Composer crashes when editing lyrics

[Sherry C]

Hi Dave,

Originally Posted by brukent

Hi: I just finished my 30 day trial of composer and am almost ready to buy. But I have two problems which I hope do not exist in the paid-for version.

Bad news first: if you had problems with the trial version, then it will be the same in the full version. The trial version's only limitation is the time period.

I started running NC on a MACBOOK running parallels. When I had problems, I switched to full pc mode using boot camp. Still had problems.

I imported a four part midi file ok and added lyrics both by typing and by pasting from a text file. But when I try to edit the lyrics eg shift right or insert, it works once or twice then crashes. After hours of fiddling I found I had to edit the text file (word or other) then paste the whole lyric in again.

Thanks for this report, as we only have a few folks who use our products on any kind of Mac, and all of them that I know of use Parallels. We don't test our products on Mac because we simply don't have the facilities to do that. This is one reason we have a fully functional trial version - so folks can try out our programs on their own setup and make sure that it will work before purchasing. I'm sorry that I don't have any advice to offer for fixing the problem. I've added "on Macbook" to the title of my reply, and perhaps any users who are running theirs on a Mac using either Parallels or BootCamp can offer suggestions.

The other issue is that in choral work we often tie together 2 or more notes that are different (slur) I get the message :cannot tie different notes".

I think what you're after is actually a slur, which is in the Expressions tab. Ties are for adjacent notes of the same pitch. Slurs are for adjacent notes of different pitch, and where you want to indicate that there is no performance break for the musicians who will be performing the piece. I'm noting for our future reference in our task database that we should make Composer smarter regarding this usability issue (ties versus slurs).

Finally I cannot find the pause symbol. (half circle with dot)

Fermatas (both up and down) are in the Text tab, and can be inserted using the Symbols button (last one in the Text palette). Click the button, then click in the score where you want to enter the symbol. A grid will come up that allows you to choose the symbol you want.

ttfn,
Sherry