372: Sibelius 3 - list of bugs fixed

The following is a list of the main bugs and problems reported by users that have been fixed in Sibelius 3. This list is not completely comprehensive; there are dozens of smaller issues not listed here.

Arrange

• When editing an Arrange style, it was possible to set the Max. lines and Max. voices parameters to 0, which could lead to a crash when using that Arrange style. This problem is now fixed.

Beams

• When editing the note value of a note at the start of a bar, Sibelius no longer incorrectly beams it to notes at the end of the previous bar.
• The behavior of groups of four eighth notes (quavers) in simple time signatures (e.g. 2/2, 4/4, etc.) is much improved: beam groups are correctly broken when other note values occur in the group, or when tuplets occur in the group.
• When using cross-staff beaming, unnecessary accidentals would sometimes appear attached to the notes crossed to the staff above or below; it is now possible to hide these by selecting them and choosing Edit > Hide or Show > Hide (shortcut Ctrl+Shift+H or Shift-Command-H)
• It is now possible to start a beamed group with a rest; this behaviour is enabled by default in all new scores, but is disabled by default in existing scores. To enable the behaviour in existing scores, choose House Style  Engraving Rules, switch to the Notes 2 page, and switch on Allow beams after rests.
• Beaming that has been changed from the default settings by the user is now correctly retained when music is copied in the same score.
• User-edited beaming is no longer lost when repitching existing music.

Chord diagrams (guitar frames)

• Double-digit fret numbers at the right of chord diagrams (e.g. 10fr.) are now correctly positioned a little further away from the right-hand side of the diagram, to avoid any possible collisions with dots on the rightmost string.
• Placement of barres above chord diagrams has been improved: if no O or X is present underneath the barre, it is now placed as close as possible to the top line of the diagram.

Files

• Save As now correctly defaults to the same location as the score’s original save location.

Filters and find

• When filtering at high zoom levels (typically >150%) the screen no longer jumps so that the selection ends up out of view. After a filter operation, the score will only move if there are items selected and none of those items are in view, in which case the score is scrolled to the first selected item.

Flexi-time

• Problems with the metronome click in compound time signatures (e.g. 6/8, 12/8) are now fixed.

Grace notes

• Deleting one notehead from a chord of grace notes, or deleting an accidental or articulation, no longer causes the entire chord to be deleted.

Guitar tab

• Articulations are now correctly centered above numbers on guitar tab staves.
• Lute tablature no longer uses the letter ‘j’ (so notes go from ‘i’ to ‘k’). Note that this change will affect existing scores: if you have previously corrected your tab by transposing all notes higher than the ninth fret by a semitone, you will need to transpose them back for them to appear correctly (they will also now play back correctly).
• Ties on tab staff types that show rhythms are now positioned much better than previously.

Highlights

• Selecting a passage and choosing Create > Highlight now creates the highlight in the right place; previously it would always start after the first note in the selection.

Importing graphics files

• Imported graphics can now safely be attached to small staves.

Key signatures

• Deleting the music in a bar, or copying into the bar before a key change no longer also deletes the key change from that staff or staves.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Symbols for keys specific to Mac keyboards now correctly appear in the Sibelius > Preferences > Menus and Shortcuts dialog, which replaces the old Keyboard Shortcuts dialog (Mac OS X only).

Layout and formatting

• Problems with staff margins not being reset under certain circumstances (e.g. editing instrument names, changing staff size, importing MIDI files, etc.) are now fixed.

Lines

• It is now possible to extend/retract lines (including slurs) in the last bar of the score using space/Shift-space.
• It is no longer possible to delete a line style that is in use in the score.

Look and feel

• All Sibelius dialogs now open centered on the screen (N.B. that system-created dialogs such as File  Open still open in the default position as dictated by the operating system).
• Problems with the screen jumping – e.g. when using the arrow keys to move between notes, when deleting objects, hiding staves, adding bars to the end of the score, etc. – have been fixed.
• Using the Home/End keys to move left and right through the score now behaves more intelligently: if a the whole page width is in view, hitting Home/End will move the score left/right a page at a time; if less than the whole page width is in view, hitting Home/End moves the score left/right a screenful at a time (as before).
• Problems with changed values in dialogs not being accepted by the program if the user hit the Return or Enter keys to close the dialog rather than clicking the OK button have been fixed (Mac only).

Lyrics

• Extending lyric (melisma) lines by hitting space no longer causes the lyric to revert to its default vertical position.
• Single-letter lyrics consisting of accented characters (e.g. ‘à’ or ‘é’) no longer disappear when advancing to the next note.
• Problems with lyric items containing new line characters (i.e. a lyric item in which the user has hit Return to add a new line) having incorrect click areas for selection and being poorly aligned are now fixed.

Noteheads

• It is no longer possible to delete a notehead type from the House Style  Edit Noteheads dialog if that notehead type or another one higher in the list (i.e. with a higher Shift+Alt+num shortcut) is in use; this could previously lead to a crash.
• It is now necessary for all notehead types to have unique names; if you try and enter a duplicate one, Sibelius will not allow it.

