Editing Operations

When you are in Select mode or Select Score mode and have selected images you wish to modify, you can choose from any of the green Edit buttons in either the Edit Toolbar or the Tools Palette. The buttons on the Editing Toolbar bring up panels with the settings and buttons required to perform your edit.

Some of the most common editing operations are available in the Edit Operations Panel which is shown when you touch the Operations button on the Edit Toolbar:

Delete and Cut

The Delete and Cut operations remove the selected images from the score and stores. The Cut operation stores the images in the pasteboard so that they can be pasted elsewhere in the score. The example below shows the score with a selected area and then the same score after a Delete or Cut command was issued.

Only images you have added to the music structure can be removed from the score using the cut or delete commands. Notice also that the slur and crescendo are removed even though only part of them was selected - all images that have a Control Point in the selection area are considered to be selected.

Copy

The Copy operation is similar to the Cut except that the selected images are not removed from the score. As in Cut, the selected images are stored on the pasteboard so they can be pasted elsewhere in the score.

- Whenever you make a cut or a copy that includes more than one staff (as in the example above), it is important to remember where the first note (or rest) occurs in the selected passage so that you will be able to place the Entry Cursor at the correct location when you later paste the selection elsewhere in the score.

Paste

The Paste command is the standard paste command (i.e. the one you will most often use). The previously cut or copied material will be added to the score (and merged with existing material beginning at the location of the Entry Cursor). Place the Entry Cursor where you want the first note (or rest) that occurred in the cut or copied passage to appear.

When using Paste Into, the data in pasteboard is considered to be unformatted (i.e. the beam, tie and accidental information is not retained) so that the data will be formatted according to the music structure in the new location. The examples below should make this clear. The passage selected and cut above was pasted:

1 - at the beginning of a 2/4 measure:

2 - at the beginning of a 3/8 passage:

3 - into a passage with different clefs:

4 - into a passage with a different key signature:

- Some images (eg. cresc) may extend beyond the group of notes cut or copied and others may need some slight adjustments or modifications. Theses alterations can be made after the paste has been performed.

Replicate

The Replicate (or Paste Exact) operation is a modified version of the Paste Into operation. It is used whenever you want to retain specific details of the original cut or copy rather than having the pasted passage reformatted according to the new music structure. Replicate retains the following information from the original cut or copy:

the pitch name and accidental
the note and rest duration (including ties)
the beam and tuplet groupings
the stem directions

If example 2 above was performed with Replicate, the result would be:

- Of course, the correct pitches are retained in a Replicate operation regardless of the clef or key signature of the section you are pasting into.

Set Voice Button

The Set Voice button is used to move selected voices to a different voice on the staff. For example, if the notes are in voice 1 (stems in both directions) and you want to shift the notes to be in voice 2 (stems up), then select the notes, then touch the Voices button to select the Stems Up voice, then touch the Set Voice Button to move the selected notes to the new voice.

- Images in the first voice are black, while images in the second and third voices are shaded dark red and dark green so you can easily see which voice images belong to. These colour do not appear with the page is printed.

Change Staff Button

Align Images

These editing operations are used to align selected images vertically or horizontally. When you align images vertically, their main control point is moved to the same Y location as the first image in the selection. When you align images horizontally, their main control point is moved to the same x position as the first image in the selection. These operations can be used to align images such as text and dynamic markings so they are precisely aligned in your score.

In the example below the dynamic markings and hairpins were selected and the Align Vertical button was pressed.

- Be careful adjusting notes and rests using the Align Vertical and Align Horizontal buttons. While notes and rests can be move horizontally from their original location, they will still playback at their original location since they have only been graphically adjusted from their rhythmic spine position.

Shift Images Left / Right

The Shift Images Left and Shift Images Right buttons move images a small distance to the left or the right. Most images are simply moved to a new position, but notes and rests are offset from their rhythmic spine position. They appear to be located away from their beat position, but they will still playback at their original location. This can be useful in situations where notes in different voices are overlapping one another and you need to adjust them away from their beat position. In the example below, the collision between the two voices on the second beat has been corrected by selecting the note in the top voice and shifting it to the left.