Release notes for Mozart 14

The improvement history for Mozart 14
 

 

Mozart Service Pack Infelicities addressed

MOZART 14 version 14.1.2

13 October 2020

  • Thanks again to Richard Mills for finding some examples of where the default positioning of the end of phrase marks was less than optimim. This is now improved.
  • There is also some improvement in the export of abc files.
  • It is now possible to show the tempo at the start of a piece, even when there is no conductor stave. (Tempo changes within the music still require a conductor stave.)

MOZART 14 version 14.1.1

19 August 2020

  • Thanks to Richard Mills for discovering that playing back from a point where a strand has no notes after it, failed to pick up notes in that strand on a DS. This is now fixed.
  • The logic of the coding of the colour scheme dialogue box has been improved.
  • Thanks to Carl Egeter for finding a bug in the vertical positioning of redirections (DS etc). This is now fixed. This is a draw-time bug which crept in in Mozart 14, and you may wish to check that these are OK in any pieces created or edited with Mozart 14.
  • Thanks to Richard Mills for highlighting problems when rests occur after the end of a piece which is meant to end on an 'extra' bar. Mozart automatically tidies up when everything is deleted after the last barline in the piece, but only if it is a 'proper' barline. It has now been arranged that this tidying happens, also when the final bar-line is a 'extra' bar.

MOZART 14 version 14.1.0

11 June 2020

  • Thanks to Serge Sacré and Tony Fleming for dicovering that MusicXML import/export commands can be missing. This was due to a failure of the 3rd party Xerces XML library on some machines, and is now fixed by including an updated MusicXML module with a rebuilt Xerces library.
  • Using a new build of Xerces 3.2.3 in place of the old build of Xerces 3.1.1 is radical enough to prompt the change in the 2nd digit of the version number!
  • Thanks to Pauline Ridel-Reeder and Seth Reeder for completing the French translation. Testing showed that space which was adequate for the English text was not big enough for the equivalent French, for the new, and some existing, text. Some extra space has therefore been made available in the keyboard shortcuts dialogue box.
  • Thanks to Jeroen Neve for finding a bug when you replace the time signature of an existing passage of notes. This is now fixed.
  • Merci à Joseph de Charentenay qui a découvert qu'il n'était pas possible d'insérer une anacrouse en place de plusieurs silences. Ce problème est maintenant corrigé.
  • It turned out to be impossible to enter a clef change within a tuplet. This is now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.22

2 May 2020

  • Thanks to Bob Hannum for finding that tempi with dotted-note=... were not importing/exporting from/to MusicXML correctly. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks also to Bob for finding that glissandi were not being drawn correctly when starting on an unbeamed quaver (or shorter) with stem up. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Bill Braun for pointing out that "G Banjo" as an instrument name can be confusing when it isn't tuned to standard G tuning. It is now renamed in the data base as "5 string banjo". Old files may still have staves and strands labelled "G Banjo" - this can be avoided, if desired, by renaming the staves and strands (rather than by changing the instrument). Two more alternative 5 string banjo tunings have been included: "Open A" and "Double D".
  • Thanks also to Bill for finding that changing a page break to a line break was removing the break and losing any attached system spacer. This is now fixed and the command does what it is supposed to without losing the system spacer.
  • This version updates the 'troubleshooting' dialogue box, so that it now also shows a list of installed Mozart program files and their version numbers. This is intended as a diagnostic tool in case of problems.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.21

24 March 2020

  • Thanks to Jane Moulder for pointing out that exporting a bitmap image of the page was cropping the image if the chosen point size for the bitmap was larger than the point size set on the printer. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Oonagh Griffith for highlighting inconveniences when replacing an instrument in the score also replaces stave and part labels. Mozart probably still can't guess whether you want to do this in all circumstances, but it now makes better guess.
  • Thanks to Richard Mills for showing that a relative tempo change at the start of a repeated section caused problems with play-back later in the piece. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Jake Moscowitz for finding that Mozart did not import the bass note designation from abc fie with chord-names like Dm7/F. Both this and a bug we found in exporting such chord names has now been fixed.
  • Commands to enter some symbols - numbers and brackets - were not always working properly in macros. This is now improved.
  • Thanks to Bill Braun for reporting problems with fixing margins. It turned out thtat the margins reported on the PageSetup dialogue box were completely wrong (but the Layout Editor gave correct values). This is now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.20