Note input

• When using step-time input, if the user changes the enharmonic spelling of a note, Sibelius now correctly uses that spelling for further identical pitches in the same bar.

Note spacing

• Note spacing has been completely revamped in Sibelius 3, solving many problem cases that appeared in earlier versions.

Noteheads

• The notehead for the open hi-hat on the standard drum set staff type is now a diamond (it was previously a cross, the same as the notehead for the closed hi-hat).

Playback

• The message “It looks like your MIDI devices have changed...” no longer appears every time Sibelius is started on Mac OS X (Mac OS X only).
• QuickTime playback on dual-processor Macs running Mac OS 10.2.3 or later is no longer compromized by notes holding on or being cut off early (Mac OS X only).
• Playback of triplet tremolos is now correct (e.g. a dotted quarter with a single tremolo slash written in a triplet now plays three triplet eighth notes, as it should).
• Playback of tremolos improved; they were typically playing one note too many by default.
• End repeat barlines in scores with multiple movements/sections/pieces now correctly repeat back to the last bar with the Section end flag set, rather than the very beginning of the score.
• Nested repeat barlines no longer cause playback to go into an infinite loop.
• Glissando playback has been improved: gliss. lines across barlines now play correctly; gliss. lines with no note directly after the right-hand end of the line also now play back; gliss. lines on tied notes now play correctly.
• Trills on tied notes that cross barlines no longer cause a slight pause or “hiccup” in playback.
• Playback of trills no longer has a slight delay at the start of the trilled note.
• Sibelius no longer sends program/bank change messages under any circumstances if the Send program changes option in the Play > Playback Options dialog is switched off.

Playback dictionary

• Words in the playback dictionary can now be made case insensitive (e.g. ‘swing’, ‘Swing’ and ‘SWING’ are all equivalent, and there’s no need to define them all separately in the dictionary, as before).

Printing

• Hidden slurs no longer appear on printouts (Mac OS 9 only).

Properties

• Certain editing operations on passages (e.g. changing the noteheads of all the notes in a staff) were very slow and may have caused Sibelius to stop responding for a few seconds; this is now fixed.
• Problems with the Bar Rest and Noteheads buttons in the Properties window stopping working on Mac OS X have been resolved by changing the buttons into drop-down lists, just as they are in the Windows version of Sibelius (Mac OS X only).
• Properties/Keypad windows no longer prone to disappearing when switching between Sibelius and other applications, or restoring Sibelius from the dock (Mac OS X only).
• Changes to house style elements (e.g. text styles, notehead types, staff types, etc.) are now immediately reflected in the relevant places in the Properties window.
• The Keypad and Properties windows no longer flicker during certain editing operations (e.g. adjusting the pitch of a bar full of notes using the arrow keys, or running a plug-in that creates a lot of notes).

Saving graphics files

• When saving graphics in the BMP, EMF and PICT formats using the Selected systems only option, the exported graphics files are now correctly clipped to the minimum size necessary to include all the selected systems (previously they were exported at the size of a whole page).
• Problems with ties over page breaks flipping in exported EPS files have been eased.
• Problems with guitar tab notes being incorrectly positioned, and the white area behind them being the wrong size, have been solved (Mac only).

Saving MIDI files

• Repeats are now correctly rendered in MIDI files (i.e. identically to how they are rendered when playing back in Sibelius itself, which was not previously the case).
• Pick-up (upbeat) bars are now correctly exported in MIDI files; Sibelius “pads out” the initial pick-up bar to create a “whole” bar of the correct length.
• If staves are muted in the Mixer window in Sibelius, they are now correctly suppressed in exported MIDI files.

Slurs

• When magnetic slurs flip across page breaks, it is now possible to fix this by selecting the second half of the slur and flipping it independently of the first half of the slur.
• Extending the right-hand end of a line by hitting space no longer causes the line to revert to its default vertical position.
• The appearance of dashed and dotted slurs is much improved.

Selections and passages

• Hitting R to copy a selected passage no longer resets lines, text and other objects to their default positions in the copied bar.
• When copying multiple selections of text objects (e.g. dynamics on two staves), it was possible for extra copies of these objects to appear, which could eventually lead to a crash; this is now fixed.

Staves

• If the size of the small staff on the Staves page of the House Style  Engraving Rules dialog was set to 0%, Sibelius would crash; this is now fixed.
• Nameless staves are now listed by their instrument type in the Layout  Show Empty Staves dialog (previously they were simply listed as blank rows).

Timecode

• The timecode display on the toolbar during playback, and the timecode printed above barlines in the score, now correctly take repeats into account when calculating the duration of the score.
• Timecode printed above barlines is no longer boxed (boxed timecode is generally reserved for “hit points”).

Time signatures

• The Start with bar of length option in the Create  Time Signature dialog (and the New Score dialog) is no longer “sticky”.
• Now possible to create time signatures of n/1 in the Mac version (Mac only).
• The numerator combo box in the Create  Time Signature dialog now limits input to a maximum of 126, which is the largest time signature that Sibelius can create.