users can access that or not. With the current workflow, this triage station isn't for the benefit of curious users wanting to look things up - it's for the benefit of the people doing the triage, and by extension, for the benefit of the developers, by allowing GitHub to focus on only clearly stated reproducible non-duplicate issues. Ideally, there would be zero open issues issues here, because we'd be triaging them as fast as they come in. AEveryopen issue here stands in the way of effective triage work, which is why I think it important to the treaige and move on as quickly as possible, so things don't get more out of hand than they already are.
So, whether the developers happen to be tracking an issue on GitHub or in their own internal design documents is pretty immaterial. There is nothing anyone here needs to do to make sure the developers have it on their radar, so there is no point in keeping this open. All it does is clutter there tracker and make it more difficult to find the issues that have not yet been triaged. There should be a bare minimum of "active" issues - only issues not yet confirmed, or confirmed here but not yet confirmed to be already logged somewhere the development team is aware of.
Like I said, it certainly doesn't hurt to also add a GitHub issue for this, but I assure you, it is already known, so there is zero point in having it open here either way.
So issues are also in a place that nobody except "developpers" can access.
Interesting.
This seems to confirm that development is now restricted to the internal team only and not open at all anymore.
Design documents have never been public. Bug reports are. GitHub is for bug reports and is completely public. Nothing new here..
Anyhow, I still say, it's counterproductive to keep issues open when every single one of us knows with absolutely certainty that the developers already know full well about this - it's mentioned the release announcement, after all. Hweoeve,r in the interest of just letting this issue be closed and movingon, I've gone ahead and opened a GitUb issue anyhow - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/15912. Took less effort than continuing to argue about it.
But please can we try to remember the purpose of this tracker here? Having issues left open indefinitely is not good. We want to get issues closed as quickly as possible so the actual bugs that have not yet made it to the attention of developers can be reported.
This is unfortunate indeed, although of course hardly anyone searches for duplicates before posting, so keeping the duplicate open wouldn't help with that either.
What we really need then is at least two more statuses: one for confirmed but not yet reported to GitHub, another for issues now reported on GitHub, both of which would appear in a list of "open" issues and thus in a default search. But those of us merely wishing to find the issues not yet moved into one of these states would have a way of excluding them. And of course we would really need a button to forward an issue to GitHub.
Meanwhile, we can continue to do the best we can with a less-than-ideal situation!
Ir return to usingh the Missue tracker here for released version and dropping the GitHub tracker, or at least use it only for issues of in-development versions
Having 2 system is just bad
I loved MuseScore 3's image capture tool because it hides the notes that are supposedly invisible. If I use my os's capture tool, I still see the gray-colored notes. Is there a way to keep the notes invisible but not show up in the OS's image capture tool?
You can turn off the visibility of hidden notes and other categories of things in the View menu under the submenu - Show. Just untick everything in that sub menu.
I'm going to add my comment to the other comments here and voice my support for the Image Capture tool. The Image Capture tool in MuseScore 3 is an excellent tool that allows music educators to create graphics and easily pop them into Powerpoint or Word to make presentations, assignments, tests, etc. It really was a life-saver for me as we went into the pandemic and I continue to use it to enhance my online teaching. In addition, I use it frequently for lecture materials and exercises now that we're (about halfway) back in person. I hope it will be coming back in MuseScore 4. Until then, I’ll be sticking with MuseScore 3.
I also hope to see it return. But just so you know, your OS already provides an equally easy-to-use image capture facility; you don't need to rely on MuseScore to provide another. For instance, on Windows, pressing WIndows+Shift+S allows you to capture a region just as easily.
There are indeed special use cases where the built-in tool was indeed an improvement, which is the reason I hope it comes back. But for basic things like creating educational worksheets etc, PNG or whatever format is used by your OS's native screen capture should be more than sufficient. My point isn't to argue against seeing the built-in image capture return, it's just to help people do their jobs today using the tools as they exist, which actually work extremely well for 99% of use cases. No reason students should be forced to look at examples with the lesser quality engraving of MU3 when you can easily add examples using the much improved engraving of MU4.
I'm also sorely disappointed to see this feature gone. As a guitar instructor, there are MANY times where a chord chart with lyrics is best, but intros/riffs/fills need sheet music or TABs embedded in the word doc. Image capture was, without a doubt, the best and quickest way to add 1-5 measures of music into a text document.
Is there a specific reason the image capture built into your OS isn’t working for you? As noted, there are some limitations, but for the bats majorly of use cases, it should be completely sufficient. I use this a lot in my work too and frankly haven’t missed it since the OS facility is so convenient.