6 January 2020

  • Thanks to Bengt Johnsson for finding a MIDI file which wouldn't import into Mozart. The probelem with this one was a sequence of time signature changes at zero time separation, which confused poor old Mozart completely! Mozart is now more robust against this particular MIDI file inconsistency and Bengt's file now imports satisfactorily.
  • Thanks also to Bengt for finding instances where appending a note in panoramic view should have succeeded but didn't. This was due to an overzealous consistency check and is now fixed.
  • Thanks yet again to Bengt for providing an example where an accidental in parentheses was not allowed enough space in the music. This was a bug which only manifested itself clearly with the jazz font. It is now fixed.
  • A small infelicity has come to light in the automatic repitching of pauses and ornaments when notes change. This has been improved.
  • Thanks to Bob Hannum for finding that a glissando going past a system spacer wasn't playing back, and to Cindy Pedder and Jeroen Neve for further specifying the problem on the chat group. It is now fixed.
  • A minor geometric improvement has been made to the system spacer dialogue box.
  • Thanks to Marc Bauduin for finding some imperfections in rendering files written by Mozart 3 - which was current over 20 years ago! (It's great to hear from such long-established Mozartists!) Leading hidden rests are now less zealously converted to an anacrusis if that means it would be hiding text or other such items. Also when reading in files written by Mozart versions 1-8, text in the music was being drawn too low (by a distance equal to the depth of the text). These are now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.19

5 November 2019

  • Although the Delete key was working fine, the large red X button on the Home tab wasn't responding to mouse clicks. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to J.S.Pooh for noticing that pressing Delete with the caret in an empty lyric syllable did not move subsequent syllables left (as did pressing Delete with the caret at the end of a non-empty syllable). This is now rationalised.
  • Thanks to Mitch Park for suggestions on abc export of chord symbols. In going half way to satisfy his request, we found that passive chord symbols attached to notes were being exported after the note. They should of course be simultaneous, and therefore exported before the note. This now the case, and if passive chord symbols are used, Mozart is now consistent with other abc software's handling of chords.
  • Thanks to Jake Moskowitz for the discovery that if you try to import an abc file with no X: field, then Mozart just hangs. The X: field is compulsory in an abc file, and so Mozart now behaves politely with a message asking you to insert one.
  • Thanks to Bill Braun for drawing my attention to a broken link in the help index. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Roger Prowse for finding that an appoggiatura (though not an acciaccatura) immediately before a triplet continued to sound indefinitely on play-back. This is now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.18

31 July 2019

  • The F4 'repeat command' command wasn't always working for a pause (fermata) command. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Jeroen Neve for finding a bug when using Page Setup on a large score: it was reformatted much smaller than necessary. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Richard Mills for locating a problem with a NIFF import. It turned out to be to do with the storage of the time signature at the start. Import has been improved to avoid this problem and it is now fixed in any files where it already occurs with the Ctrl+F5 fix-up command.
  • Thanks also to Richard for somehow creating a piece containing multiple bars rests where the multiple was 1. This should not be possible; they should be whole-bar-rests (which are handled differently). These undesired symbols can now be edited/removed should they raise their ugly heads again.
  • And thanks again to Richard for noticing that the music was not always correctly reformatted after a "Delete Bars" command. This is now fixed too.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.17

13 May 2019

  • Thanks to Joseph de Charentenay for finding that phrase marks are sometimes recalculated when moving text up and down, even though the phrase marks are not programmed automatically to avoid collision with the text. This is now more consistent.
  • Thanks also to Joseph for finding a case where a phrase mark was wrongly recalculated when trying to avoid collision with a tie. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Richard Mills for finding a bug which caused NIFF import to fail. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Jeroen Neve for discovering that if you try to create a new file with the 'Notepad' option and ask for too many staves, Mozart could crash. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks also to Jeroen for discovering an infelicity in the formatting after a new stave has been added to the score. This too is now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.16

