CHANGES IN SIBELIUS ACCESS 1 - RELEASE CANDIDATE 1

<h1>CHANGES IN SIBELIUS ACCESS 1 - RELEASE CANDIDATE 1</h1>

<p>This lists the changes, fixes and new features in release candidate 1.</p>

<p>Laptops are now fully supported, however you will need to switch to the Access Laptop command set in the Sibelius preferences dialog.</p>

<h2>The plug-in keystroke</h2>

<p>The keystroke which triggers the plug-in when navigating in the score has been changed to Alt + Control + Shift + 0.  This keystroke should be recognized by any system, regardless of keyboard layouts and input languages.  The keystroke can also now be set through the JAWS keyboard manager.  This means that the keystroke can be set in both Sibelius and JAWS to ensure that both applications are using the same physical keystroke.  This should only be necessary if users are experiencing real difficulties with the plug-in not being triggered.</p>

<h2>Zooming</h2>

<p>The keystrokes for zooming to 65% and 400% have been changed to avoid the clash with Alt+Equals.</p>

<ul>
<li>Ctrl+Alt+Dash zooms to 65%.</li>
<li>Ctrl+Alt+Equals zooms to 400%.</li>
</ul>

<p>When entering a text field to edit text, the zoom level is spoken but no warnings are given about which zoom levels are best for text editing. This is because it has been impossible to determine an ideal zoom level which always works. However, 65% will normally allow JAWS to detect the text with reasonable accuracy.</p>

<h2>Score navigation</h2>

<ul>
<li>Control+Home selects the first note or rest in the first bar of the current staff. The first note or rest in the top staff will be selected if there is no selection.</li>
<li>Control+End now selects the last note or rest in the last bar of the current staff.  The last note or rest in the bottom staff will be selected if there is no selection.</li>
<li>Grave-Accent now reselects the last item which was selected. Use this keystroke if you lose the selection in a tab staff or if you want to return to the last selected note after clearing a selection by pressing Escape.  This was changed because it was proving difficult to determine when the Tab key should be over-ridden.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Selecting</h2>

<p>Non-continuous staves can now be selected through a plug-in that presents the user with a list of staves in the score.  Staves can then be included or excluded from the selection by pressing the change button.</p>

<p>A dialog has been added which lists all of the items in a selection. Using this on large passage selections is not recommended but it is a useful way of determining what has been selected after using a filter.</p>

<p>The following keystrokes can now be used to make selections:</p>

<ul>
<li>Control + Shift + Home makes a passage selection between the start of the score and the currently selected note.  If a passage is already selected then the passage will be extended to include the start of the score.</li>
<li>Control + Shift + End makes a passage selection between the end of the score and the currently selected note.  If a passage is already selected then the passage will be extended to include the end of the score.</li>
<li>Ctrl+F9 sets a marker which you can use to quickly make a passage selection. Use this in conjunction with Shift+F9.</li>
<li>Shift+F9 makes a passage selection between the currently selected item and the item which was selected when Ctrl+F9 was pressed.</li>
</ul>

<p>The following additional fixes have been made to the selection features:</p>
<ul>
<li>Multiple selections which included system items could cause the plug-in to crash.  This has been fixed.</li>
<li>Selecting a system passage in a part view caused the plug-in to crash.  This has been fixed.</li>
<li>System selections are now properly identified.</li>
<li>The result of pressing Ctrl+Shift+A (select more) is now properly announced.</li>
<li>All of the announcements relating to selections have been streamlined and made more consistent.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Information keystrokes</h2>

<p>The information keystrokes have been greatly improved. It has been necessary to change some keystrokes in order to make room for others and to accommodate future developments. These new features are described fully in other documentation.