Yes, as I said, there are limitations - and yet the vast majority of use cases don't need either of those. So I want to make sure people understand that almost certainly they can still do what they are doing - eg, creating documents in other programs and pasting in musical examples. There are very few real world use cases where a PNG capture by an OS-level screen capture tool isn't completely sufficient. Some yes, but I think many people are simply not aware there is a simple alternative.
The screen capture hasn't the quality of the old "image capture". For me is very useful since I need to create a lot of documents for my students. I also use it to create collections of single parts on A4 pages for printing.
I think this is a very useful function that saves a lot of time
It’s useful indeed and wi hopefully return . But do note that if have reasonably high resolution display, and/or a large enough one to display your examples zoomed in a bit, you can still get 300 DPI captures that would be indistinguishable from what you were getting in MU3.
Today I worked on a score created with musescore 4, so I cannot open it on ms3. I had to export a PNG, open with an image editor, crop the part I need, save and the import in the pdf editor.
Image capture is a VERY useful feature that only Musescore has (had). I hope that will be reintroduced soon.
If you say which OS you are on, we can help you use its built-in image capture facility more effectively, if you are interested. You might be surprised to learn how powerful it is - many people are unaware.
If you're not interested, no need to respond further - it's already known this is a feature that many users want to see come back and this is not the place to track issues anymore anyhow.
As for transferring files from MuseScore 4 to 3, certainly don't resort to images - simply export to MusicXML, which MuseScore 3 can import directly. For questions about that process - or questions about anything having to do with MuseScore - please use the Supprot forum.
I use ubuntu linux. It isn't a problem to use the system image capture, but it keeps in the screenshot also page break, "a capo" , background colors and all hidden elements that shouldn't be in the exported image.
So, no, the system screenshot isn't a valid substitute of the previous native function of musescore 3.
And no, if I have to export from ms4 to musicxml, import in ms3, fix the impagination ... it's faster to work directly in ms3 :)
You can easily turn off display of breaks etc - those controls are in the View menu. You can also do it from the Properties pane if nothing is selected. or, you can make your screen captures from the Publish tab, which automatically hides all that. You can also set the paper color to pure white instead of the slightly off-white it is by default. It really does work extremely well!
BTW, I think I misunderstood what you were saying when you wrote "I cannot open it on ms3. I had to export a PNG" I thought you meant, you export the PNG file from MuseScore 4, then used an image editor to convert it to PDF, then used the PDF import feature to get it into MuseScore 3. Now I see, you just meant, you used the PNG export instead of screen shot from within MuseScore 4 and cropped that directly. This if course works, but is nowhere near as efficient as the OS screenshot tool.
I've created Powerpoints for my musicianship classes using the image capture feature. In the Powerpoints, the blank example (made with the most/all of the notes invisible) gives the students the key, meter and starting pitch - and sometimes some other important pitches in the melody. When I advance the slide show, the blank example disappears and the example with all the notes appears. (I'd attach an example, but apparently I can't attach a Powerpoint or .mp4 file.)
I don't know that I could create these as easily without the in-board image capture feature of 3.0. I understand the option of using the OS's image capture feature. But, I would have to turn off the grey-ing of the invisible notes, which helps me to still see the melody as I'm working with it. More importantly, I would have to be EXACT with the registration - making sure that I captured the exact same size and location of image each time so that there would be no "jumping" as the first image disappeared and the second image appears. With the in-board image capture feature of 3.0, the camera frame just stays exactly where it is from one image capture to the next - very convenient and simple. With the use of screen captures, again, I'd have to make exactly sure that everything was still in the same place on my screen as when I made the first image capture.
I would LOVE to see this feature again in 4.0. In my opinion, it's a big help to educators.
It's simple to toggle the showing of invisible elements so they are gone when snapping image but present when editing (or use Publish mode). One at least some OS's preserve the capture position, as do some third party solutions. So most likely you can still do this.
Another excellent method for your type of situation is to create scores that are the exact size that you want to capture, then use File / Export instead of screen shots. This is great for cases where you need exact matching not just from one shot to the next, but from one day to the next, one week to the next, etc. That's something you could never guarantee just using the image capture tool. It's more work to set up, but can be worth it in these cases where you rely on that level of exactness.
That said, of course everyone agrees eventually it will be nice to have a built in feature back. I'm just trying to help people get work done now, using MsueScore 4 in order to take advantage of the vastly improved engraving and playback.