28 January 2019

  • Thanks to Gordon Bower for noticing that if you try to play back a passage containing no notes or rests, Mozart crashes. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Keith Williamson for providing a Mozart11 example where the instrument data at the start of a piece had become corrupted. The fix-up command Ctrl+F5 failed to deal with this, but it does now.
  • Thanks to Bill Braun for reporting a problem with the caret highlight as it passes notes with attachments on a tab stave. This is now fixed.
  • Following Bill's report, other aspects of the behaviour of the caret on tablature staves have also been improved.
  • Thanks to Sergerémy Sacré for providing a file imported from an earlier version of Mozart with spacing so corrupted that the emergency fix-up command (Ctrl+F5) was completely defeated. The fix-up command has now been fixed up, so that it now copes with worse corruption (including Serge's file)!
  • Problems selecting blocks after music has been cut are fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.15

19 December 2018

  • The default spacing of grace notes was a little 'tight'. This has now been spread very slightly.
  • Creation of a multi-bar rest has been made more reliable.
  • Duplicating a part from a score often caused textboxes to crop their content (if text substitutions caused the content to expand). This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to J S Pooh for finding that the caret can get confused about its pitch if you insert bars into a piece beginning with a ||: repeat. This might have had repercussions for other operations on such pieces, but it is now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.14

22 November 2018

  • Using the drop-down menu in the chord editor dialogue box now resets the chord shape as well as the name.
  • Thanks to Jeroen Neve for finding thet when the delete key is used within an empty lyric syllable, the formatting is disturbed. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Bill Braun for making us aware of the gourd banjo - lovely instrument - tuned a fourth lower than the standard 5-string banjo. This is now added to Mozart 14 as an optional tuning of the G-banjo, rather than as a separate instrument, but nontheless it should now be possible to incorporate it in whatever way is deesired.
  • Sometimes announcenemnt of fine-tuning the format hung around on the status bar after the task was finished. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to John Dablin for finding an example where a hairpin crossing a line break was not drawn properly. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks also to John for noticing that in panoramic mode, a tie which was split over two lines in paginated mode, was still being drawn as a double bow. This is now fixed.
  • Discussion with John also revealed that hairpin ends could not be attached to bar-lines. This is too restrictive, so now they can be!
  • Thanks to J S Pooh for pointing out that pasting a lyric line under notes did not respect ties. In fact it didn't respect phrase marks as melisma either. This feature is now much improved.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.13

28 September 2018

  • Thanks to Ron Hill for highlighting furthrer problems with MusicXML and abc import. These are now fixed.
  • Thanks to Oonagh Griffith for finding a MIDI file which caused some difficulties on attempting to import. Improvements have now been made.
  • Thanks to Sergerémy Sacré for illustrating that, when there are hidden staves, then after some editing operations, the wrong staves can be hidden. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Rodney Young for observing thet changing the size of the lyrics font, did not change the height of the space reserved for lyric lines (causing overlaps). Changing the size of the lyric font now automatically matches the height of the space reserved for the lyric line.
  • Thanks to Bob Hehmann for finding an example where play-back failed to detect a hairpin. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Richard Mills for providing a file with some strange play-back effects at a DS. This looks like a bug which has been there since Mozart 1 but needed a particular coincidence of pitches and ties in order to appear. It is now fixed. And ties passing a DS are now also improved more generally.
  • Thanks to Dan Schultz for sending in a file containing invisible spurious stuff which interfered with the formatting. The Ctrl+F5 emergency fix-up command has been upgraded so that it now deals with this problem.
  • Thanks to John Filsak for discovering that auto-spacing of arpeggiated chords was poor. This is now greatly improved.
  • Thanks also to John for reporting infelicitous behaviour of an open lyric editor when you hide or show unwanted staves. This is now fixed

MOZART 14 version 14.0.12

2 September 2018

  • To solve the problem reported by Tony Caporn and Cindy Pedder back in April, the 'customisation' interface has been completely renovated. There is now no assign-to-quick-access-toolbar dialogue box: rather commands are individually assigned to it (and removed) by right-clicking on them. (This was always the simpler option.) The dialogue box for assigning a keyboard shortcut was a Microsoft library object, but has now been replaced by Mozart's own. It looks (intentionally) very similar but it is now Mozart's own code rather than Microsoft library code, so I can edit it as much as I like and fine tune it to remove any problems. Having said that, I do think it solves the reported problem.
  • Thanks to Bob Hehmann for reporting a problem with stems: when a beamed group was thrown onto the other substaff of a grand staff, and the end notes were on leger lines, the stem lengths were horribly wrong. This is now fixed. (If you have such a group just invert the stems of the group twice and the length will be recalculated correctly.)
  • Positions of tool dialogue boxes are no longer remembered between runs. The first time that they are opened after launching Mozart, they appear towards the top left of the main window.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.11