<ul>
<li>F2: staff name, key and clef.</li>
<li>Ctrl+F2: instrument name, range, tunings and staff description.</li>
<li>Shift+F2: tempo, key and meter.</li>
<li>Ctrl+Shift+F2: describes all the system items in the bar.</li>
<li>Alt+F2: system items dialog.</li>
<li>F3: filtered text items. (Tapping twice spells them.)</li>
<li>Shift+F3: filtered text to cursor.</li>
<li>Ctrl+F3: filtered text from cursor.</li>
<li>Ctrl+Shift+F3: nearby staff items.</li>
<li>Alt+F3: filtered text dialog.</li>
<li>F5: long description of selected item.</li>
<li>Shift+F5: selected pitches or text contained in item.</li>
<li>Ctrl+F5: concert pitches of all notes or text style.</li>
<li>Ctrl+Shift+F5: concert pitches of selected notes or text with formatting.</li>
<li>JAWS+F5: graphical position. (Tap twice to unlock the item for moving.)</li>
<li>F6: rhythm of selected item or range of selection.</li>
<li>Ctrl+F6: live playback positions.</li>
<li>Windows+F6: live playback durations.</li>
<li>Shift+F6: live playback velocities.</li>
<li>F7: position of playback line.</li>
<li>Ctrl+F7: playback tempo.</li>
<li>Alt+F7: toggle metronome.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Score info and system layout</h2>

<p>The score summary has now been broken into two separate components. Score info lists all the score info, bar count, names of staves, key signatures, special bar lines, etc. The System Layout option presents the summary of pages, systems and bars in an html document on its own.</p>

<p>In beta 1, several steps were taken by JAWS to prepare the score for the system summary, however these steps are prone to difficulties and they now need to be made manually. Instructions are given at the top of the document containing the summary.</p>

<h2>Inputting</h2>

<p>The message spoken after pressing N to start note input has been tidied up.  The message gives the rhythmic position of the first note to be entered and the current keypad layout together with a list of all the highlighted keypad buttons. Pressing N while note input is on will return Sibelius to edit mode and this is announced.</p>

<p>Period on the main keyboard can be used to start inputting appoggiaturas and Slash can be used to start inputting acciaccaturas.  The messages spoken are identical to the note input message except that it also specifies the type of note to be input.</p>

<p>Pressing Shift+F to add an F to a chord now speaks properly.</p>

<p>Pressing Shift+H to add diminuendo hairpins works properly.</p>

<p>Tuplets are now described when they are created with Ctrl+3, Ctrl+4, etc.</p>

<h2>Score announcements</h2>

<p>Tuplets are now described properly when tabbing onto them.</p>

<p>Nearby items which follow the selected note or rest are now described with there rhythmic position.</p>

<p>The verbosity dialog has been heavily revised to make it easier to use and a separate dialog has been added to change the filtered text style.</p>

<h2>Editing text items</h2>

<p>The zoom level is spoken automatically when entering the edit field for text items.  This is done to warn users that the zoom level may be incorrect.</p>

<p>The font, text size, bold, italic and underline controls in the properties window can now be accessed while editing text.  (See properties window below).)</p>

<h2>Tool windows</h2>

<p>The functions which monitor and control the tool windows have been heavily revised. The changes are as follows:</p>

<ul>
<li>When keystrokes are used to open or close a tool window, Sibelius Access will check that the desired result has occurred.  A message will be displayed in the virtual viewer if the keystroke fails which explains remedial actions.</li>

<li>The functions which detect the states of the tool windows now only check that the windows are not colliding. It is no longer necessary to have them in specific locations.</li>

<li>The messages which are spoken when a problem arises with the tool windows now identify the exact nature of the problem, rather than the generic "tool windows need fixing" message.</li>

<li>The fix tool window feature has been renamed to "optimize tool windows". This is to reflect the fact that the tool windows can now be positioned anywhere on the screen, provided that they do not interfere with each other.</li>

<li>(Note: it is still recommended that you use the optimize tool windows feature once after installation because this removes the problem of the keypad window being hidden behind the task bar or message balloons in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.)</li>


<li>The optimize tool window feature (fix tool windows) has been heavily rewritten to make it far more reliable, and also faster.  Accurate error reporting is now included and detailed instructions are given automatically so that users can fix the windows by hand if necessary.</li>

<li>The optimize tool windows feature is no longer using language specific keystrokes to access system menus. This is now being done through post send messages which are more reliable.</li>

<li>The optimize tool windows feature will not try to automatically open or close tool windows. If you are advised that a tool window needs to be opened or closed, you should use the window menu or the appropriate keystroke. This has been done to avoid the numerous conflicts which were occurring with shortcuts that launched other applications. There is an option in the Sibelius Access menu which will make Sibelius Access automatically toggle the tool windows with keystrokes, as it used to do, but this is turned off by default.</li>

<li>A trace file can be opened which shows precisely what JAWS tried to do to the tool windows when fixing them.  This should help users to assess difficulties by them selves. This also provides the developers with an accurate evaluation of the situation whilst debugging.</li>
</ul>