I appreciate the response. I hadn't thought about the File/Export option. That's a great idea. You're right, it would be more work to set up, but a lot of my needs are set sizes that wouldn't vary from exercise to exercise, so I could just rename the file from one exercise to another. I'll start playing around with it. Thank you!
(Still, I agree, I'd like to have the camera feature back.)
If you set up one such exercise as a template (just save to your Templates folder), then it's easy to create new exercises from that same template - just select it in the wizard when creating a new score. I did this a lot in one of my books. I had two different versions, one for single-staff examples, another for two-staff. It was nice because I did often need to update things weeks later and this gave me consistency no image capture facility can provide. For quick-one offs, screen shot is great, but for more complete control and consistency, the template is the way to go.
Another music prof here - I make a big fuss about students not using screen capture for high quality music examples (it's a fail in my course), so yes, this is important to me and I'm saying that here not to be argumentative, just to add a +1 to bringing this back when possible. My default (because MuseScore is both free and awesome) is to show things first in MuseScore and then only in Sibelius/Dorico/Finale when MuseScore can't do them ... shame to add one to that list ;)
Meanwhile, please see my comments above - your OS has a built-in image capture facility, and there are many third-party screenshot tools too. So while waiting for someone to volunteer to implement this, you and your students should be able to use those just as I and many others.
Thank you for your suggestion, but please do not imply that I have not read the comments above - I've been following the entire discussion. The presence of sub-optimal workarounds does not invalidate the arguments already made for an implemented solution.
Sorry, you hadn't clarified that you read the discussion and tried a variety of other solutions and found something specific about them to be sub-optimal. For many purposes they work at least as well as the MU3 tool did, but there are indeed corner cases not handled as well. So yes, at some point we expect this will be added back into the new UI. Meanwhile, if you need further help getting another tool working well, feel free to ask on the Support forum, and we're happy to assist.
Pro Musescore screen capture
- Very fast and dedicated
- Possible to define exact dimensions of capture and export in inspector
- Possible to define export resolution (and SVG)
- No clutter with exporting to multiple graphical files
- Easy to test and nudge.
As explained previously, this issue tracker is closed, and also, it's already been announced this feature is on the list for re-introduction So there is no point value in posting here, unless it is that you are looking for help taking advantage of the various alternatives that exist stand can provide almost all the advantages you are currently enjoying with MU3. The better place for asking for help is the Support forum.
Meanwile, I would recommend looking at tools like ShareX or Greenshot as tools that match the MU3 feature in almost every way listed on the "pro" list. They can be even easier to invoke than MU3's image capture, easy to set precisely, don't require multiple files, easy to test and nudge, etc. The only thing they doesn't do directly is transparent background, but a) that's rarely needed, and b) that can be achieved via export to SVG for the special cases where it is.
Rarely needed indeed but when needed needed very much.
This is what I made with it during during corona.
All musescore export.
Have a look at notenlab.
But FWIW, none of the images I see there are things I'd have recommend using image capture for in the first place. Simple export would have been much simpler, it seems to me. The image capture requires just kind of eyeballing it to get the exact same region captured each time you use it. For things like the memory game, it would have been much easier to create one score with the page set appropriately, then create one example per page, then simply export the whole thing to SVG to instantly get all 16 images perfectly exported at exactly the right size etc. Same for changing image at top left in the "notenlab" - one score with the correct pages size, then one page per image, and you can get all of the images generated perfectly in one command. Even better,r if you ever redesign the page and need a slightly different layout next time, that takes only seconds to regenerate all images.
So again, it's not that there would never be reason to use transparent background on an image capture, but your case is really one of the best examples I seen of when export is a far better option than image capture to begin with.
90% off the work was experimenting.
png vs SVG vs transparant vs ...
No eyeballing. (many times pixel perfect)
Memory was the easy one.
SVG - viewport - resolutions - Qt SVG problems - responsive web etc.
It woud indeed have been simple to export if I new before what was needed.
But that was not the case.
Musescore was as very handy tool for fast prototyping without testing and experimenting again other 3th party tools.
But you can still do that fast prototyping with MU4 using your OS screen capture, then when you're ready for the actual final results, do the export as I described. Again, this issue tracker is closed, there is no benefit from posting here except as a way of getting assistance, but the better place to get assist is in the Support forum. So if you're interested in learning how to achieve better results than you ever have before and achieve them faster, just ask for help in the Support forum and we're happy to assist!
Comments
It is supposed to come back in 4.x with x > 0
Meanwhile, as far I know all OS's come with built-in screen capture facilities that work well.
