Unfortunately Sibelius’s development has basically stagnated since 2012 when the new corporate owners fired the entire original development team, with only one noteworthy release of the core app (not counting side-projects like an iPad app) since then, in 2014.
I first learnt Sibelius on its pre-ribbon interface, which I think was much better (even though I loved the ribbon in MS Office). That certainly made the transfer to more modern versions easier. Still, although Sibelius has a number of specific hangups in its interface that make fairly common activities awkward and unintuitive, I really do think it has the best basic flow. When you’re just in the zone inputting notes, it’s so easy to use in a way MuseScore isn’t.
I actually take some issue with Tantacrul’s design process, because it feels like he fundamentally doesn’t understand how intermediate users like myself use the app. At one point he sent out a survey asking “how many keyboard shortcuts do you use?” in Sibelius/MuseScore etc. The problem was that he didn’t define what a keyboard shortcuts is, and when people asked for his definition, he just snarkily responded that it would be obvious. But it’s not. In Sibelius, you use your left hand on letters A–G to enter the note pitch, and your right hand on the notepad to enter rhythm values and common articulations. Slur lines and some other things can be entered during this process as well (slurs with the letter S).
Does this count as keyboard shortcuts? To me, everything I described above except maybe the slurs is actually the musical equivalent of typing text into a word processor…or a browser text box, like I’m doing right now. Does it become a “keyboard shortcut” just because it can also be done by clicking a rhythm value in a toolbar, and then clicking a location in the staff to choose pitch? I have no idea if Tantacrul thinks so, because he chose snark rather than clarifying.
Incidentally, his MuseScore design replicates this flow, but without the visual reference of the keypad toolbar that lets you learn and easily see what number to press, without requiring sheer memorisation. It’s been a while since I last tried it, but I vaguely recall having other issues with the flow being hard to work out with a keyboard. Great if you’re just slowly mousing around everywhere, but not for the intermediate user trying to get in the zone.
Which is such a shame, because he did such a fantastic job of the other stuff. The user onboarding, score setup, page layout management, etc. The attention to detail even with small things like music fonts and symbol design is impeccable.
Interesting. That would make his survey of rather limited value, in my opinion, because just by doing notes (including rests), durations (just from semiquaver to semibreve, including tie and dot), and accidentals, you get 18, right off the bat. Considering the ranges offered in the poll he made were 1–5, 5–10, 10–20, and 20+ (never mind the overlap if you happened to use exactly 5 or 10…), that makes it very hard for anyone who types their note input instead of hunting around slowly with the mouse to get into anything other than the top bucket. Especially since he quite explicitly said “including typical ones (like Ctrl+S, Ctrl+Z, etc.)”
Unfortunately Sibelius’s development has basically stagnated since 2012 when the new corporate owners fired the entire original development team, with only one noteworthy release of the core app (not counting side-projects like an iPad app) since then, in 2014.
I first learnt Sibelius on its pre-ribbon interface, which I think was much better (even though I loved the ribbon in MS Office). That certainly made the transfer to more modern versions easier. Still, although Sibelius has a number of specific hangups in its interface that make fairly common activities awkward and unintuitive, I really do think it has the best basic flow. When you’re just in the zone inputting notes, it’s so easy to use in a way MuseScore isn’t.
I actually take some issue with Tantacrul’s design process, because it feels like he fundamentally doesn’t understand how intermediate users like myself use the app. At one point he sent out a survey asking “how many keyboard shortcuts do you use?” in Sibelius/MuseScore etc. The problem was that he didn’t define what a keyboard shortcuts is, and when people asked for his definition, he just snarkily responded that it would be obvious. But it’s not. In Sibelius, you use your left hand on letters A–G to enter the note pitch, and your right hand on the notepad to enter rhythm values and common articulations. Slur lines and some other things can be entered during this process as well (slurs with the letter S).
Does this count as keyboard shortcuts? To me, everything I described above except maybe the slurs is actually the musical equivalent of typing text into a word processor…or a browser text box, like I’m doing right now. Does it become a “keyboard shortcut” just because it can also be done by clicking a rhythm value in a toolbar, and then clicking a location in the staff to choose pitch? I have no idea if Tantacrul thinks so, because he chose snark rather than clarifying.
Incidentally, his MuseScore design replicates this flow, but without the visual reference of the keypad toolbar that lets you learn and easily see what number to press, without requiring sheer memorisation. It’s been a while since I last tried it, but I vaguely recall having other issues with the flow being hard to work out with a keyboard. Great if you’re just slowly mousing around everywhere, but not for the intermediate user trying to get in the zone.
Which is such a shame, because he did such a fantastic job of the other stuff. The user onboarding, score setup, page layout management, etc. The attention to detail even with small things like music fonts and symbol design is impeccable.
I’d say those are keyboard shortcuts.
Interesting. That would make his survey of rather limited value, in my opinion, because just by doing notes (including rests), durations (just from semiquaver to semibreve, including tie and dot), and accidentals, you get 18, right off the bat. Considering the ranges offered in the poll he made were 1–5, 5–10, 10–20, and 20+ (never mind the overlap if you happened to use exactly 5 or 10…), that makes it very hard for anyone who types their note input instead of hunting around slowly with the mouse to get into anything other than the top bucket. Especially since he quite explicitly said “including typical ones (like Ctrl+S, Ctrl+Z, etc.)”