<p>New features have been added which allow users to interact with the tool windows directly. The specifics of each window can be found elsewhere, but the following general keystrokes apply to all tool windows:</p>

<ul>
<li>Control+Windows+Tab cycles between each of the open tool windows and then back to the score.</li>
<li>Control+Shift+Windows+Tab cycles between each of the open tool windows in reverse order and then back to the score.</li>
<li>Control+Windows+S moves focus to the score, bypassing the other tool windows.</li>
</ul>

<p>Users now have the option of changing keystrokes which open and close tool windows.  It is not recommended that you do this unless you encounter problems which cannot be resolved in any other way. The keystrokes will need to be changed in both the Sibelius preferences dialog and in the JAWS keyboard manager.</p>

<h2>Properties window</h2>

<p>Every control in the properties window can now be accessed by using standard navigation keystrokes.  </p>

<ul>
<li>Control+Windows+Tab moves to the properties window.</li>
<li>Control+Tab moves to each of the buttons which opens or closes a properties panel.</li>
<li>Pressing Space on one of these buttons opens or closes the panel.</li>
<li>Tab and Shift+Tab move to each control in a panel. The button which opens and closes the panel must be selected first and tabbing will then cycle through the controls in that panel.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Parts window</h2>

<p>All of the controls in the parts window can now be navigated to using standard keystrokes.</p>

<ul>
<li>Control+Windows+Tab moves to the parts window.</li>
<li>Tab and Shift+Tab move between each control.</li>
<li>Pressing Enter activates a control.</li>
<li>In the list of parts, press Enter once to edit its name or twice to have that part shown in the score.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Playback</h2>

<p>The fastest tempo and slowest tempo keystrokes have been reversed so that they conform to the same pattern used by increase tempo and decrease tempo. The new keystrokes are as follows:</p>

<ul>
<li>Alt+Enter moves the tempo slider to the center.</li>
<li>Alt+Left Bracket moves the tempo slider to the left (decreasing the tempo.</li>
<li>Ctrl+Alt+Left Bracket moves the slider to the far left (slowest tempo).</li>
<li>Alt+Right Bracket moves the slider to the right (increasing the tempo).</li>
<li>Ctrl+Alt+Right Bracket moves the slider to the far right (fastest tempo).</li>
</ul>

<h2>Mixer</h2>

<p>Functions have been added to detect whether the mixer is fully expanded to show the maximum number of strips.

<ul>
<li>Alt+R fully expands the mixer.</li>
</ul>

<p>Individual keystrokes have been given to hide or show each type of strip and the functions which perform these actions have been made more reliable.</p>

<ul>
<li>Alt + S hides or shows staff strips.</li>
<li>Alt + G hides or shows group strips.</li>
<li>Alt + V hides or shows VST strips.</li>
<li>Alt + B hides or shows bus strips.</li>
<li>Alt + M hides or shows the master volume strip.</li>
</ul>

<p>The movements of the mouse pointer when entering mixer mode have been made more streamline.  This has also removed unnecessary chatter from JAWS.</p>

<p>Moving between strips is now far more reliable and done by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Down or Ctrl+Alt+Up.</p>

<p>The volume, muted and soloed status of the strip is now announced automatically when moving to a new strip.</p>

<p>Moving the volume slider on a new strip now works properly.  In beta 1 the slider was first set to the value of the slider on the previous strip.</p>

<p>Users are asked to scroll the mixer up or down by using a keystroke.  This was previously done automatically but was causing problems.  (Note: proper sizing of the mixer should minimize the need for this.)</p>

<ul>
<li>Page up scrolls the mixer up.</li>
<li>Page down scrolls the mixer down.</li>
</ul>

<h2>Dialogs</h2>

<p>Page changes in the new score dialog are more reliable.</p>

<p>The letters that represent note lengths are now spoken when using the number keys to input note lengths in the new score, time signature, find and flexi-time dialogs.</p>

<p>The lists of lines are now spoken in the find and filter dialogs and the extra lines in the middle of the list have been accounted for.</p>

</p>Standard keyboard navigation has been fixed or added to the following dialogs:</p>
<ul>
<li>Score Info</li>
<li>Open MIDI file</li>
<li>Find</li>
<li>Advanced filter</li>
<li>Transform live playback</li>
<li>Playback dictionary</li>
</ul>