In reply to Meanwhile, as far I know all… by Marc Sabatella
yes, but musescore offered a very powerful method of having it all in SVG.. there is no comparison with native OS type that only take a normal picture. So... not the same, I hope Musescore doesnt take a turn towards hidding and changing things that were already proved to be useful and superior next to other software.
Good point about SVG! Anyhow, if you check out the various posts about this, you'll see this wasn't a decision to remove functionality, just an unfortunate and temporary side effect of the change to an entirely new UI system - the old code for the old image capture simply didn't work with the new system and there was no simple way to adapt it. So rather than delay the entire MuseScore 4 project while this is implemented, the decision was made to release 4.0 without this (and the very small handful of other features that had to be temporarily dropped for similar reasons, like the score comparison tool), and then redesign and reintroduce new versions of these tools in an update later.
In reply to Meanwhile, as far I know all… by Marc Sabatella
"Meanwhile, as far I know all OS's come with built-in screen capture facilities that work well."
Right, but OS level screenshot facilities don't have the "size to fit" functionality MuseScore's image capture has.
That too, but unfortunately that feature has been broken for a pretty long time, as you reported in #314437: Image capture: "Auto-resize to page" misbehaves - and another related issue in #305451: Image capture selection moves out of sight.
In reply to yes, but musescore offered a… by JRSV
As Marc has mentioned, this was most certainly not an intentional move to lift out useful functionality. In particular the SVG output was a nice touch. The problem we faced was that the older solution for it was technically incompatible with our new system. This simply means that it would have taken a large amount of time to rebuild and test. We felt it was much safer (and would speed up our release) to bump it to a smaller release. Apologies about this.
In reply to As Marc has mentioned, this… by Tantacrul
what about JACK, today I discovered that v 4 is out and to my surprise it does not support JACK anymore... this is exactly what I was fearing. I am not saying I use musescore as a sequencer, but the fact that I use Linux allows me to be customisable and modular with my work flow. The fact that musescore removed the ability to use the software in an open and free way is definitely troublesome for me. Is this feature coming back? will musescroe allow their users to configure and work on their own systems as they please or are you moving to a more closed and centralized way of doing things... this really got me upset.
Entirely unelated to the issue at hand.
In reply to Entirly unraleted to the… by Jojo-Schmitz
true... but as Marc said, some features are gone are planned to come back later... where can I know which are these features. How can I find out what functionalities is musescore dropping? I will open a feature request if possible.
See https://musescore.org/en/node/334701
In reply to See https://musescore.org/en… by Jojo-Schmitz
thank you, this is what I am looking for... would be useful to know which features are not coming back.
It's difficult to predict the future. Right now I don't think there are imminent plans to reimplement JACK, but that doesn't mean it won't happen, especially considering this open-source software so anyone really could decide to take up the task at any time.
Better to start a new forum discussing your usage of JACK. My sense is, the vast majority of people would prefer not to have to deal with JACK, but some of the things that JACK formerly made possible could still be of interest to many. So seeing those implemented more directly. That's already happened with VST of course - not yet on Linux, but that's definitely planned.
In reply to It's difficult to predict… by Marc Sabatella
In https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/12775 Tantacrul said:
"I'm moving Jack issues to 4.x, which is when we will begin to address them."
So just maybe there is still hope (just like there is hope for Linux vst's ...)
In reply to Right, but OS level… by RobFog
Does OS level screenshot have the 'transparent background' feature? I need the MuseScore's image capture with transparent background.
In reply to Does OS level screenshot… by Goldenray
That would depend on your OS, I guess - you’d have to consult the documentation for its capture facility to learn what options it provides. But if white background won’t work for your purpose, pretty much any image editor should be able to convert that to a transparent image.
As a teacher who uses this software to create warm-up sheets for my students, this feature was the best tool that MuseScore had above other software. I downloaded MuseScore 4 for the awesome playback sounds, and I am really disappointed to see this feature go. I hope to see it roll out soon.
In reply to Meanwhile, as far I know all… by Marc Sabatella
I'd like to say that, although I really understand the fact of the technical incompatibility of the old capture tool with the new UI system, I don't agree with Marc Sabatella's argument that the OS's built-in screen capture facilities are a suitable workaround to the original feature. JRSV already mentioned the ability to export to SVG, but not only this, also the ability to export in high resolution is critical to anyone who needs to put music fragments into other apps. As a university professor I always prepare exams and music theory texts using SVGs exported from MuseScore. Also I always criticize students who present assignments with low-quality or low-resolution musical examples (which is what you get with standard OS screen capture). I my music publishing class I teach them to export music fragments as SVG files, and even use them to create some tricky things in MuseScore itself (see for example Bartok's Mikrokosmos where there is small staves showing the pitch range). The lack of this feature simply makes MuseScore 4 unsuitable for a large part of my job. So, I think bringing back this feature should be a high-priority task for MuseScore 4.