23 August 2018

  • Thanks to Chris Beeson for pointing out an infelicity which had crept into service pack 14.0.10 - whereby reading old files and templates got confused about spacing of lyric lines above and below the staff. This is hereby corrected.
  • Thanks to Nigel Parsons for providing a file written by Mozart 11 containing slight and invisible inconsistencies which were tolerated up to Mozart 13 but which caused Mozart 14 to choke. Mozart 14 now removes such inconsistencies on reading old files.
  • The improvements to MusicXML import/export made in 14.0.10 have been further refined.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.10

16 August 2018

  • Thanks to Leward Fluty for providing an example where using the tie command in a sequance of ghosts, and then entering a note, caused completely the wrong notes to be tied. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to J S Pooh for pointing out that the command which pastes lyric lines, doesn't handle line-feeds very well. It now interprets any white space character as a space, ignores consecutive spaces, and is more consistent in creating sustained syllables when it meets a _ character. It is also more consistent in allowing the paste operation to be revoked with Ctrl+Z.
  • In attempting to pass music to earlier versions of Mozart via MusicXML, Bob Hannum has exposed some shortcomings with the conversion of lyric lines to and from MusicXML. Thanks to Bob, tis update makes a radical improvement in Mozart 14 in this area. (We plan to look again also at Mozart 13 and ...)
  • Following requests from Ciny Peddar and the clamourers (good name for a band Cindy?) on the Mozart chat group, you can now add a rehearsal mark at the very start of a piece.
  • Thanks to David Haroldsen for exposing a problem with pulling the vertical scrollbar when the piece contained an 8va bracket. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Chris Beeson for reporting that the caret gets "out of synch" after some layout editing operations. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Nigel Parsons for providing an eample of an old file which was unsatisfactorily read in by Mozart 14. The problem was with hairpins which don't span at least one note. It is now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.9

8 July 2018

  • A bug crept into the music font size dialogue in build 14.0.7. Thanks to Ken Schweim for pointing it out. It is hereby fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.8

6 July 2018

  • Testing the "Check for updates" command in Mozart 14.0.5 revealed problems getting the new version information from the internet. A previously cached version of file which contains that data was obtained, and of course that indicated that everything was up to date.
     
    This version tries harder to avoid finding cached data, but of course this will only become apparent when the next service pack is available.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.7

5 July 2018

  • Thanks to Larry Rice for noticing that the font sizes are not always listed in order in the Music Font Size dialogue box. This is now fixed.
  • Thanks to Roger Prowse for finding that, in beamed groups, grace note stems (when upward) were not correctly drawn. This is now fixed.
  • Mozart 14 is more sensitive to unmatched hairpin ends than earlier versions. So now it checks for them and removes any when loading a file from an older version (where had they been inadvertantly left, they would have been invisible).
  • Fitting music to the current printer page did not work correctly in few cases. Thanks to Keith Williamson for providing an example. This is now improved.
  • Thanks to Chris Beeson for observing that entering an extra barline would not cause notes, rests, or even ghosts in parallel parts to split in order to accommodate it. The behaviour of previous versions is now restored.
  • Thanks also to Chris Beeson for suggesting that Chord names and Chord shapes should be left-right pullable with Allt+left/right. This is now implemented. (Use it sparingly!!!)

