The "floating" toolbar is very nice, and while it has a few eccentric behaviors on the Mac with respect to not disappearing so nicely (which is corrected by clicking two times on the lower word "Text" at the far-left of the toolbar and then hitting the Escape ["Esc'] key), so what . . .
So what! It gets it out of the way when there is no need for it, and it puts it generally where you want it when you need it . . .
I understand and support the need for shortcuts, hot keys, and so forth, and they are important, so I am
not suggesting that everyone should be a mouser, but for mousers the general idea is to do as much as possible with the mouse, since it tends to be easier and faster, although folks who are skilled in doing stuff with keyboards can do some amazing things very quickly . . .
Overall, my perspective is influenced by decades of working in software development, and from this perspective it is important to understand that there is a real and tangible cost for everything that happens in an application . . .
Software development resources are not infinite, so it is very important to use software developers wisely, which from my perspective as a composer and musician maps to my vote being cast for focusing the Notion software engineers on adding new stuff that expands what I can do with music notation, composing, and generating music . . .
The Notion software architects, designers, and engineers could devote several weeks to making it possible for customers to park the toolbar in a variety of locations, but at the end of the effort Notion will not do anything more than it already does in a practical way, which from my perspective makes it a frivolous "bell and whistle" more than anything else . . .
In contrast, the same folks could devote several weeks to devising a way to provide some type of database for commonly used musical phrases (arpeggios, scales, ornaments, and so forth and so on) . . .
Or they could devise a way to convert selected notes from one of the seven musical modes to another, where for example one could select some number of measures of notes and then have it transformed automatically from Dorian to Mixolydian or from Phrygian to Locrian . . .
Melodyne Editor (Celomony) does this, as well as a lot of other types of scales and whatever, so it is not such an off-the-wall thing to do . . .
You might have the foundation for a nice melody but perhaps it does not convey the precise mood that you desire in Ionian mode, but it might if you changed it to Aeolian mode . . .
Currently, as best as I can determine, you can change the key and mode for one or more clefs, but it keeps the notes the same by changing the way the note is represented (flat, sharp, or whatever) rather than actually changing the mode, itself . . .
After you change the key or mode, newly entered notes are in the new key or mode, but existing notes are the way they were (albeit adjusted to be consistent with the new key and mode with respect to preserving the pitch by adjusting sharps, flats, naturals, and whatever) . . .
In contrast, with the Melodyne Editor, changing the key, mode, or scale causes the original notes to be altered to fit the new key, mode, or scale, which is quite fascinating, because you can sing or play something in C Major; get it into the Melodyne Editor; and then experiment with hearing how it sounds if was in C Natural Minor or whatever, since for example it actually changes E to E minor by altering the pitch of the note, which can be controlled very precisely with respect to snapping to reference pitch, formants, and a lot of other stuff . . .
As best as I have been able to determine so far, it appears that Notion 3 does
not do this . . .
Yet, I think that there are rules for doing it logically, since someone who understands music theory intimately should be able to use a set of clearly defined rules to transform a song in C Major to C Minor or whatever, which if I understand everything correctly is not a big deal . . .
The notes are there, and they are correct for the mode or scale, so transforming from one mode or scale to another should be a simple one-to-one mapping, where for a C Major to C Minor transformation, E becomes E♭; A become A♭; and B becomes B♭ . . .
If a specific note has been altered by making it flat, sharp, or natural, then for those notes it becomes a bit more complex, but there probably is a sensible algorithm for doing it, where one option might be to transform everything arbitrarily, with an example being transforming a scale in C Major that was arbitrarily made Lydian by altering the sign of the notes to C Lydian simply by removing all the signs, since the pitches of the scale already were Lydian, so transforming them to Lydian just maps to removing all the signs . . .
And there probably are other options that make sense, but for the most part if one avoids adding flats, sharps, and naturals, then transforming from one mode to another does not require adding flats, sharps, and naturals, since all that stuff is part of the key signature . . .
In other words, a C Major or C Ionian scale looks the same as a C Dorian or C Phrygian scale, but the three scales sound different, because the notes actually change . . .
For example, if you were curious to hear how "Blue Jay Way" (Beatles) would sound if it were Phrygian rather than Lydian, then you could enter the notes as they were originally but do a transformation after the fact without actually needing to know how Phrygian differs from Lydian . . .
[
NOTE: This is the YouTube music video for "Blue Jay Way" (Beatles) . . . ]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNLcXj5yR68I would rather have the Notion software developers focus on stuff like this than on adding more "bells and whistles" to the user interface, for sure . . .
For sure!