Beam Highlight color

I really appreciate the updates in the new version (slurs, cres/dim) but was bummed out to discover that one of my pet peeves still exists: the beam on beamed notes does not accept the highlight color. I use highlight color all the time for optional notes in salsa charts. It is a small problem, but one that puzzles me as to why the beam itself would remain the default color.

Greg Smith

Yes - I use light grey for cued parts as my work-around for small notes. The players have learned to live with black beams!

I think it happens because the beams are drawn as graphics, rather than being sourced from a font.

If you put your notes on a grey staff and layer it with a normal staff with hidden rests, I think you will get the effect you are looking for.

I could post an example in the newsgroup if you can access it.

Excellent! The order of staves in the layer is important, but it doesn't take much to figure it out.

I've also been using colour for analysis - magenta, red, brown, and blue beams are now possible!!

There is an example in user tip #83 on using the same font as NWC to insert cued notes. Won't work for beamed notes or changing stem direction, though.

Yeah, I've tried just about every suggestion going for cue notes. Changing colour is the best compromise I could find - the players need the cue notes to look like real music too, so faking notes with fonts won't work - then need beaming. Grace notes don't work, as the spacing has to be correct.

In my view, reading music shouldn't be a mind-bender! When the notation gets in the way of the notes, there's something wrong.

I'm hoping that in the full release of NWC, scaling (i.e. reducing or expanding by a user-defined percentage) becomes a standard part of the edit box for all objects. I'd love to see it on the Visibility tab. "Oh, look! Was that a flock of pigs?", he writes humourously, hoping that the NWC people won't take offence.