For the record, I'm not saying a third party capture completely replaces the builtin tool forever and thus it will never be reimplemented. I'm just saying, it's a workaround for now. Which it is. Slightly more effort on some systems - might need to zoom in to get the same resolution, might not support the same formats or might require editing to get the transparent background if that's important, but still, it's an option we can be using today while we wait for the new facility.
Came up multiple times in the forum
In reply to It is supposed to come back… by Jojo-Schmitz
aaahhhhhrggll LOL
This is a known limitation of the current design, so no need to have this issue open in addition.
I don't see in on GitHub though
That may well be, but I don't think they are using the issue tracker to make the development plans. It's definitely known as a feature to be designed & developed even without an issue, though. And in any case, having the issue remain open here where the developers are not looking isn't useful, so no point in keeping this open. Wouldn't hurt to open an issue on GitHub of course.
In reply to That may well be, but I don… by Marc Sabatella
@Marc That is not what github says! There is explicitly requested to register feature requests here!
See:
This issue tracker is used only for tracking development events.
If you want to create bug reports or feature requests, please go to the forums or the issue tracker on https://musescore.org/.
Oh, that's a shame. I was looking for the capture icon but couldn't find it. I like to catalogue main motives and themes, especially for large-scale works, so I can reference or develop them. It's nice to have them all inhabit a document for reference.
The message you refer to is not what it says on the main issue reporting page.
But, it is true that in order to avoid deluging GitHub with low-quality reports (eg, bad title, bad description, no clear steps to reproduce, etc) the development team has stated they don't want users turning there first. They want musescore.org to be the initial triage center. Once something is confirmed as a real bug and not a duplicate and with a clear description that allows people to reproduce the problem, then they want the issue reported on GitHub.
In order to make this process work, it's pretty important that we don't allow this issue tracker here to be cluttered with open issues that don't need to be, either. The triage process involves marking an issue needs info if ity, like the majority of issues here, are not yet sufficiently clear and reproducible. Or if it's known to already be on the radar, issues here should be closed so we don't waste further time on them.
What's missing is a new status that would mean "confirmed here but not yet reported n GitHub or otherwise made known to the development team".
Anyhow - getting back tot he issue at hand - every OS comes with a built-in image capture facility, and there are many free third-party tools available as well. So even though the native feature within MuseScore is not yet implemented in the new design, you can still create the same sort of theme catalogs as always.
In reply to Yes, in order to avoid… by Marc Sabatella
I'm not sure I'm following you.
Are you saying that feature requests must be marked as duplicates just because you happen to know that somebody is aware of it even when that feature request isn't registered in any system or at least any system users can access?
As long as there isn't an issue for this elsewhere, or isn't a duplicate
I'm saying there is no point in having an issue "active" here if it is already being tracked by the developers elsewhere. And yes, whether users can access that or not. With the current workflow, this triage station isn't for the benefit of curious users wanting to look things up - it's for the benefit of the people doing the triage, and by extension, for the benefit of the developers, by allowing GitHub to focus on only clearly stated reproducible non-duplicate issues. Ideally, there would be zero open issues issues here, because we'd be triaging them as fast as they come in. AEveryopen issue here stands in the way of effective triage work, which is why I think it important to the treaige and move on as quickly as possible, so things don't get more out of hand than they already are.
So, whether the developers happen to be tracking an issue on GitHub or in their own internal design documents is pretty immaterial. There is nothing anyone here needs to do to make sure the developers have it on their radar, so there is no point in keeping this open. All it does is clutter there tracker and make it more difficult to find the issues that have not yet been triaged. There should be a bare minimum of "active" issues - only issues not yet confirmed, or confirmed here but not yet confirmed to be already logged somewhere the development team is aware of.
Like I said, it certainly doesn't hurt to also add a GitHub issue for this, but I assure you, it is already known, so there is zero point in having it open here either way.
As long as it is not visibly tracked elsewhere this issue here is not a duplicate
In reply to I'm saying there is no point… by Marc Sabatella
So issues are also in a place that nobody except "developpers" can access.
Interesting.
This seems to confirm that development is now restricted to the internal team only and not open at all anymore.
In reply to So issues are also in a… by frfancha
Design documents have never been public. Bug reports are. GitHub is for bug reports and is completely public. Nothing new here..
