Right – this is Windows. I purchased Encore 5 when I was exclusively using Windows and since then although I’ve switched to Mac – the OS I am using (Big Sur) doesn’t support Encore-Mac (32b app not compatible). Therefore, I still use the Windows version under a VM. Sometimes I get bit by the bug when dragging a note up or down with the mouse. I usually highlight and nudge up/down or use note transposition. But often I want to just drag the note up and if I take too long to decide where to land it – poof. “Back in the day” I had no idea how to recover from this so I would lose work. Now days I can usually “jiggle the handle” and get control back to save my work by clicking various things in the right order.

That said – it was meant to be an example of the kind of thing that I don’t want from Encore. Even though I want the general workflow to be very similar (because I think Encore was a good balance of power and speed to get a score completed) — I don’t want a carbon copy pulling in “the bad stuff”.

Other examples of bad stuff:

1) If system under the current system has a compressed rest – then the ability to select items in the previous system (previous to the compressed rest) is gone. Instead even though you’re clicking on the system above the compressed rest – the cursor only will go to the compressed rest system below where the mouse is. The workaround for this is to “]” or “[” (adjust measures per system) so the compressed rest is not directly under the current measure. Then adjust it back.

2) A variant of the above – if I have a coda phrase above a compressed measure then I often cannot select the coda phrase to move the position.

3) Super tiny coda sign – workaround is to use the “symbols” coda sign

4) I have to select the exact right amount of measures to create a compressed rest. I wish the the compressed rest menu would let you freely key in the number of measures to create so I just select one measure (or none), select compressed rests, then type in how many I want.

(and so on)

… but more things I do like (extremely truncated/incomplete list):

1) “Hotkeys”. I’d prefer for the learning curve not to be too steep by being totally different. Or, alternatively, the facility to freely assign keys (with and without modifiers ctrl, alt/option, command) so I can switch the hotkeys to a Encore 5-ish set.

a) Hotkeys for measures per system “[” “]” in Encore currently
b) Hotkey for creating compressed rest. (Ctrl-Alt-R currently)
c) Hotkey for adjusting measure widths (Ctrl-J currently)
d) Hotkey for selecting barline type (Ctrl-Alt-B currently)
e) Hotkeys for note lengths (currently 1=whole, 2=half, 3=quarter, 4=8th, 5=16th, … and so on.)
f) Hotkey for dot toggle (currently “d”) – double dot as shift+d
g) Hotkey for rest or note selection (currently “r”)
h) Hotkeys for moving selected notes(s) up/down – (currently Ctrl-Plus to move up by semitone, Ctrl-Equal(non shifted plus) to move down by semitone, Ctrl-Shift-Plus move up by octave, Ctrl-Shift-Equal to move down by an octave)
i) Hotkeys for nudging selected items (currently Ctrl-[ and Ctrl-] for left/right nudge – including notes, Ctrl-Shift-[ and Ctrl-Shift-] for up/down – not including notes)
j) Hotkey for tie (currently Ctrl-T, adding shift for opposite direction of tie) this hotkey will untie if pressing Ctrl-T when selected notes are already tied.
k) Hotkey for slur (currently Ctrl-L, adding shift for slur mark on opposite side of note – top vs bottom. Wish the hotkey worked like tie where pressing Ctrl-L on a slurred note would remove the slur.)
l) Auto guess/beam toggle, auto note spacing toggle feature and hotkey (Ctrl-Shift-G and Ctrl-Shift-A respectively). I use this feature often if I want to change something in the middle of a notey measure without disturbing the surrounding notes.

Those are most of the hotkeys I use.

2) Ability to create custom templates that are available when creating a new score. Including settings like instrument transposition (if I write a trumpet piece – I call up a Bb template so I can score in the transposed key and still hear reference notes of the correct concert pitch), number of measures (I usually create a template with lots of extra measures – pages worth – so I can create compressed rests and not run out of measures. It’s easier to delete to the end then add measures and fix the problems that occur when there aren’t enough measures to have the desired number of systems per page. I also have handwritten score in some templates and not-handwritten for others. I place a custom footer in each template “Prepared for ….” where I have a different band template and the band name goes in the footer, etc. All of this saves a lot of setup time because selecting the right template is much easier than patching settings from a “wrong” starting point.

3) Current options for key signature where I can move notes into the new key (up or down) or leave the notes alone and not move – just set the key to something else.

…

Thanks for the opportunity to voice suggestions.

If I alt-tab away from Encore then right click on encore’s icon in the taskbar to re-open it – I’ll usually get a popup window complaining about some missing file and eventually I can get control back.