Slurs, Phrase Marks

[rrayner]

I thought I had created a post on this subject, but I've searched the logical subfora with no hits.

The slurs, phrase anchors are very difficult for me to see. I'm 85, and my vision at 85 is getting worse. The light red color of the anchors are very hard to see.

Is no one else complaining about this (poor me)? Perhaps a darker shade of red?

I have and still am using the Zoom Plus to try to make the anchors easier too see - this helps, but in order make the staff, and thereby the anchors, large enough to adjust the anchor, I lose the right end of the phase to the next page, so it's not very user friendly.

I fear that I'm not too far away from not being able to use slurs, phrase marks in Notation Composer at all.

Ralph Rayner

[Sherry C]

Hi Ralph,


We haven't had complaints that I know of regarding the red for the handles. They are thin lines, which we do to try to minimize their covering other aspects of the score. I'm including a screenshot here of a highlighted slur on my machine:


!!!RedHandles.png


How does this look for you? For me on my machine it's quite clear, so I'm wondering if maybe a color setting for Windows for your machine or monitor may need to be tweaked (I have run into this issue with other users for aspects such as the highlighting when a Region is selected).


I'm not sure what version of Windows you're running, and those settings can vary depending on that. It might be helpful to do an internet search for "color" or "contrast" settings for your version of Windows. For your monitor you may want to try working with the color and/or contrast settings. I know for my current monitor it took me a little while to get the settings to my liking

Just some thoughts.


ttfn,
Sherry

[rrayner]

Hi Sherry,

Would that I can find the correct tweaks! If my display showed the same results as your screen shot, I would be elated!

I am not skilled at using the forum for the inclusion of screen shots. My dear wife, Cynthia, is more skilled at this kind of online documentation.

So, I'm adding a png file that I created - hoping it will provide a reasonable image for a split screen, side by side example of yours (Opus #1, perhaps?) compared to mine.

Even though I didn't nail the sizing exactly, I think you should be able to see the feeble red anchors.

Ralph

[rrayner]

Hmm, okay - my screen capture, in this forum, looks equally as beautiful as yours. As they say, "What's up?!"

So, I have the same display being used for two different apps (Windows Snipping Tool and Notation Composer), and yet I don't see the same clarity of anchors in Notation Composer.

I'm not technically strong on the finer points of peripheral gear.

I'm on an HP desktop (Windows 11); keep up-to-date with upgrades; still on the Beta for Composer (5.0.0-535). I guess I'm going to have to get some whiz-bang geek to make a house call - I don't know if this can be handled by email or telephone... I have a Geek Squad contract, but I don't think I would trust them tweaking my peripherals.

Thank you for giving me hope that possibly a tweak will help.

Ralph

[Sherry C]

Hi Ralph,

Given the clarity that I'm seeing in your screen shot (the red is as red as mine) my best guess would indeed be something with your monitor settings.

Have you made any changes in the not-so-distant past to your monitor (ie swapped in a new one) or the settings, or maybe installed a new program that may have "fiddled" with the settings? Or if you have a monitor that has "dynamic brightness" try turning that off and then adjusting the level manually to something comfortable. Just trying to spark something that may explain things.

A couple of years ago (I think it was) I got a super-sized TV to use for my monitor. It's the width of my desk, was much less expensive than a "real" computer monitor (especially on clearance), but it does all I need and gives me lots of real estate for working on things. It took me a bit of time to get all the settings to where I liked them for things because it came with a lot of bells and whistles turned "on" by default that I didn't really want or need, but had to figure out which actually helped and which I wished would just go away. The "dynamic brightness" was a real pain because I have a window at a right angle to it so the brightness level (and my ability to see things) was changing all the time, the color warmth was causing issues with some programs, and other such little aspects of the picture. I finally just sat down with about a half dozen programs open in various parts of the screen and went through all the "Settings" and tweaked them all til I was pretty happy with the look of all the programs. Even then it took me a few days to finesse them to as close as I could get to perfection

What monitor do you have? If there's an online manual available maybe we can figure out something to try.


ttfn,
Sherry

[Sherry C]

Hi Ralph,


Something else that I just noticed that could be a contributing factor is the angle of your monitor in respect to your head. In addition to my monster TV monitor I have a smaller and lower resolution wall mounted monitor. The wall mounted monitor got bumped and boy do things look weird with the angle just off by not too much. The red boxes looked like light orange until I readjusted the angle.


Just another thought drifting out there....


ttfn,
Sherry

[rrayner]

Hi Sherry,

I bought my current monitor in June of 2020 (Best Buy). I try to be very careful in getting the appropriate numbers, manual, etc. saved

, but that was 4 years ago and I'm not certain what was going on with my PD. The monitor is an LG 27" LED Monitor. I'll dig into it.

Thank you ever so much for spending so much research time on it.

2020 was the last time I made major changes in my H/W. I am using, but not positive , the manual at:

https://www.amazon.com/LG-27UL650-W-...07MKT2BNB?th=1

Ralph

[Sherry C]

Hi Ralph,


Something to try - turn off the HDR. My LG TV monitor has that, too, and I found that my setup works much better with the HDR turned off.


ttfn,
Sherry

[rrayner]

Well, BLESS YOU, Sherry!!

It appears you have me on a closer track than where I was looking.

High Dynamic Range (HDR) on my LG appears to be the culprit that has been causing me so much grief over the past four years - I didn't even realize I had an adjustable problem - fortunately vision does not fail overnight.

Alright - enough sniveling from Grandpappy.

It did not occur to me that I should do a side-by-side comparison with my laptop. Duh!! The anchors are more legible (brighter) on the laptop.

So, I have a circumvention at least. Placing of slurs usually happens (for me) when basically, I have finished the scoring, so I can port my file to the laptop for the finishing touches - adding the slurs. This does not address my initially reported problem - a need to adjust setting on my LG monitor.

I am now digging into Settings for my Windows 11 Desktop, trying to find where I can safely make adjustments.

Ralph

[Sherry C]

Hi Ralph,

I'm glad to help any way I can.
The glory of tech is that there are so many settings you can nuance.
The bane of tech is that there are so many settings that can screw things up

The HDR setting that I turned off much to my benefit is a Windows System Display setting:

HDR_OFF-0000-small.jpg

I hope this does the trick for you.

ttfn,
Sherry

[rrayner]

Hi Sherry,

Thank you for your efforts. Unfortunately, my Windows 11 system presents a different path for HDR.

When I click on System > Display, the page that displays shows different content than your diagram. Under Brightness & color, I have a box that says, "HDR > More about HDR. More doesn't show me anything that I can use to make changes. I don't have multiple displays, so there are no choices. Instead, it shows me two supposed options: HDR Video streaming - not supported; and Use HDR - not supported. So I can't tweak these settings.

Ralph

[Sherry C]

Hi Ralph,


Well that's a bummer, and I've shot my wad.
I'm thinking the best thing to do with it at this point is to just sit down with the computer on with a few different programs that you use up on the screen and go through the monitor's settings to see which ones may help (or not).


Crossing my fingers....


ttfn,
Sherry

[rrayner]

Hi Sherry,

My sincere thanks for all the time you spent on this problem. On the bright side, you planted the seed of comparing my desktop symptoms to my laptop. Not giving up, but least this gave me the option of using my laptop for the final phrasings.

Ralph