Anyhow, I still say, it's counterproductive to keep issues open when every single one of us knows with absolutely certainty that the developers already know full well about this - it's mentioned the release announcement, after all. Hweoeve,r in the interest of just letting this issue be closed and movingon, I've gone ahead and opened a GitUb issue anyhow - https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/15912. Took less effort than continuing to argue about it.
But please can we try to remember the purpose of this tracker here? Having issues left open indefinitely is not good. We want to get issues closed as quickly as possible so the actual bugs that have not yet made it to the attention of developers can be reported.
The lack of Image capture is a regression. And as such a bug... even if by design
Closing issues here basically resultes in new and duplicate issues comming up.
Duplicate are much worse than open issues IMHO
Anyway, thanks for opening the GitHub issue
This is unfortunate indeed, although of course hardly anyone searches for duplicates before posting, so keeping the duplicate open wouldn't help with that either.
What we really need then is at least two more statuses: one for confirmed but not yet reported to GitHub, another for issues now reported on GitHub, both of which would appear in a list of "open" issues and thus in a default search. But those of us merely wishing to find the issues not yet moved into one of these states would have a way of excluding them. And of course we would really need a button to forward an issue to GitHub.
Meanwhile, we can continue to do the best we can with a less-than-ideal situation!
Ir return to usingh the Missue tracker here for released version and dropping the GitHub tracker, or at least use it only for issues of in-development versions
Having 2 system is just bad
I loved MuseScore 3's image capture tool because it hides the notes that are supposedly invisible. If I use my os's capture tool, I still see the gray-colored notes. Is there a way to keep the notes invisible but not show up in the OS's image capture tool?
In reply to I loved MuseScore 3's image… by Theory_Joon
You can turn off the visibility of hidden notes and other categories of things in the View menu under the submenu - Show. Just untick everything in that sub menu.
In reply to For the record, I'm not… by Marc Sabatella
I think the real workaround is to still run MuseScore 3. You don't have to delete it to run MuseScore 4.
I'm going to add my comment to the other comments here and voice my support for the Image Capture tool. The Image Capture tool in MuseScore 3 is an excellent tool that allows music educators to create graphics and easily pop them into Powerpoint or Word to make presentations, assignments, tests, etc. It really was a life-saver for me as we went into the pandemic and I continue to use it to enhance my online teaching. In addition, I use it frequently for lecture materials and exercises now that we're (about halfway) back in person. I hope it will be coming back in MuseScore 4. Until then, I’ll be sticking with MuseScore 3.
I also hope to see it return. But just so you know, your OS already provides an equally easy-to-use image capture facility; you don't need to rely on MuseScore to provide another. For instance, on Windows, pressing WIndows+Shift+S allows you to capture a region just as easily.
In reply to I also hope to see it return… by Marc Sabatella
An SVG "just as easily"?
There are indeed special use cases where the built-in tool was indeed an improvement, which is the reason I hope it comes back. But for basic things like creating educational worksheets etc, PNG or whatever format is used by your OS's native screen capture should be more than sufficient. My point isn't to argue against seeing the built-in image capture return, it's just to help people do their jobs today using the tools as they exist, which actually work extremely well for 99% of use cases. No reason students should be forced to look at examples with the lesser quality engraving of MU3 when you can easily add examples using the much improved engraving of MU4.
Still waiting for this feature.
I'm also sorely disappointed to see this feature gone. As a guitar instructor, there are MANY times where a chord chart with lyrics is best, but intros/riffs/fills need sheet music or TABs embedded in the word doc. Image capture was, without a doubt, the best and quickest way to add 1-5 measures of music into a text document.
I'm still on musescore 3 also for this missing feature. I use it a lot in my work.
In reply to I'm still on musescore 3… by zorba
Is there a specific reason the image capture built into your OS isn’t working for you? As noted, there are some limitations, but for the bats majorly of use cases, it should be completely sufficient. I use this a lot in my work too and frankly haven’t missed it since the OS facility is so convenient.
Transparency is one, svg another.
Ease of use a third.
Yes, as I said, there are limitations - and yet the vast majority of use cases don't need either of those. So I want to make sure people understand that almost certainly they can still do what they are doing - eg, creating documents in other programs and pasting in musical examples. There are very few real world use cases where a PNG capture by an OS-level screen capture tool isn't completely sufficient. Some yes, but I think many people are simply not aware there is a simple alternative.
The screen capture hasn't the quality of the old "image capture". For me is very useful since I need to create a lot of documents for my students. I also use it to create collections of single parts on A4 pages for printing.
