Notation Composer Version History

Changes to Notation Composer: most recent first

Changes 2.3.2 to 2.4.2 (9 May 2008)

Playback. Fix bug: After many starts and stops of playback, and jumps via mouse clicks to other locations in the score during playback, Composer might crash.
Split Hands and Split Voices commands. Fix bug: If after using the Split Hands or Split Voices, you then use the Undo command, then other attempts to use the Split Hands and Split Voices commands and some other global staff editing commands might result in a crash.
Saving a MIDI File. After opening either a MIDI file or a Notation .not file, if you wish to save the song as a MIDI (or Karaoke) file, then use the new Export as MIDI File command (or Export as Karaoke File) command in the File menu. The File / Save As command no longer has an option for saving a MIDI or Karaoke file. Instead use the Export command. This change is intended to help users understand that a MIDI or Karaoke file is "foreign", and so must be "exported" rather than "saved". In exporting a MIDI or Karaoke file, notation symbols (such as dynamic marks, accent marks, and phrase marks) and page formatting information will be lost. You should use the File / Save command to save the song in the Notation .not file format, if you wish to preserve notation symbols and page formatting information.
Staff Setup. Enhancement: It is now possible to dynamically change the instrument sound for a staff during playback. Fix bug: Deleting a drum staff sometimes resulted in a crash.
Note editing. Fix bug: When the Accent or Beam Palette was active, and a note was selected, and then the Notes and Rest tab was selected, Composer unexpectedly unselected the note and switched to Add Note Mode.
Clipboard. Fix bugs: (1) The Edit / Paste Special / Insert New Measures command failed if the destination region started at the first measure. (2) The Edit / Paste Special / Insert New Measures command failed on the second attempt to insert measures at the end of the score.
Mouse behavior. Fix bug: Sometimes the mouse cursor disappeared.
Computer (CPU) time. Fix bug: While Composer was apparently doing nothing, sometimes it was unnecessarily consuming computer (CPU) time.
Playback. Fix bug: As the blue vertical playback cursor line advances during playback, sometimes it left some of the notes, lyrics, and chord names partially displayed in red. Also, the green playback position arrow was sometimes repeatedly drawn.
Transpose. Fix bug: The Help button in the Staff / Transpose wizard did not work.
Parts. Fix bug: The Help button in the Prepare Part Wizard did not work.
Chord names. Fix bugs: Setting the style for diminished chord from Cdim to Co did not work. Also, the "o" in the Co diminished chord name was displayed too small.
Rhythm notation. Fix bug: When the first member of a triplet was tied to the left, and the rest of the triplet was empty, then the rhythm was poorly displayed.
Note ties. Fix bugs: (1) Adding a tie between two notes of the same pitch was sometimes awkward when the note had an accidental. (2) In Select Mode, clicking a note incorrectly switched to the Note Palette rather than remain at the Tie Palette.
Ornaments. Improve usability: When the Ornament Palette is active In Select Mode, clicking the note under an ornament now selects the note rather than ornament. Fix bugs: (1) Deleting the note under a mordent incorrectly left all of that ornament's performance notes in the score except the first deleted note, rather than deleting both the note and the entire ornament (mordent). (2) Deleting the top note of a downward arpeggio left unwanted noteheads displayed.
Note Editing Using Palette. Fix bug: In version 2.3.2, if you edit a note by using a button in the Note Palette, and leave the mouse on the button for more than a second, then Composer abnormally terminates.
Text Editing. Fix bug: In version 2.3.2, if you select text, and choose the Def(ault) button in the Text Palette, and choose Select All Parts in the dialog box, then Composer abnormally terminates when you exit the dialog box.
Repeats. Fix bug: In some cases, Composer did not correctly prepare repeats for playback, chord charts, or Save As MIDI File using the "write out repeats" option.

