Light

Beginner

Professional

Global options and graphic copy

Subjects covered:

• Global options - Pizzicato Beginner and Light
• Global options - Pizzicato Professional
• Graphic copy
• Additional options

Global options - Pizzicato Beginner and Light [Light] [Beginner]

In the Options menu, select the Global options… item. The following dialog box appears:

It lets you select a few options that are independent of the Pizzicato document. When you change these options, it is valid for all the documents you will open thereafter. Let us see these parameters in detail:

• The Scroll score window check box, when activated (by default), asks Pizzicato to automatically scroll the score when it is played. The menu right below lets you select the refresh frequency each measure, after two measures, three measures or by full screen (by default).
• The Scroll sequencer view check box is similar, but it applies for the sequencer window.
• The Curve factor for slurs is a graphic adjustment. Its default value is 30. It affects the drawing of slurs and ties in the score. By decreasing it, the slurs resemble more and more to a straight line and by increasing it they are more curved.
• The Slur thickness determines the thickness at the middle point of slurs and ties.
• The Default window frame specifies the view Pizzicato will open when you open a document. By checking the Maximum size box, the window will occupy the full screen (except if several documents are open at the same time). The instrument window being a fixed size window, it is not influenced by the Maximum size box.
• The Follow score playing frame contains a menu specifying how the play cursor moves during the reading of a score. It will move Every measure, Every beat, Every half beat, Every quarter of a beat or Continuously. By checking the Vertical line box, a vertical line will follow the play on all staves of the score. By checking the Colour played notes box, Pizzicato will draw the notes in red when they are played.
• The Play edited notes box lets you enable or disable the playing of a note when you place it on the score or when you move a note with the mouse.
• Pizzicato Beginner has an additional text box and a button used to select the default template. By selecting the New item in the File menu, Pizzicato will open the template selected here.

Global options - Pizzicato Professional [Professional]

In the Options menu, select the Global options…item. The following dialog box appears:

It lets you select a few options that are independent of the Pizzicato document. When you change these options, it is valid for all the documents you will open thereafter. Let us see these parameters in detail:

• The At Pizzicato startup frame lets you specify the action executed when starting Pizzicato.
• The New document frame lets you specify the action executed when you select the New item in the File menu.
• The Activate Undo/Redo box validates the memorizing of a certain number of operations you execute on the score. When you select the Undo item in the Edit menu, Pizzicato goes back one step by "undoing" the last operation. You can activate up to 50 undo levels. This function is useful when you executed for example a wrong operation: you can bring the score back to the state where it was before the faulty operation.
• The Scroll score window check box, when activated (by default), asks Pizzicato to automatically scroll the score when it is played. The menu right below lets you select the refresh frequency each measure, after two measures, three measures or by full screen (by default).
• The Scroll sequencer view check box is similar, but it applies for the sequencer window.
• The Scrolling of the conductor view check box determines how the conductor view will scroll (continuously or step by step).
• The Musical font frame lets you select the musical font used to display the notes, keys, accidentals… Only the Pizzicato musical font is delivered with the software. Three other musical font can be recognized and used, but only if they are already installed on your computer. One is the Fughetta musical font. It is sold by Mr Blake Hodgetts and a shareware version can be downloaded on the internet address:

http://www.efn.org/~bch/AboutFonts.html

• The Follow score playing frame contains a menu specifying how the play cursor moves during the reading of a score. It will move Every measure, Every beat, Every half beat, Every quarter of a beat or Continuously. By checking the Vertical line box, a vertical line will follow the play on all staves of the score. By checking the Colour played notes box, Pizzicato will draw the notes in red when they are played.
• The Default window frame specifies the view Pizzicato will open when you open a document. By checking the Maximum size box, the window will occupy the full screen (except if several documents are open at the same time). The instrument window being a fixed size window, it is not influenced by the Maximum size box.
• The Play edited notes box lets you enable or disable the playing of a note when you place it on the score or when you move a note with the mouse.
• The Default template frame has a text box and a button to select the default template used by Pizzicato.
• The Curve factor for slurs is a graphic adjustment. Its default value is 30. It affects the drawing of slurs and ties in the score. By decreasing it, the slurs resemble more and more to a straight line and by increasing it they are more curved.
• The Slur thickness determines the thickness at the middle point of slurs and ties.

Graphic copy [Beginner] [Professional]

Pizzicato Beginner and Professional only

It is possible to copy the contents of the score view so as to paste the picture in your word processor or drawing program. To do this, open a score window and in the Edit menu select the Copy image… item. The following dialog box appears:

• Graphic resolution determines the resolution of the copied picture. 75 corresponds to the screen resolution. If you want a good resolution, you can keep 300 or even increase it. It depends on what you want to do with the image. If it must be printed, we advise you a minimum of 300 DPI (Dot Per Inch = Pixel per inch). You will probably have to reduce the image to 25 % when used in another program, but you will gain in smoothness at printing. If you use the pictures to build an Internet site about music, a value of 75 DPI will be appropriate.
• By checking Draw a frame around the image, a black border is added around the picture.
• On Windows, by checking Colour image, the memory used will be more important, but any colour present in the score will also be copied. Please note that some applications do not accept black and white bitmap images. In such a case, check this box and your application (Word, Open Office, Corel,...) will then accept to paste the image. On Mac, the colours are automatically copied.
• The Save as... button allows you to save the picture as a graphic file that can be used by other programs (BMP - Bitmap - format for Windows and PICT format for Mac).
• The Copy to clipboard button copies the picture so that you can paste it in any program accepting pictures.

Notice that the copied picture is formed with the contents of the score window. Before copying, you can decrease the size of the window so that it includes exactly the area you want to copy. The value of the display zoom does not affect the copied picture.

Additional options [Light] [Beginner] [Professional]

When selecting the Additional options... item from the Options menu, the following dialog appears:

The upper part is used to define the default directories proposed by Pizzicato when opening or saving a file. After installation, there are no default directory checked. If you enable one or more check boxes, you may then select your favorite default directory with the corresponding Select... button. Pizzicato will then propose you that directory as the first choice in an open/save dialog box.

In the lower par, five check boxes define the default behaviour of Pizzicato:

• The first check box forces Pizzicato to automatically transcribe an imported MIDI file so as to display its score content. The check box to the right forces Pizzicato to split the percussion intruments into separate staves (Pizzicato Pro only).

• The second check box automatically opens the tool palettes that were opened the last time you closed Pizzicato.

• The last check box forces Pizzicato to adapt the notes to the clef of the destination measures, when you copy/paste measures inside a document. The clefs are not pasted.

• The fourth check box determines if Pizzicato will automatically separate the various percussion instruments when importing a MIDI file.

• THe fifth check box enable the font smoothing function while drawing the score. This gives a nicer aspect to the score, but if you experiment slow reactions of Pizzicato when manipulating the score, try to disable this option.

Note : depending on the version you have (Light - Beginner - Professional) some of the above options are not applicable. For instance, as Pizzicato Light does not import MIDI files, the import MIDI options are irrelevant for Pizzicato Light.

Light

Beginner

Professional