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New in Mozart 8

Mozart 8 was released in October 2004.

It introduced the following new features.

 

Please note: the music images on this page were created with Mozart 8. The quality of engraving provided by the current version is much improved in many respects.

Screen display

  • pages on screenThe screen display now gives a much clearer indication of the pagination and shows much more music when fully zoomed out.   Pages are drawn on the screen to fit as many as possible in the music window. If more than one complete page will fit across the page, then more than one page is drawn side by side, as shown here in miniature.
  • Non-printing characters may be shown/hidden at all screen magnifications with a single command.

Tablature

  • tablatureTablature for plucked string instruments has been introduced.  The illustration on the right shows an example for guitar.  Showing the stems is optional.
  • Tablature is supported for various instruments including: Guitar, Electric Bass, Tenor Banjo, G Banjo, with various tunings.
  • staff & tabChanging the stave type converts music from one format to another - eg chord symbols to explicit stacks of notes, or tablature to standard notation and standard notation to tablature.
  • Copying and pasting from a tablature to a standard stave (and vice versa) also converts the notation enabling a dual representation of the music as seen here.

Classical and Jazz ornaments

  • ornamentsTrill ornaments now have the option of starting on the higher note and being shown as extending with tr~~~~~ over a number of notes.
  • Various big band articulations including falls, smears, doits, bends, shakes, and flips are now available.  Some are shown in the above illustration.

 

Score structure

  • hidden staff illustrationStaves may now be hidden on individual systems where an instrument is not playing.  (See illustration right where the vocal line only enters on the second system after a short instrumental introduction.)
  • Each stave on the score may now be spaced by an arbitrary amount from the ones above and below (for example allowing for many leger lines above a flute part without spacing other staves by the same amount - see illustration below).
    stave spacing illustration

Note spacing

  • optimised spacingA command to optimise spacing of notes on the stave has now been introduced. Longer notes are thereby given more space following them than shorter ones.
  • anacrusis illustrationThe anacrusis is now much neater, and minimises the space required in the first (part) bar.

Assorted notation

  • Triple-dotted notes and rests are now supported.  (See 1st and 2nd time bar illustration below.)
     
  • 7-tupletMultiplets may be introduced in a wider set of circumstances than hitherto - for example on a crotchet in 6/8 and on a dotted minim in 3/4 as seen here.
  • The digit may now be omitted from a multiplet.
  • System separators (shown as separator between consecutive systems on the same page) may now be introduced between score systems drawn on the same page (See the score structure illustration above.)
  • There is now systematic support for use of a capo both on chord symbol staves and on tablature staves.
  • German notation for B and BbGerman notation (H and B for B and Bb) is now available as an option for chord symbols.
  • Line changes (hard and soft) are now allowed on "extra" bar lines.
  • 1st and 2nd time barFirst and second time bar brackets may now be raised higher above the stave to avoid high notes as illustrated here

 

 

  • Chord names with minor and augmented ninths are now represented more in line with the notation favoured by the majority - eg C7b9 and C7#9.
  • accidentalsAccidentals are better aligned to avoid overlaps when notes in different strands are a 2nd or 3rd apart.   This done completely automatically.  In this illustration the simultaneous Bb and Gb know about each other's accidentals.

Play-back

  • Glissandi now play back.
  • The new big band articulations including falls, smears, doits, bends, shakes, and flips also play back.
  • Mozart now makes more intelligent guesses about the play-back dynamics required in a repeat bar. This means i.a. that hairpins going under many repeated bars will be respected.

Improved user-interface features

  • The duration of the piece is now shown when you use the "tune properties" command.
  • Alternative keyboard shortcuts may now be added to the commands which previously didn't admit them - including NoteEnter. A few commands (also including that one) still do not permit reassignment of their default shortcuts. (This is deliberate.)
  • Spin controls in dialogues (such as the key signature selector) now respond to the up-down arrow keys, making these dialogues fully usable without the mouse.
  • The PrintSetup command has been replaced by the more standard PageSetup command.
  • the layout editorA new, friendlier, method of editing the page layout has been introduced and it is now much simpler to see what you're doing.  The new layout-editor tool highlights the part of the layout on which it is acting and shows the changes while you make them.  The illustration on the right shows it as applied to the system depth being increased or decreased by manipulating the (shaded) system spacing area.
  • Margin sizes are now shown more accurately, and include the non-printable margins of the page.
  • Up/down arrow keys on a tab stave move to the next string; Shift+up/down moves between the strings and outside of them to allow placement of text items and dynamics.

 

 

 

  • HTML HelpThe on line help system has been brought up to date in the form of "HTML help" (as illustrated here) with a synchronised contents list. This should make finding help even easier.

 

Changes to defaults

  • The default shortcuts to the multiplet commands are now Alt+2 Alt+3 and Alt+7 instead of Ctrl+2 Ctrl+3 and Ctrl+7. (Number keys with Ctrl now refer to fret numbers on tablature staves.)
  • The default screen colour system has changed slightly. But of course you can always set it back if you preferred the previous colour system.
  • Shift+up/down arrow keys no longer warn about the pull command having changed as that was now long ago.

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