Undoing and Redoing
Everything that you do to a score is recorded, and you can undo all of these actions at any time by using the Undo dialog. For example, if you delete an item, and then realise that you did not want to delete it, you can undo the delete, which puts the item back in the score.
Unfortunately, Sibelius considers every selection to be an action which can be undone. This means that if you press the right arrow ten times to move through the score, you will have made ten selections, and every one of these will be an action that you can undo.
You can press Control+Z to undo the last action, and keep on pressing it to undo each action which came before. However, because most of these actions will be selections that were made whilst you were moving through the score, it could take a long time for you to reach the action that you want.
The fastest way to undo an action is to use the undo history.
- Press Control+Shift+Z to open the undo history.
This opens a dialog which shows all the actions in a list, with the most recent action at the top, and the first action you performed at the bottom. This dialog also displays every selection, which means that using the arrow keys can waist time, since you’ll have to read a lot of entries which are of no interest. Fortunately, you can jump directly to an action by typing the first letter of its name. For example, pressing “D” will move you to each “Delete” in the list.
Here is a list of the most common entries which can appear in the list, with a brief explanation of what they refer to.
- Selection: This will appear when ever an item is selected, which includes using the arrow keys, Tab and Shift+Tab, or even Control+Alt+DownArrow.
- Edit Properties: This will appear whenever the keypad is used to change the properties of a note, chord or rest.
- Note Input: The addition of a new note, chord or rest to the score.
- Add Interval: This represents the use of the number row keys to add an interval to an existing chord. Note that pressing Shift+A to G is considered to be note input, even though these keystrokes are also adding notes to an existing chord.
- Move Selection: This shows the use of the arrow keys to affect an item. For example, pressing UpArrow to change the pitch of a note, or DownArrow to move a text item further below the staff.
- Delete: Unsurprisingly, this represents a deletion.
- Cut: Pressing Control+X, or choosing cut from the edit menu.
- Paste: Pasting a selection by pressing Control+V or choosing paste from the edit menu. Pressing R to repeat a selection will also count as a paste.
- Create: There are several different entries which will begin with the word create, but they all refer to the addition of an item which is not a note, chord or rest. For example, if you add a symbol, the action will be shown as “create symbol”.
- Edit Text: This will be shown if you press enter to open a text item. You don’t need to actually change the text. Pressing Enter to open the text and then Escape to close it again will be enough to count as an edit.
- Hide or Show Objects: This is shown whenever you hide or show an object in the score.