[MU4 Issue] Keyboard shortcut consistency suggestion: alt+shift+arrow-key

[WillyWonksters]

The left/right keys move from chord/note to chord/note. Shift+left/right performs the same movement but also selects those chords/notes.
Since Alt+arrow-key also moves up/down across the individual notes in a chord, shouldn’t alt+shift+arrow-key also select those individual notes?

Platform information
MuseScore 4.0.0 OS: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 4.0.0-2059995262, revision: github-musescore-musescore-cafefd7

[MarcSabatella]

There's something logical about this to be sure, but - the way Shift+Left/Right work, it's always about a range selection, and since each press of Left or Right by definition moves the cursor to a different time position, each press of Shift+Left/Right will always change an endpoint of the range. That wouldn't be true for Alt+Shfit+Left/Right. You might have a range selected and then Alt+Right moves the selection to a hairpin - what would that mean? Or, you might be moving from note to note within a single chord which doesn't change the time position, so this would have no effect on the range endpoints.

But, one thing this does bring up is the idea that making a list selection - normally by Ctrl+clicking individual elements that may or may not be contiguous - is difficult or impossible to do by keyboard. That's because any attempt to navigate to another element after selecting one loses the original selection, because selection is navigation. Meaning, list selections are pretty much not accessible to blind users (except to the extent you can create them by right-click & the Select menu).

But, what if Alt+Shift+Left/Right (or some other shortcut) moved the "selection cursor" but left the existing selection alone otherwise? So if you are currently on an element, then you press Alt+Shift+Right, it would leave that element selected and then also select the next element. From there, Alt+Right could navigate while leaving that first element selected. Then the next Alt+Shift+Right would add the current element to the list selection and move the cursor again, etc. So Alt+Shfit+Right would basically be the equivalent of "Ctrl+click plus select next element as the cursor", Alt+right would always move the active element but leave anything else that was previously selected.

Sounds complicated, I know, but in my imagination, it feelsrelatively natural, and would be one solution to a problem I don't think anyone has really thought much about solving before.

[shoogle]

@MarcSabatella, I agree: we can't change range selections in the way the OP suggested but we should make list selections accessible via the keyboard. As you said, we need a shortcut that changes the current item without changing the selection state. In File Explorer this is done using Ctrl and the arrow keys. You can then use Ctrl+Spacebar to select or deselect multiple items.

• Current item - the item that represents the navigation position (i.e. has keyboard focus)
  • That's the 'Users' folder in the screenshot. (Notice the thin blue outline.)
• Selected item(s) - the item(s) that a subsequent action would be performed upon (e.g. modified or deleted).
  • In the screenshot, that's the three folders with the solid blue highlight.

Unfortunately we're already using Ctrl+arrow for other things in MuseScore, like changing the pitch by an octave or moving left or right by a full measure [1]. We can't use Ctrl+Alt+arrow because that's often used as a system shortcut to switch desktop or rotate the screen, so Alt+Shift+arrow might indeed be a good choice, although I was also considering using that for a different navigation command to go to the Next Chronological Element.

1. I think this shortcut was borrowed from text editors where Ctrl+arrow navigates by word or paragraph. The Score View in MuseScore is like a weird hybrid between an item view and a text editing region: sometimes you want one form of interaction, at other times you want the other form.

[WillyWonksters]

Ok great! list selection is exactly what I had in mind, I just didn't know the name. And yeah, the ctrl+spacebar solution would be great if only it didn't conflict with ctrl+arrow.

FYI to the curious: Ctrl+arrow also navigates by word in the browser and many other places too, while ctrl+shift+arrow selects text by word.

[Magnus26]

FYI to the curious: Ctrl+arrow also navigates by word in the browser and many other places too, while ctrl+shift+arrow selects text by word.

Hello! Yes, Ctrl+arrow should move the cursor to the next or previous bar, or the staff above or below.

[Magnus26]

Unfortunately we're already using Ctrl+arrow for other things in MuseScore, like changing the pitch by an octave or moving left or right by a full measure [1]. We can't use Ctrl+Alt+arrow because that's often used as a system shortcut to switch desktop or rotate the screen, so Alt+Shift+arrow might indeed be a good choice, although I was also considering using that for a different navigation command to go to the Next Chronological Element.

1. I think this shortcut was borrowed from text editors where Ctrl+arrow navigates by word or paragraph. The Score View in MuseScore is like a weird hybrid between an item view and a text editing region: sometimes you want one form of interaction, at other times you want the other form.

Yes, it is this weird hybrid that I think MuseScore Studio should get away from and instead make it as close as possible to a word processor, a program type that often beginners are already used to. Some twenty years ago I suggested to the Sibelius development team that arrows alone should only be used to move the cursor and not move objects, and that Alt+arrow should be used for the latter, something I believe is now followed in Dorico. Therefore I think it is bad to have Ctrl+uparrow move a note. The modifier keys should as much as possible be connected to one or a few special meanings: Ctrl does except "control" often mean "much"; Alt does except "alternative" mean "move" (at least in Dorico), and Meta (Windows) often means "very much". Ctrl+Alt could then mean "move much", and I believe it is possible also in Windows to make Ctrl+Alt+arrow available for this, in that case with the program Power Toys.