This always bugs me

Why is sometimes, while working in the staff view, when I right click on a  note do I get the note properties sometimes and others, I get a menu?
 
I've never been able to figure this out and any insight would be greatly appreciated.

I believe that trying to do things in the Sonar Staff View is a ghastly and horrific experience.

It IS a fabulous way of learning keyboard parts, however, as I can open up any of my more than 1000 free midi files I have accumulated from the web over the years, and whatever tracks I select are nicely laid out on the staff for me.

I have learned to play the piano parts for Genesis's 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway', and Emerson Lake and Palmer's Pirates (and many more tunes) this way, so from THAT perspective it works pretty well.

But for actually trying to work with it to get it to do things?  NO WAY, for me.

Bob Bone

The reason I posted that is that I have had many problems trying to work with Staff View, except as I had noted.

There have been a great many posts begging the Cakewalk folks to address a large number of issues with the Staff View, and those issues have remained unresolved for several years now with Cakewalk.

I wish you the best of luck in working with Staff View - many others have given up on it as being too buggy and inconsistent.

Bob Bone

And I don't know if this applies, but I found it by searching for 'note properties' in the documentation:

Notation and lyrics ► Basic musical editing ► Changing note properties

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Changing note properties

The Staff view lets you edit all the MIDI parameters for a note, including those not normally portrayed by standard musical notation. Note properties are as follows:

To edit a note’s properties

1.  Select the Smart tool in the Control Bar and double-click the note to open the Note Properties dialog box. 

2.  Edit the note’s properties, as described in the table (I did not include this here)

3.  Click OK. 

SONAR changes the note’s parameters and redraws the note if necessary


Bob Bone

I am with you all the way, guitarpima! Sonar X2 is the worst staff view version I have tried to work with. My trouble has been narrowed down to notes that are too high or too low off the lines and spaces. I have no trouble with the notes on the five lines and four spaces at all. If the notes are too far away or bunched together I will only get the menu, not the properties. My fix has been to transpose up or down to get the offensive note on to the line or space, edit, and then re-transpose back. Staff view has always been buggy ever since I first learned how to use PA9. It seems to have steadily gone downhill ever since. It is a shame that something so useful to ones who read and write conventional music are having to struggle along with this feature that is broken. We all here at one time or another have complained and pleaded for a fix of the staff view and still get no response. I believe Cake was sending us a message when they offered the discount on Notion. I do like using Notion but I don't want to close one program to work in another. I felt like they wanted us to go to a third party software for staff type work but it would be even more of a PITA to be switching from one software to another or using it re-wired than just to use the fix I use. Try what I suggested and maybe it will work for you. It does slow the workflow but it does take care of the problem for me.

Guitarpima


Thanks for the info Bob. Your first response seemed unhelpful. Sorry for the dis.

I don't get the documentation. As you put it, double click? If I double click I hear the not play twice. Seems llike the documentation is misprinted. Most of the time when I right click a note head I get the note properties. It's those weird times where I get a menu that drives me crazy. There is either a bug or something going on where the note is locked or something and only the menu pops up and not the note properties.

No prob - I see how lame my post was - I was trying to say that Staff View sucks, except for the one function I use it for with the midi stuff.  The ELP and Genesis stuff just jumped out - sorry for the lame fluff. 
 
Did you get a chance to check out that forum link I posted?  It seemed like someone in there had an explanation as to when the menu appears, versus the note properties.
 
I do agree that the doc does not always move forward with the functionality.  When X1 first came out, there was doc that was still talking about using a floppy disk for installs.  NICE

But yeah, check out that link if you haven't - seemed relevant, as far as I know.

Best of luck in any case.

Bob Bone