I think this is a very useful function that saves a lot of time
In reply to The screen capture hasn't… by zorba
It’s useful indeed and wi hopefully return . But do note that if have reasonably high resolution display, and/or a large enough one to display your examples zoomed in a bit, you can still get 300 DPI captures that would be indistinguishable from what you were getting in MU3.
Sorry, I work faster and better with the old Image Capture
Today I worked on a score created with musescore 4, so I cannot open it on ms3. I had to export a PNG, open with an image editor, crop the part I need, save and the import in the pdf editor.
Image capture is a VERY useful feature that only Musescore has (had). I hope that will be reintroduced soon.
If you say which OS you are on, we can help you use its built-in image capture facility more effectively, if you are interested. You might be surprised to learn how powerful it is - many people are unaware.
If you're not interested, no need to respond further - it's already known this is a feature that many users want to see come back and this is not the place to track issues anymore anyhow.
As for transferring files from MuseScore 4 to 3, certainly don't resort to images - simply export to MusicXML, which MuseScore 3 can import directly. For questions about that process - or questions about anything having to do with MuseScore - please use the Supprot forum.
I use ubuntu linux. It isn't a problem to use the system image capture, but it keeps in the screenshot also page break, "a capo" , background colors and all hidden elements that shouldn't be in the exported image.
So, no, the system screenshot isn't a valid substitute of the previous native function of musescore 3.
And no, if I have to export from ms4 to musicxml, import in ms3, fix the impagination ... it's faster to work directly in ms3 :)
You can easily turn off display of breaks etc - those controls are in the View menu. You can also do it from the Properties pane if nothing is selected. or, you can make your screen captures from the Publish tab, which automatically hides all that. You can also set the paper color to pure white instead of the slightly off-white it is by default. It really does work extremely well!
BTW, I think I misunderstood what you were saying when you wrote "I cannot open it on ms3. I had to export a PNG" I thought you meant, you export the PNG file from MuseScore 4, then used an image editor to convert it to PDF, then used the PDF import feature to get it into MuseScore 3. Now I see, you just meant, you used the PNG export instead of screen shot from within MuseScore 4 and cropped that directly. This if course works, but is nowhere near as efficient as the OS screenshot tool.
In reply to Is there a specific reason… by Marc Sabatella
I've created Powerpoints for my musicianship classes using the image capture feature. In the Powerpoints, the blank example (made with the most/all of the notes invisible) gives the students the key, meter and starting pitch - and sometimes some other important pitches in the melody. When I advance the slide show, the blank example disappears and the example with all the notes appears. (I'd attach an example, but apparently I can't attach a Powerpoint or .mp4 file.)
I don't know that I could create these as easily without the in-board image capture feature of 3.0. I understand the option of using the OS's image capture feature. But, I would have to turn off the grey-ing of the invisible notes, which helps me to still see the melody as I'm working with it. More importantly, I would have to be EXACT with the registration - making sure that I captured the exact same size and location of image each time so that there would be no "jumping" as the first image disappeared and the second image appears. With the in-board image capture feature of 3.0, the camera frame just stays exactly where it is from one image capture to the next - very convenient and simple. With the use of screen captures, again, I'd have to make exactly sure that everything was still in the same place on my screen as when I made the first image capture.
I would LOVE to see this feature again in 4.0. In my opinion, it's a big help to educators.
It's simple to toggle the showing of invisible elements so they are gone when snapping image but present when editing (or use Publish mode). One at least some OS's preserve the capture position, as do some third party solutions. So most likely you can still do this.
Another excellent method for your type of situation is to create scores that are the exact size that you want to capture, then use File / Export instead of screen shots. This is great for cases where you need exact matching not just from one shot to the next, but from one day to the next, one week to the next, etc. That's something you could never guarantee just using the image capture tool. It's more work to set up, but can be worth it in these cases where you rely on that level of exactness.
That said, of course everyone agrees eventually it will be nice to have a built in feature back. I'm just trying to help people get work done now, using MsueScore 4 in order to take advantage of the vastly improved engraving and playback.
In reply to It's simple to toggle the… by Marc Sabatella
I appreciate the response. I hadn't thought about the File/Export option. That's a great idea. You're right, it would be more work to set up, but a lot of my needs are set sizes that wouldn't vary from exercise to exercise, so I could just rename the file from one exercise to another. I'll start playing around with it. Thank you!
(Still, I agree, I'd like to have the camera feature back.)