Changes 2.2 to 2.3.2 (14 February 2008)

Chord Chart. New feature: Guitarists use chord charts to play chords as they sing lyrics, or accompany the singing of a vocalist in the group. You can quickly prepare a chord chart, such as the one illustrated below, using the new Prepare Chord Chart command in the Part menu.
Note Editing. New feature: In Add Mode, the pitch of the to-be-added note is now reported in the status bar at the bottom of the window. New Behavior: The velocity for newly added notes is now 96 by default, rather than 64. Fix bugs: In Add Mode, the Right and Left Arrow keys incorrectly moved the to-be-added note pitch up a half-step while advancing to the next beat. The Split Melody and Accompaniment command failed if the staff had a pair of upper- and lower-voice notes sharing the same pitch and location.
General User Interface. Fix bug: Restarting the program incorrectly left the window as minimized if it had been minimized when last exited.
File Saving. Fix bugs: If a MIDI file was opened, the File Save command incorrectly resaved the file as a MIDI file rather than, by default, as a Notation .not file. The File Save As MIDI command incorrectly wrote out repeats and lyrics in the case where there was only one verse bounded by start and end repeat barlines. Under Windows Vista, the Setup / Associate command did not correctly associate or unassociate Composer as the program to automatically open MIDI .mid or Karaoke .kar files. Under Windows Vista, the File Open and Save commands did not correctly default to opening the Public directory, under which the Notation\Songs and Templates directories are kept.
Lyrics and Karaoke. New features: A new option in the Lyric menu and palette automatically adds Karaoke line breaks where there are punctuation marks, such as period (.) and comma (,). The Measure / Edit Repetition Instructions command now automatically counts lyric verses to determine how many times a repeat section should be repeated.
Meter. The meter dialog has been simplified.
Tempo. Fix bug: The option to adjust the tempo by a percentage did not work correctly for a region that did not start or end exactly at the location of an existing tempo change.
Playlist. Fix bug: The playlist incorrectly repeated playback of the last song in the list under certain circumstances.
Setup. Fix bug: If a different installation directory that the default was chosen by the user, the setup program incorrectly still installed some files and subdirectories under the default directory (\Program Files\Notation\Composer).
Chord Names. Fix bug: The Chord Name Display Styles command did not correctly save the user-specified default chord name display styles (such as Cmin versus Cm for minor chord).
Starting Composer. In certain cases, when you start Composer, its window would not be displayed; instead, Composer would be displayed only as an icon in the Windows taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
Opening Files. When you double-click a MIDI or Notation .not file name in Windows Explore, Composer is automatically launched, and that file is opened. However, if Composer was already running, then double-clicking a file name did not open it as a second song in Composer.
Undo Command. If the Undo command is used after adding an note or other symbol, then sometimes Composer's user interface would be disrupted, or an error message would be displayed, or sometimes Composer would even abort.
Closing Song Window. Fix bug: When you close the window of a song, if it is the last song window open, then Composer in some cases would abnormally terminate.
Note Loudness (Velocity Vectors). Fix bug: When the Note Loudness (velocity vectors) are shown, the cursor in the window correctly showed the velocity of a note when the cursor hovers over a note; however, when the cursor moved off the note, the cursor completely disappeared.
Importing MIDI File. Fix bug: One of the special options for importing MIDI files sometimes resulted in a failure to import the MIDI file under unusual conditions of rhythms in the MIDI file; the special option is the one that changes multiple-note chords to sequences of notes for instruments automatically identified, and then confirmed by the user, as being single melody note instruments, such as woodwind and brass.

Changes 2.1 to 2.2 (10 September 2007)

