Sibelius - bug list

Place your wishlist here. Maybe the Sibelius developers will honor your requests.
nkvd3941
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2020 11:45 am
Sibelius Version: 2020 Jun
Operating System: Windows

Post by nkvd3941 » Sun Jun 07, 2020 12:01 pm

Hi all
.
Before i submit the list, let me say i am more than pleased with Sibelius.
I am an intermediate flautist.
I use Sibelius daily, for:
1. For playback and accompaniment,
2. To playback difficult rhythms
I dont use it not for Composition.
.
To me it is an invaluable tool etc.
.
SIBELIUS BUGS

MUSTS

1. View / Layout marks
Layout marks always return when file is re-opened, i.e. they are not persisted on a Save

2. Change an Instrument - Instrument doesn't always change on the note selected, but usually the next note.

3. Play - Repeat
a. When bars are resequeunced, all the resequenced bar numbers are lost; ie they are lost from where they are reqequenced.
EG Combination of Dicks Maggot followed by Nonesuch; Nonesuch has its bar numbers resequenced from 1.

b. Using mouse copy then mouse paste causes all entries in Repeat to be cleared (to spaces). Only ctrl-v and ctrl-c seems to work

c. When time signature or beats per minute are not included in bars being played, they are ignored and need entering where they are played.
See "When stars beging to fall".
Time sig and speed re-entered at bar 11

4. Selecting notes using mouse / shift / select
1. Select a group of 4 notes
1. THEN use mouse / ctrl - the CTRLed selected items are not selected.
This is a Windows standard

5. After a slur (S), the focus is totally lost using the keyboard, and can only be regained using the mouse.

6. Slurs (S) - once a slur has been entered (with an ESC) and a slur is to be lengthened with a shift / space, it is not lengthened - the play back starts instead!!!
(Unlike Ties, which hold the focus on the tied-from note )

7. Rehearsal marks - always come a bar after the selected bar.
Work around acceptable but annoying.

8. Colours - user always needs to *click* on the desired colour - if the user uses the arrows to navigate to the desired colour then presses OK or Enter, the colour is not changed to the selected colour.
Same error when changing colour of Rehearsal marks

NICE TO HAVES

1. Short cut for go to bar - cut down from 3 keys to 2 keys

2. Quick start menu - ability to minimize screen


MikeLyons
Posts: 1631
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2016 7:20 pm
Sibelius Version: Ult. 2024.3.1/7.5
Operating System: Windows

Post by MikeLyons » Sun Jun 07, 2020 7:49 pm

1. View / Layout marks
Layout marks always return when file is re-opened, i.e. they are not persisted on a Save

View layout marks is set in the View Options panel. If you save a custom view with this on you will always see layout marks on screen when you open a file. This setting is NOT saved with a file unless you set the options and save as a custom view.

2. Change an Instrument - Instrument doesn't always change on the note selected, but usually the next note.

Make sure you actually insert the instrument change in the correct place. Depending on your 'quantize' settings (using the term loosely) in flexi-time input it is easy to put them in the wrong place. So, if you do, just drag them to the place you want.

3. Play - Repeat
a. When bars are resequeunced, all the resequenced bar numbers are lost; ie they are lost from where they are reqequenced.
EG Combination of Dicks Maggot followed by Nonesuch; Nonesuch has its bar numbers resequenced from 1.

I don't understand what you are saying here. If you append two scores together, and run tidy appended scores plugin the bar numbers will reset. If you don't they won't. What do you mean by the term 'resequenced'? What are you actually doing?

b. Using mouse copy then mouse paste causes all entries in Repeat to be cleared (to spaces). Only ctrl-v and ctrl-c seems to work

Again, I do not understand what you are describing. What is 'mouse copy/paste'? Do you mean [alt]-click?

c. When time signature or beats per minute are not included in bars being played, they are ignored and need entering where they are played.
See "When stars beging to fall".
Time sig and speed re-entered at bar 11

If they are not included, they are not included! Do you mean in a selection? They are not ignored in any of Sib 6.2, 7.5 or 2020.6. The tempo markings (if inserted in actual tempo text) and metronome markings (in MM Text) always apply to the music after them. You are doing something wrong.

4. Selecting notes using mouse / shift / select
1. Select a group of 4 notes
1. THEN use mouse / ctrl - the CTRLed selected items are not selected.
This is a Windows standard

If you have a selection and then [ctrl]-click outside the selection but on the same staff the selection is cancelled. Sibelius has ALWAYS done this. Similarly if you [ctrl]-click on another staff it is added to the selection. If you [ctrl]-click again, the staff is unselected again. This is how you select non-contiguous staves.