If you set up one such exercise as a template (just save to your Templates folder), then it's easy to create new exercises from that same template - just select it in the wizard when creating a new score. I did this a lot in one of my books. I had two different versions, one for single-staff examples, another for two-staff. It was nice because I did often need to update things weeks later and this gave me consistency no image capture facility can provide. For quick-one offs, screen shot is great, but for more complete control and consistency, the template is the way to go.
In reply to I'd like to say that,… by josiasmat
Another music prof here - I make a big fuss about students not using screen capture for high quality music examples (it's a fail in my course), so yes, this is important to me and I'm saying that here not to be argumentative, just to add a +1 to bringing this back when possible. My default (because MuseScore is both free and awesome) is to show things first in MuseScore and then only in Sibelius/Dorico/Finale when MuseScore can't do them ... shame to add one to that list ;)
Please add another +1.
I need this feature really bad.
Please add another 120 for all of my students.
Meanwhile, please see my comments above - your OS has a built-in image capture facility, and there are many third-party screenshot tools too. So while waiting for someone to volunteer to implement this, you and your students should be able to use those just as I and many others.
In reply to Meanwhile, please see my… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you for your suggestion, but please do not imply that I have not read the comments above - I've been following the entire discussion. The presence of sub-optimal workarounds does not invalidate the arguments already made for an implemented solution.
Sorry, you hadn't clarified that you read the discussion and tried a variety of other solutions and found something specific about them to be sub-optimal. For many purposes they work at least as well as the MU3 tool did, but there are indeed corner cases not handled as well. So yes, at some point we expect this will be added back into the new UI. Meanwhile, if you need further help getting another tool working well, feel free to ask on the Support forum, and we're happy to assist.
My pro and contra
Pro Musescore screen capture
- Very fast and dedicated
- Possible to define exact dimensions of capture and export in inspector
- Possible to define export resolution (and SVG)
- No clutter with exporting to multiple graphical files
- Easy to test and nudge.
Pro OS screencapture
- For me none (only contra)
Kind regards,
Another major Pro: you can choose whether transparent or not, pretty hard to achieve by OS means
As explained previously, this issue tracker is closed, and also, it's already been announced this feature is on the list for re-introduction So there is no point value in posting here, unless it is that you are looking for help taking advantage of the various alternatives that exist stand can provide almost all the advantages you are currently enjoying with MU3. The better place for asking for help is the Support forum.
Meanwile, I would recommend looking at tools like ShareX or Greenshot as tools that match the MU3 feature in almost every way listed on the "pro" list. They can be even easier to invoke than MU3's image capture, easy to set precisely, don't require multiple files, easy to test and nudge, etc. The only thing they doesn't do directly is transparent background, but a) that's rarely needed, and b) that can be achieved via export to SVG for the special cases where it is.
In reply to As explained previously,… by Marc Sabatella
Dear Marc,
Rarely needed indeed but when needed needed very much.
This is what I made with it during during corona.
All musescore export.
Have a look at notenlab.
https://www.jover.xyz/index.html
Kind regards,
In reply to Dear Marc, Rarely needed… by Johan-v
Looks very interesting - great work!
But FWIW, none of the images I see there are things I'd have recommend using image capture for in the first place. Simple export would have been much simpler, it seems to me. The image capture requires just kind of eyeballing it to get the exact same region captured each time you use it. For things like the memory game, it would have been much easier to create one score with the page set appropriately, then create one example per page, then simply export the whole thing to SVG to instantly get all 16 images perfectly exported at exactly the right size etc. Same for changing image at top left in the "notenlab" - one score with the correct pages size, then one page per image, and you can get all of the images generated perfectly in one command. Even better,r if you ever redesign the page and need a slightly different layout next time, that takes only seconds to regenerate all images.
So again, it's not that there would never be reason to use transparent background on an image capture, but your case is really one of the best examples I seen of when export is a far better option than image capture to begin with.
In reply to Looks very interesting -… by Marc Sabatella
Hello Marc,
90% off the work was experimenting.
png vs SVG vs transparant vs ...
No eyeballing. (many times pixel perfect)
Memory was the easy one.
SVG - viewport - resolutions - Qt SVG problems - responsive web etc.
It woud indeed have been simple to export if I new before what was needed.
But that was not the case.
Musescore was as very handy tool for fast prototyping without testing and experimenting again other 3th party tools.
Just my opinion.
But you can still do that fast prototyping with MU4 using your OS screen capture, then when you're ready for the actual final results, do the export as I described. Again, this issue tracker is closed, there is no benefit from posting here except as a way of getting assistance, but the better place to get assist is in the Support forum. So if you're interested in learning how to achieve better results than you ever have before and achieve them faster, just ask for help in the Support forum and we're happy to assist!