New Options tab. In previous versions of Notation Composer, the vertically oriented tab at the left side of the window displayed a list of all of the currently opened songs. In version 2.2, an additional Options tab is now displayed. The Options tab takes you back to Notation Composer's opening window, with the familiar options for Create New Song, Search the Internet for MIDI Files, and Open MIDI or Notation File on My Computer.
Region Select Mode. To the left of the Select Mode and Add Mode buttons in the main toolbar, there is now a new Region Select Mode button. When it is selected, you can then drag your mouse (hold down the left button key while moving the mouse) to select a region. Before version 2.2, it was necessary to hold down the CTRL key while dragging the mouse to select a region. Instead of clicking this new Region Selection Mode button, you can also double click the right mouse button anywhere in the score. (A single click of the right mouse button toggles between simple Select Mode and Add Mode.)
Add Note Mode. An annoyance has been fixed, where in Add Note Mode, the red to-be-added note got stuck in the score when one attempted to move the mouse outside of the score, such as to the staff control buttons on the left.
Prepare Fake Book and Sing-Along commands. These two commands now ignore any empty staves (with no notes) as candidates for the melody staff.
"Visual C++ Library runtime error" message. Fix bug. On some some systems, the Notation Composer reported this error message and aborted upon initial, or sometimes reported later during the session. This was related to unnecessary, frequent rewriting of the MidiDev.cfg file.
Performance. Fix bug: When Notation Composer was supposed to be inactive, it sometimes showed disk activity due to its unnecessarily rewriting the MidiDev.cfg (MIDI device configuration) file.
General user interface. Fix bug: A vertical scrollbar was unnecessarily displayed for a score displayed in Window View.
Page layout. Fix bugs: The Fixed Number of Bars Per Line option did not work. The Page Break option did not work. The Page Layout command in the Format menu was incorrectly disabled.
Online help. Fix bug: Options in the Help menu incorrectly invoked the Internet browser to display the online documentation, even when it was available in the help (.chm) file on your computer.
Practice feature. The minimum practice speed has been reduced from 25% of normal speed to 10%.
Slurs. Fix bugs: Slurs sometimes were incorrectly deleted when the Delete Measure command was used in other measures. In a region copy/paste operation, slurs from one measure past the end of the 'from' measures were incorrectly pasted to one measure past the end of the 'to' measures.
Warnings on Vista. Fix unwanted warnings when running Notation Composer on Windows Vista, that there is an invalid path for the MidiDev.cfg or MidiDev.cfg.tmp file.

Changes 2.0.3 to 2.1 (25 April 2007)

Setup: A completely new setup program that promises higher reliability.
Automatic Software Updates. New feature: Choose the Software Updates command in the Help menu, and Composer will visit Notation Software's web site to see if an update is available. If so, it will download and automatically install the update for you.
Windows Vista. Version 2.1 has been tested for Windows Vista.
Forward file compatibility for Notation .not files. If in a later version of Composer, such as 2.1.1 or 2.2, you save a Notation .not file, another Composer user running a prior version, such as 2.1, will still be able to open the Notation .not file. The only data that will be lost will be the new types of data that were introduced in the later version. (Versions of Composer prior to 2.1 will not be able to open files saved by 2.1 or later; but this is the last time there will be such a problem.)
Layout. New feature: the Layout tool now supports a fixed number of measures per line. This has been one of the most requested features, especially by jazz musicians. Fix bugs: In switching from Page Layout view to Window View or normal Page View, some layout objects incorrectly remained displayed in the window. Also, the "unfreeze layout" (Default) command incorrectly left some layout objects displayed in the window even though they were actually removed.
Chord names. New feature: For transposing instruments, chord names are automatically transposed.
Solo All Instruments. New feature: A new Solo All Instruments command in the Part menu turns on playback for the track(s) in the current part and mutes all of the other tracks. An alternative short-cut is "qsolo". Or even easier, just Shift+Click any staff Solo button.
Window View. In Window View, the vertical scrollbar correctly grows as you add notes and music symbols, so that the bottom-most staff is not partially hidden out of view.
Playback. If you change the default MIDI playback device, you now have the option to automatically reassign it to Notation .not files that were previously saved with track assignments to your old default MIDI playback device.
Accents. The accent mark tool in Add Mode now adds only one accent at a time. It was too confusing that it tried to support adding two accents with a single click.
Staff Setup. In the Staff Setup window, duplicate MIDI channel assignments are now highlighted in yellow only for staves assigned to the same MIDI device and channel. Fix bug: A warning for duplicate MIDI channels (displayed with a yellow background behind the channel number) was incorrectly reported for two staves assigned to different MIDI devices but using the same channel number.

First Recordare release 2.0.3 (5 February 2007)

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Last updated May 30, 2008.