MOZART 14 version 14.0.5

21 June 2018

  • Help: Following requests on the chat group some small improvements have been made to the help system.
  • Inserting notes: Thanks to Barry Brooks for promptly reporting a bad problem with inserting notes into an empty bar. This is a bug which was introduced in Service Pack 14.0.4 - a side effect of one of the fixes. I hate it when that happens. It is now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.4

17 June 2018

  • Caret movement: Thanks to Cindy Pedder for pointing out that Ctrl+Spacebar didn't stop the caret moving on after the note was entered. This is now fixed.
  • Infelicitous attachments: Thanks also to Cindy for finding that a text item can unintentionally be attached to the end-of-tune marker. This is now prevented.
  • Following on: attempting to attach other items to the end-of-tune marker caused problems which have now been fixed.
  • Pauses on a conductor stave: Thanks to Mitch Park for reporting problems with pauses on the conductor stave. These are now fixed.
  • Orphaned hairpin ends: Thanks to Clive Longhurst for providing a score in which an orphan start-of-hairpin caused problems, especially in panoramic view. Failsafe code has now been introduced to stop this happening.
  • Status bar mix-up: Thanks to John Ryle for discovering that the caret pitch names on the status bar were not always correct. This is now fixed.
  • Pasting at the end: Thanks to Dan Schultz for managing to copy and paste at the end, in a way which encountered a problem. This was difficult to reproduce and it ony seems to have happened under very specific circumstances which were difficult to isolate. But I believe it is fixed now.
  • Landscape/portrait problems: Thanks to J S Pooh for noticing an infelicity in the Page Setup dialogue when switching between landscape and portrait orientations. This is now fixed.
  • Cue note spacing: The standard horizontal spacing of cue notes was the same as that of normal notes. This was an oversight. It is now corrected.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.3

23 May 2018

  • Deleting bars: Thanks to John Snyder for providing an example where deleting a bar (with the music justified in "publish mode) caused the program to hang. This is now fixed.
  • Rendering of hairpins: John's file also illustrated some infelicitous drawing when the end of a hairpin is attached to a line-change barline. This is now fixed too.
  • Rendering of brackets: And while we're at it, the same problem is headed off for other passages (8va, guitar barré, etc) marked with extended brackets over the music.
  • Rendering of multi-bar rests: The criterion for allowing the bar count to be included in line with a multibar-rest has been relaxed. This can now happen with slightly shorter rests.
  • The general emergency fix-up command (Ctrl+F5) was having problems with multi-bar rests in prallel parts. This is now fixed.
  • Reading old files: Thanks Jake Moskowitz for reporting that some old Mozart files were causing problems, and refusing to be read in. This is now fixed.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.2

16 May 2018

  • Chord names: Thanks to Chris Beeson for noticing that chord names were still incorrectly presented when a capo was in use. This is definitely fixed now.
  • Lyric line depth: Thanks to Ken Schweim for pointing out problems changing the lyric line depth without changing the lyric font size. This is now thoroughly overhauled in the Layout Editor.
  • Spacing of time signature changes: Thanks to Jeroen Neve for noticing that importing music from XML didn't space complex repeat barlines with time signatures correctly. This is now fixed.
  • Short hairpins: Thanks to Leward Fluty for discussions on when Mozart refuses to draw a dynamic at the end of a very short hairpin. He has convinced us that Mozart is being a bit sniffy about this (our description, not his!) and the condition is henceforth removed: Mozart will always draw dynamics on hairpins when you ask for them, and if it looks awful on ashort one, it is your responsibility not to ask for it.

MOZART 14 version 14.0.1

9 May 2018

  • Copyright text field: Thanks to Gregg Dunn for noticing that the copyright text field is not imported from older Mozart files. This is now fixed.
  • Chord names: Thanks to Richard Ball for noticing that chord names with explicit bass notes were not printing properly. This too is now fixed.
  • Custom keyboard shortcuts: Thanks to Cindy Pedder for finding that she couldn't set a keyboard shortcut when she should have been able to. It turns out that this is the lid of a can of worms: all sorts of strange things are happening with that dialogue box. But it is in the Microsoft Foundation Class library, which limits debugging possibilities. Some fixes have been applied, which may or may not solve the problem. It's probably time to bite the bullet and replace the library dialogue with a mozart-specific one, but this will take longer.
  • Using a capo: Thanks to Chris Beeson for noticing that chord names were incorrectly presented when a capo was in use. This is now fixed.
  • Short hairpins: Thanks to Leward Fluty for pointing out problems inserting a hairpin spanning a single note. This is now fixed. Also the minimum length of a hairpin you can enter has been reduced from 4 notewidths to 2. Very short ones can look pretty awful, but now, at least you have more choice!
  • Miscellaneous: Some of the detailed properties of the mozart.exe file were inacurately attibuted to the mozartReader. This is now fixed too.

 

 

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