reference.book Page 622 Monday, August 31, 2009 2:47 PM
8. Layout & engraving The Creating With Keyboard options control the rules for positioning of the object when it is created via the keyboard, or when you select it and choose Layout Reset Position (shortcut Ctrl+Shift+P or P): Horizontal position relative to note sets the default horizontal position for both a score and
parts; enter negative numbers if you want to position objects to the left of the note to which they are attached (for, say, dynamics) Vertical position relative to staff automatically positions the object vertically for you, relative to the option chosen at the bottom of the dialog under Vertical Position (Above top of staff, Below bottom of staff, Above middle of staff and Below middle of staff). You can enter different values for the score and its parts, if you wish. Different default position on vocal staves allows you to specify that the object should be positioned differently on vocal staves and instrumental staves; if you switch this on, you can then specify a separate Vertical position above top of staff for the selected object. This is done by default for Expression text and the various hairpin lines, such that they appear above vocal staves, but below instrumental staves. The Creating With Mouse options simply determine whether, when created with the mouse, the object should be positioned at its default horizontal and/or vertical position (as determined in the Creating With Keyboard settings above) instead of at the mouse position, for example: Text such as chord symbols, figured bass, fingering, and lyrics, are all most usefully created at
their default horizontal and vertical positions; System text such as title, composer, copyright, footnote and so on are all most usefully created at their default vertical positions; Some other text styles, such as tempo and metronome mark text, are best created at the position you click with your mouse – to obtain this behavior, simply switch off both of the With mouse options.
Moving Object Although all objects can be dragged using the mouse in a score, a finer degree of control is possible by moving objects with the arrow keys and their modifiers (e.g. / for small steps and Ctrl+/ or / for large steps). The Moving Object options allow you control over the behavior of these operations: Arrows move is the distance an object moves when moved with the arrow keys Ctrl+arrows/Command-arrows move is the distance an object moves when moved with the arrow keys in conjunction with the Ctrl or key Mouse drag threshold is how far you have to drag an object with the mouse before it moves
from its present position; set this to a large number if you want to make objects “stickier” and less likely to be dragged by mistake. You can adjust these options for text styles and lines separately, but not for individual text styles or line styles; so any change you make to these settings will affect all similar objects (e.g. change the drag threshold for Technique text and you also change it for all other text styles). The Moving Object options (unlike the others on this dialog) are global preferences and are thus not associated with any particular score – they apply to every score you work on in Sibelius. 622