5. After a slur (S), the focus is totally lost using the keyboard, and can only be regained using the mouse.

If you type s while a note is selected, the slur is placed between that note and the next. If you type s with a group of notes selected, the slur sill cover all the notes in the selection. If you press [space] the slur will be extended. If you press [shift][space] the slur will retract. The slur has the focus. This is true even if you insert a slur with nothing selected.

6. Slurs (S) - once a slur has been entered (with an ESC) and a slur is to be lengthened with a shift / space, it is not lengthened - the play back starts instead!!!
(Unlike Ties, which hold the focus on the tied-from note )

This is NOT my experience at all - see above. However, I just noticed you pressed [esc] after entering the slur. This cancels all selections. If you are going to extend or contract the slur, leave it selected!

7. Rehearsal marks - always come a bar after the selected bar.
Work around acceptable but annoying.

This has always been the case. Solution, select the barline, not the bar and type [ctrl]r

8. Colours - user always needs to *click* on the desired colour - if the user uses the arrows to navigate to the desired colour then presses OK or Enter, the colour is not changed to the selected colour.
Same error when changing colour of Rehearsal marks

Again, I don't understand what you are doing here. Of course you need to pick a colour. Do you expect Sibelius to guess? Once you have chosen a colour and applied it once you can re-apply that colour to a selected object or objects by pressing [ctrl][shit]j. If you want to apply a colour to a group of objects select them and apply the colour. As for the coloour picker, yes, it's very basic, but most people don't use much colour in musical scores.

NICE TO HAVES

1. Short cut for go to bar - cut down from 3 keys to 2 keys - so redefine it! File-->Preferences-->Keyboard Shortcuts

2. Quick start menu - ability to minimize screen. This has been a big bugbear for me and it's the only one of your dislikes that I agree with.
Sib 6.2, 7.5 and 2023.6, Windows 11, 32GB RAM, 16TB 7200RPM Storage, 2TB SSD, Note Performer 3.3.2, EWQLSO, EWQLSC, Harmony Assistant and some others. mike@mike-lyons.co.uk

nkvd3941
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2020 11:45 am
Sibelius Version: 2020 Jun
Operating System: Windows

Post by nkvd3941 » Mon Jun 08, 2020 12:22 pm

Hi Mike

Thanks for your reply...


1. View / Layout marks
Layout marks always return when file is re-opened, i.e. they are not persisted on a Save

View layout marks is set in the View Options panel. If you save a custom view with this on you will always see layout marks on screen when you open a file. This setting is NOT saved with a file unless you set the options and save as a custom view.

Using Custom view now - ALL OK!


2. Change an Instrument - Instrument doesn't always change on the note selected, but usually the next note.

Make sure you actually insert the instrument change in the correct place. Depending on your 'quantize' settings (using the term loosely) in flexi-time input it is easy to put them in the wrong place. So, if you do, just drag them to the place you want.

After selectting a given note and changing instrument, the new instrument still has to be moved - to me thats still a bug!

3. Play - Repeat
a. When bars are resequeunced, all the resequenced bar numbers are lost; ie they are lost from where they are reqequenced.
EG Combination of Dicks Maggot followed by Nonesuch; Nonesuch has its bar numbers resequenced from 1.

I don't understand what you are saying here. If you append two scores together, and run tidy appended scores plugin the bar numbers will reset. If you don't they won't. What do you mean by the term 'resequenced'? What are you actually doing?

b. Using mouse copy then mouse paste causes all entries in Repeat to be cleared (to spaces). Only ctrl-v and ctrl-c seems to work

Again, I do not understand what you are describing. What is 'mouse copy/paste'? Do you mean [alt]-click?

TO RECREATE

a. Play
b. Repeats
c. Manual repeats playback
d. Select some (not all) bar numbers
e. Right click to get the context menu
f. Cut
g. The text box containing the bar numbers is blanked out << This is the error


c. When time signature or beats per minute are not included in bars being played, they are ignored and need entering where they are played.
See "When stars beging to fall".
Time sig and speed re-entered at bar 11

If they are not included, they are not included! Do you mean in a selection? They are not ignored in any of Sib 6.2, 7.5 or 2020.6. The tempo markings (if inserted in actual tempo text) and metronome markings (in MM Text) always apply to the music after them. You are doing something wrong.


TO RECREATE
a. As always the time sig is usually at the beginning of the first bar. Also the speed, eg crotchet = 100
b. Play
c. Repeats
d. Manual repeats playback
e. Enter 5-25, ie bar numbers that dont include the time sig
f. The Time sig is ignored and has to be re-entered at bar 5 << This is the error



4. Selecting notes using mouse / shift / select
1. Select a group of 4 notes
1. THEN use mouse / ctrl - the CTRLed selected items are not selected.
This is a Windows standard

If you have a selection and then [ctrl]-click outside the selection but on the same staff the selection is cancelled. Sibelius has ALWAYS done this. Similarly if you [ctrl]-click on another staff it is added to the selection. If you [ctrl]-click again, the staff is unselected again. This is how you select non-contiguous staves.

