[MU4 Task] Lyrics. Users should be able to paste full sentences

[Tantacrul]

Task description This is a pretty urgent required improvement.

Use Case

• A user writes a full sentence of text in a text editor, adding appropriate hyphens and spaces
• The user then copies this text and pastes it into a lyric text box
• The full sentence is pasted across multiple notes, with all spaces and hyphens respected

[oktophonie]

e.g. Fla-----ping moist--ly__ would give this:

[Tantacrul]

@oktophonie - what do you think of the MS3 solution, where you can copy a full line of text and paste it word for word by continuously pressing CTRL+V ?

In some ways that solution is quite nice.

[oktophonie]

It is nice. And the spaces, multiple hyphens work as expected. (Just not the _ as far as I can tell.)

[cbjeukendrup]

How does this relate to the issue about pasting syllable-by-syllable https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/13215? (i.e. is this a duplicate or a replacement?)

[Tantacrul]

Actually, it would be an additional feature: the ability to also be able to paste a sentence once - and see the words spread out over a series of notes immediately. We'd also probably need a few other features too, like the ability to 'shift' a lyric left / right / up / down.

So, it's really a feature request and it needs some design first.

[macxcool]

It is nice. And the spaces, multiple hyphens work as expected. (Just not the _ as far as I can tell.)

You're right. Not the _

[themodrnhakr]

Idea (maybe too crazy, but I'll give it a go) — the current proposed system would work as follows: I hyphenate a chunk of text in a word processor, making sure to add extra -'s and 's. I then paste this into my Musescore project, but I inevitably miss a couple -'s or 's and have to ⌘ + Z and edit the text in my word processor. After a couple tries, I'll probably get it right. That's not a terrible system, and is way faster than manually typing the entire lyric. However, I think we can do better.

My first suggestion is to add a text input interface into MuseScore. This is a minor productivity improvement over the current proposed system.

The second suggestion is to text input interface to dynamically apply lyrics to the score. This would massively boost lyric-entering productivity.

With this system, I could take the lyrics I want to use in my piece (let's say I received them via email from the lyricist) and paste them directly into they text input interface. The words would automatically map onto the score (perhaps markers could be set to determine instrument/measure/beat). I could then start adding -'s and _ 's and watch the text dynamically adjust to the score. If I was doing an exploded SATB, I could copy and paste the hyphenated text into another vocal part and make any minor adjustments needed in literal seconds.

With this sort of system, it would even be possible to introduce automatic hyphenation. There are already free online tools that do this, but it would really boost efficiency if MuseScore was able to incorporate this feature.

Perhaps this suggestion is just a pipe dream, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Tantacrul]

@themodrnhakr

For the moment, there's a plugin we're going to support which allows for this. It's not perfect but it is quite powerful: https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/issues/16023

It's going in the upcoming patch.

[PetJer]

Also, the system should detect escaping charaters. So, you can add the '-', '_' and ' ' charater to a syllable (usefull when writing more words on the same note). Maybe just a backslash ('\-', '\_' and '\ ')?

[themodrnhakr]

Also, the system should detect escaping charaters. So, you can add the '-', '' and ' ' charater to a syllable (usefull when writing more words on the same note). Maybe just a backslash ('-', '\' and '\ ')?

Actually that's a really great point. This would be especially useful for notating extended lines chanted on a reciting tone. I'd suggest the possibility enclosing the whole line in {} or [].

Here\ goes\ the\ wonder\-working\ hero!

vs.

{Here goes the wonder-working hero}

IMO, the latter is much easer to type and, more importantly, edit.

[themodrnhakr]

For the moment, there's a plugin we're going to support which allows for this. It's not perfect but it is quite powerful: #16023

It's going in the upcoming patch.

No way. That'll be a lifesaver. Hopefully this could eventually be integrated natively into MuseScore, though.

[PetJer]

Actually that's a really great point. This would be especially useful for notating extended lines chanted on a reciting tone. I'd suggest the possibility enclosing the whole line in {} or [].

Here\ goes\ the\ wonder-working\ hero!

vs.

{Here goes the wonder-working hero}

IMO, the latter is much easer to type and, more importantly, edit.

Sure, that's better and faster! I would still keep the possibility to escape a character (when you just need one or two spaces, for example. And for the brackets).

[PetJer]

Also, thinking a bit ahead... You should be able to add e.g. bold and italic in the same way as in Markdown (if it's worth the work for implementation).

[iainhallam]

You should be able to add e.g. bold and italic in the same way as in Markdown

Love this suggestion for the long-term.

[MarcSabatella]

FWIW, the syllable pasting thing doesn't work at all for me in MU3 (Linux), but as I recall from Windows, the "_" does work if you remember to enter as many of them as there are notes to cover (so, always at least two).

Regarding the bold & italic suggestion, at some point, it feels like it crosses the line from just pasting and into the world of an actual lyrics editor. So to me the idea of developing the Lilylyrics plugin is intriguing.