Notation & Editing
The Write activity is the main notation workspace. Use note input for new music, then return to normal mode to select existing material and apply commands, palettes, or inspector changes.
Select musical material
- Click a note or notation item to select it.
- Shift-click extends the selection through the score.
- Ctrl-click toggles individual items.
- Click empty staff space to select a measure.
Ctrl+Aselects all applicable material.
Arrow keys move the selection by event or staff. Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right
jump by measure; Home and End move to the first or last event in the
measure. Alt+Left and Alt+Right cycle through annotations attached to the
current event. Hold Shift with an arrow to extend the selection by event or
staff.
Apply common edits
The fastest commands act directly on the selection:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
S |
Toggle a slur |
T |
Toggle a tie to the next note |
F |
Flip direction or above/below placement |
R |
Repeat the selection immediately after itself |
. |
Toggle an augmentation dot |
Shift+T |
Set tempo at the selection |
Shift+X |
Add staff text |
Delete |
Replace selected rhythmic events with rests |
Pitch transposition follows one vertical-arrow grammar in normal and note-input modes:
| Key | Transposition |
|---|---|
Alt+↑ / Alt+↓ |
Diatonic step |
Alt+Shift+↑ / Alt+Shift+↓ |
Chromatic step (semitone) |
Ctrl+Alt+↑ / Ctrl+Alt+↓ |
Octave |
Use Edit → Transpose Selection when you need a named interval or more control than the direct arrow-key transposition commands.
Spread chords across staves
Explode and reduce redistribute copied music at a destination without changing the source.
| Command | Key | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Edit → Explode to Staves | — | Fans copied pitches out from the selected destination, top note on top staff |
| Edit → Reduce to Staff | — | Merges copied staves into chords on the selected destination staff |
| Edit → Select Top Note of Chords | — | Narrows the selection to the highest notehead of every selected chord |
| Edit → Select Bottom Note of Chords | — | Narrows the selection to the lowest notehead of every selected chord |
| Edit → Paste and Merge | Ctrl+Shift+V |
Pastes pitches into the destination chords rather than replacing them |
To use either command:
- Select the source music and copy it.
- Select the note, rest, rhythmic position, or measure where the result should begin.
- Choose Explode to Staves or Reduce to Staff from the Edit menu.
Every command in this section is also available from the jump bar (Ctrl+Space)
and from the right-click menu on the score. Right-clicking a note that isn't
already selected selects it first; right-clicking inside an existing selection
keeps that selection, so the command applies to everything you highlighted.
Reduce pools simultaneous pitches from all copied staves and writes them as chords on one destination staff. Explode works downward from the destination: it uses as many staves as the tallest copied chord needs. Select an explicit multi-staff destination range to choose a different staff count. When a chord has more pitches than the destination has staves, the surplus stacks on the last staff; when it has fewer, the leftover staves get rests.
Both commands use the normal paste behavior for destination placement, clefs, transposition, dynamics, ties, voices, and condensed-score writeback.
Expression travels with the music. Articulations, fermatas, and lyrics on a copied chord are reproduced on every staff the chord is exploded onto, and dynamics are written to all of them, so the exploded lines phrase and balance the way the chord did. Reduce is the mirror image: the destination chord absorbs the articulations of every line feeding it, and duplicate dynamics collapse into one. Where the sources disagree at the same moment — two different dynamics, or a marking present on one staff only — the topmost copied staff wins.
Tuplets are redistributed as a unit: each destination staff receives its own copy of the tuplet, keeping the ratio, bracket, and number settings of the original. A staff that ends up with nothing to play inside a tuplet gets an ordinary rest for that span rather than a bracket over rests.
The selection and paste commands cover the manual case. Select the top note of a line, cut it, then paste it into another staff to move one voice by hand; use Paste and Merge to fold a line back into chords that already exist.
[!NOTE] Tremolos and grace notes cannot be redistributed yet. Both commands leave the score unchanged and report the limitation instead.
Tuplets have to line up across the copied staves. A triplet sounding against a different rhythm, or against a different tuplet ratio, has no correct re-notation, so both commands refuse rather than re-bar the music.
Staves carrying more than one voice are not supported yet: rather than rewrite the wrong voice, both commands refuse the whole operation and say so.
Palettes and radial menus
The left panel contains notation palettes and clipboard history. Palettes are useful when you want to browse available symbols; radial menus are faster once you know the category shortcut.
| Shortcut | Category |
|---|---|
Shift+A |
Articulations |
Shift+B |
Barlines |
Shift+C |
Clefs |
Shift+D |
Dynamics |
Shift+E |
Ornaments and expressions |
Shift+F |
Fingerings |
Shift+H |
Breath marks and fermatas |
Shift+M |
Time signatures |
Shift+R |
Repeats |
Shift+3 |
Tuplets |
Shift+5 |
Key signatures |
Choose an item from a radial menu to apply it to the current selection. The same commands remain available from the palettes when you prefer a persistent visual list.
The time-signature menu accepts an optional beat grouping after the meter.
Enter 5/8 32, 5/8 3+2, or 5/8 3,2 for 5/8 grouped 3+2. Compact
groupings use one digit per group; use + or , when a group has more than
one digit. Beat groups must add up to the meter numerator. Entering only 5/8
uses the document's automatic grouping, and entering the current conventional
grouping also normalizes back to Automatic.
The Text palette also contains chord-symbol entry and lyric-line controls. See Chord Symbols for entering harmony and Lyrics for syllable entry, melismas, labels, languages, and line ordering.
Inspector
The right inspector changes properties of the selected item. The available controls depend on what is selected: notes expose pitch and notation properties, while lyrics, slurs, barlines, text, and other annotations expose their own specialized controls. Selecting a lyric syllable lets you correct its text, word position, or lyric line without changing its note.
Use direct shortcuts for frequent actions and the inspector for precise or less common properties. Both edit the same MNX document and participate in undo and redo.
Clipboard history
Copy and paste use MNX-aware score fragments rather than pixels. The History tab in the left panel retains recent copied fragments and shows a musical preview, making it useful when reusing several passages.
Jump bar
Press Ctrl+Space to open the jump bar. It can:
- run editor commands;
- switch activities such as Setup, Play, Picture, or Publish;
- jump to a measure or rehearsal mark;
- switch between score and instrumental-part views;
- open a specific Settings category or Help.
Type a few characters to filter the list, use the arrow keys to choose a
result, and press Enter. For direct navigation, type m12 or b12 for
measure 12, or rA for rehearsal mark A.
For entering new notes, see Note Entry. For entering words under notes, see Lyrics. For the complete binding list, see Keyboard & Mouse.