RECREATE
a. Enter 8 consequtive quavers - all in the same bar / stave
b. Select the first quaver with a mouse click
c. Shift and click on the 4th - the first 4 quavers are selected - ALL OK
d. Point to the 6th quaver and ctrl / click
.
e. Expected behaviour - quavers 1-4 & 6 are selected
f. Actual behaviour - Nothing is selected


5. After a slur (S), the focus is totally lost using the keyboard, and can only be regained using the mouse.

If you type s while a note is selected, the slur is placed between that note and the next. If you type s with a group of notes selected, the slur sill cover all the notes in the selection. If you press [space] the slur will be extended. If you press [shift][space] the slur will retract. The slur has the focus. This is true even if you insert a slur with nothing selected.



6. Slurs (S) - once a slur has been entered (with an ESC) and a slur is to be lengthened with a shift / space, it is not lengthened - the play back starts instead!!!
(Unlike Ties, which hold the focus on the tied-from note )

This is NOT my experience at all - see above. However, I just noticed you pressed [esc] after entering the slur. This cancels all selections. If you are going to extend or contract the slur, leave it selected!

RECREATE
a. Select 4 consequtive notes and press "s" - the notes will be slured
b. Select any other note(s) away from the 4 notes, by mouse clicking somewhere else
c. Mouse click to select the slur created in step a., then press shift / space to extend
The slur isn't extended - play back starts!
What am i doing wrong?


7. Rehearsal marks - always come a bar after the selected bar.
Work around acceptable but annoying.

This has always been the case. Solution, select the barline, not the bar and type [ctrl]r

"select the barline" - using the bar lines now - ALL OK!

8. Colours - user always needs to *click* on the desired colour - if the user uses the arrows to navigate to the desired colour then presses OK or Enter, the colour is not changed to the selected colour.
Same error when changing colour of Rehearsal marks

Again, I don't understand what you are doing here. Of course you need to pick a colour. Do you expect Sibelius to guess? Once you have chosen a colour and applied it once you can re-apply that colour to a selected object or objects by pressing [ctrl][shit]j. If you want to apply a colour to a group of objects select them and apply the colour. As for the coloour picker, yes, it's very basic, but most people don't use much colour in musical scores.

RECREATE
a. Select some consequtive notes - the aim is to turn them red
b. Home / Color / Choose color
c. Use the arrow keys to navigate to red
e. OK
.
The notes are still black


NICE TO HAVES

1. Short cut for go to bar - cut down from 3 keys to 2 keys - so redefine it! File-->Preferences-->Keyboard Shortcuts
OK will do!

2. Quick start menu - ability to minimize screen. This has been a big bugbear for me and it's the only one of your dislikes that I agree with.

MikeLyons
Posts: 1631
Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2016 7:20 pm
Sibelius Version: Ult. 2024.3.1/7.5
Operating System: Windows

Post by MikeLyons » Mon Jun 08, 2020 3:56 pm

2. Change an Instrument - Instrument doesn't always change on the note selected, but usually the next note.

Make sure you actually insert the instrument change in the correct place. Depending on your 'quantize' settings (using the term loosely) in flexi-time input it is easy to put them in the wrong place. So, if you do, just drag them to the place you want.

After selectting a given note and changing instrument, the new instrument still has to be moved - to me thats still a bug!

Don't select a note. Just insert with a mouse click or make a passage selection. Also, the change is actually in the little grey box, not in the text object that accompanies it. The rules for the placing of the text object can be changed in Text-->Text styles

Also, are you just changing it for a short passage or for the whole of the rest of the piece?

3. Play - Repeat
a. When bars are resequeunced, all the resequenced bar numbers are lost; ie they are lost from where they are reqequenced.
EG Combination of Dicks Maggot followed by Nonesuch; Nonesuch has its bar numbers resequenced from 1.

I don't understand what you are saying here. If you append two scores together, and run tidy appended scores plugin the bar numbers will reset. If you don't they won't. What do you mean by the term 'resequenced'? What are you actually doing?

b. Using mouse copy then mouse paste causes all entries in Repeat to be cleared (to spaces). Only ctrl-v and ctrl-c seems to work

Again, I do not understand what you are describing. What is 'mouse copy/paste'? Do you mean [alt]-click?

