Menus

a) Main menu


Although most program features can now be accessed via the toolbar and panes, the main menu is still an important navigation and access tool which most will be familiar with. The Main Menu appears at the top of the screen. Each item on this menu contains items which may be clicked to invoke an operation on the active score (exceptions: New and Import create a new active score).

This menu is really designed to be navigated via the mouse or other pointing device, however, each item has a keyboard shortcut. Sometimes a shortcut will be shown to the right of the menu item, at other times it will be an implied combination.

For example, on a Mac, the File menu appears like this:

File menu On Windows, the shortcuts have Ctrl, rather than the Command icon.

Note that pressing the Ctrl or Command Key and simultaneously pressing the key for the letter N will invoke the New File wizard. (NB: The shorthand for this is Ctrl-N on Windows or Command-N on Mac).

Also, pressing the ALT key, keeping it pressed, then pressing the F key before releasing both. Then pressing the letter I key will invoke the File Import screen. (NB: The shorthand for this is: Alt-F, I ). This is an implied shortcut.
 
Some menus contain other menus below them. For example, the View menu (shown below) contains an item called 'Toolbars'. When this is clicked, submenu items will appear. In this case, they are options to show and hide the toolbars inside the various panes.
Note: This method is a shortcut and there are other ways of opening the toolbars i.e. by opening and closing panes that contain them.

View menu

(Try Alt-V, T, B. This should toggle the visibility of the Basic toolbar).




b) Context menu


If you have a two or three button mouse (i.e. with a right button), you will be able to activate the context menu on the score canvas by clicking the right button anywhere on its surface. For convenience, the Context menu contains some useful operations that can be accessed more quickly than from the main menus:

Context menu

(again, this is an example from a Mac, but it will be very similar on Windows).