Tuplets

[Ronbo617]

Anyone having trouble getting tuplets into the staff?

I am. Grrr.

[fabiolcati]

What kind trouble?

[Surfwhammy]

Anyone having trouble getting tuplets into the staff?

I am. Grrr.

On the Mac, the palette tool for tuplets does not appear to work at all, but so what . . .

So what!

This is the easy way to make tuplets:

(1) Enter the notes for the tuplet, where for example you might enter three 1/8th notes . . .

(2) Select the notes that you just entered for the tuplet . . .

(3) Right click on the selected tuplet notes and then select the "Tuplets" item, which creates a fly-out submenu where you can select "Make Tuplet", "Custom Tuplet", or "Remove Tuplet" . . .

If you want a standard three-note two-beat tuplet, then use the "Make Tuplet" option, but if you want to create a custom tuplet (for example, five notes but three beats), then select "Custom Tuplet", and to remove a tuplet select "Remove Tuplet" . . .

OBSERVATIONS

As a general rule, context menus should be replicated in the menuing system, which is not the case with NOTION 3 on the Mac . . .

There are "Edit" and "Tools" menus for NOTION 3 on the Mac, but when three notes are selected there is no "Tuplet" menu item under the "Edit" or "Tools" menus . . .

However, there are keyboard shortcuts for doing tuplets, and it is very easy to do tuplets using a two-button mouse (left-click and right-click buttons) like the Apple Mighty Mouse and Apple Magic Mouse . . .

Actually, a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 Mouse is better, but if you want to be exclusively Mac, then the Apple Magic Mouse probably is the best option, although I have not tried an Apple Magic Mouse, yet . . .



Magic Mouse (Apple)

The Apple Mighty Mouse is nice, but it has a tiny "scroll pea" that inevitably gets clogged and is impossible to clean, so after a while it degrades to a two-button mouse with no scrolling capability, but the Apple Magic Mouse looks to solve this problem, which tends to suggest that Jonathan Ive was involved in the design . . .

For reference, Jonathan Ive (Apple) is the Henry Dreyfuss of the 21st century . . .

Henry Dreyfuss (wikipedia)

Jonathan Ive (wikipedia)

Historically, Apple has been pretty weird about mice, and for a long time they only had a one-button mouse, which is just stupid . . .

It is possible that the Apple Magic Mouse solves all the problems, but until I get one and use if for a while, all I can do is guess . . .

One of the things that Microsoft did best for a while was mice, and I really like the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 (circa 2003), which works nicely on the Mac . . .

[NOTE: I got a case of them at the time, since I really like this particular mouse, so I have plenty of spares . . . ]


Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 ~ circa 2003

Of course, Microsoft stopped making this mouse and later "upgraded" it with a piece of junk design, but this is the way it works in Redmond a lot of the time . . .

Regarding design, my general perspective is that one should be able to do everything with a mouse, but it also should be possible to do everything with a keyboard, so I like to see programs that provide this duality or whatever one wants to call it . . .

I am not a big fan of keyboard shortcuts and hot keys, since (a) it is too much stuff to remember and (b) there is no general consistency among applications, but I use the cut, copy, and paste keyboard hot keys, as well as the "select all" hot key, which on the Mac is "Command + A", where "Command" on the Mac is like "Alt" in the Windows universe . . .

Summarizing, doing tuplets is easy in NOTION 3, and you can do duplets, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets, septuplets, octuplets, and nonuplets, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!