TO RECREATE

a. Play
b. Repeats
c. Manual repeats playback
d. Select some (not all) bar numbers
e. Right click to get the context menu
f. Cut
g. The text box containing the bar numbers is blanked out << This is the error

I still do not understand what you are doing here. Why are you going into manual repeats playback at all? Your actions don't make any sense to me. Why are you selecting bar numbers? That seems a nonsensical thing to do. It's like buying a fancy car and trying to drive it by turning the chrome flashing. Do you actually mean bar numbers (the numbers over each barline) or does your terminology mean something else?

c. When time signature or beats per minute are not included in bars being played, they are ignored and need entering where they are played.
See "When stars beging to fall".
Time sig and speed re-entered at bar 11

If they are not included, they are not included! Do you mean in a selection? They are not ignored in any of Sib 6.2, 7.5 or 2020.6. The tempo markings (if inserted in actual tempo text) and metronome markings (in MM Text) always apply to the music after them. You are doing something wrong.


TO RECREATE
a. As always the time sig is usually at the beginning of the first bar. Also the speed, eg crotchet = 100
b. Play
c. Repeats
d. Manual repeats playback
e. Enter 5-25, ie bar numbers that dont include the time sig
f. The Time sig is ignored and has to be re-entered at bar 5 << This is the error

Again with the manual repeats. Why? I know one thing about this. If you are using manual repeats to play a section of the music, then the bars with the actual TS and tempo in it are never going to be played so Sibelius will not play them. I suspect a deep fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of manual repeats. It's not a sibelius error at all.


4. Selecting notes using mouse / shift / select
1. Select a group of 4 notes
1. THEN use mouse / ctrl - the CTRLed selected items are not selected.
This is a Windows standard

If you have a selection and then [ctrl]-click outside the selection but on the same staff the selection is cancelled. Sibelius has ALWAYS done this. Similarly if you [ctrl]-click on another staff it is added to the selection. If you [ctrl]-click again, the staff is unselected again. This is how you select non-contiguous staves.

RECREATE
a. Enter 8 consequtive quavers - all in the same bar / stave
b. Select the first quaver with a mouse click
c. Shift and click on the 4th - the first 4 quavers are selected - ALL OK
d. Point to the 6th quaver and ctrl / click
.
e. Expected behaviour - quavers 1-4 & 6 are selected
f. Actual behaviour - Nothing is selected

Again, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how selection in Sib works. You cannot make non contiguous passage selections in the same staff. If you want to select notes 1-4 and 6, you need to use an object selection. Select the first note and [ctrl]-click on each of the others

5. After a slur (S), the focus is totally lost using the keyboard, and can only be regained using the mouse.

If you type s while a note is selected, the slur is placed between that note and the next. If you type s with a group of notes selected, the slur sill cover all the notes in the selection. If you press [space] the slur will be extended. If you press [shift][space] the slur will retract. The slur has the focus. This is true even if you insert a slur with nothing selected.



6. Slurs (S) - once a slur has been entered (with an ESC) and a slur is to be lengthened with a shift / space, it is not lengthened - the play back starts instead!!!
(Unlike Ties, which hold the focus on the tied-from note )

This is NOT my experience at all - see above. However, I just noticed you pressed [esc] after entering the slur. This cancels all selections. If you are going to extend or contract the slur, leave it selected!

RECREATE
a. Select 4 consequtive notes and press "s" - the notes will be slured
b. Select any other note(s) away from the 4 notes, by mouse clicking somewhere else
c. Mouse click to select the slur created in step a., then press shift / space to extend
The slur isn't extended - play back starts!
What am i doing wrong?

You aren't selecting the END you want to move. All the handles on a slur have a different function. Left and right handles extend left and right. Other handles change the arc/height of the slur.


8. Colours - user always needs to *click* on the desired colour - if the user uses the arrows to navigate to the desired colour then presses OK or Enter, the colour is not changed to the selected colour.
Same error when changing colour of Rehearsal marks

Again, I don't understand what you are doing here. Of course you need to pick a colour. Do you expect Sibelius to guess? Once you have chosen a colour and applied it once you can re-apply that colour to a selected object or objects by pressing [ctrl][shit]j. If you want to apply a colour to a group of objects select them and apply the colour. As for the coloour picker, yes, it's very basic, but most people don't use much colour in musical scores.

RECREATE
a. Select some consequtive notes - the aim is to turn them red
b. Home / Color / Choose color
c. Use the arrow keys to navigate to red
e. OK
.
The notes are still black

A lot depends on which version of sib you have. Sib 7 doesn't allow coloured noteheads (at least not in the way you might expect.) Later versions start to add the ability to colour. I know this works in 2020.6 and 2020.3 because I have used it. Don't use the arrow keys - the colour picker doesn't have focus. use the mouse to pick the colour. If the colour in the box shown in the image doesn't change, you have not picked the colour.
Attachments
colour picker.png
colour picker.png (23.57 KiB) Viewed 9393 times
Sib 6.2, 7.5 and 2023.6, Windows 11, 32GB RAM, 16TB 7200RPM Storage, 2TB SSD, Note Performer 3.3.2, EWQLSO, EWQLSC, Harmony Assistant and some others. mike@mike-lyons.co.uk

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