Why does it take four taps to enter a third interval?
There is one reason why entering scores has been slower for me in SP4 and SP5 compared to earlier versions: it takes four finger taps instead of one to enter a chord tone a third above or below the previously entered note, which is a very common operation. For example, tap on C in the staff to enter a C note (it will be highlighted in blue to show it's the current selected note). Then tap on E above that note to try to create a third interval; instead of adding an E note to the chord, Symphony Pro for some reason assumes you actually meant to tap the highlighted C note so it shows a context menu to edit/delete/change pitch. Tap E a second time and it shows the Note Adjust menu for changing the length of the C note. Tap E a third time and it un-highlights the C note. Tap E a fourth time and finally it adds an E note!
This behavior is extremely frustrating - it can take 13 careful taps to enter a simple seventh chord. It would be trivial to fix: simply change SP to only show context menus on the highlighted note if you tap within one note (B, C, or D in the example) instead of within two notes (A, B, C, D, E). If the user has any difficulty in hitting a three-note window around the highlighted note, they're unlikely to find touch entry useful in the first place and are probably going to use keyboard/MIDI entry instead.
Changing the context menu window from five to three notes would solve the problem of entering a third interval with one tap instead of four. What about entering a second interval? I'd suggest changing SP so that if you tap anywhere in the bottom menu area after entering a note, you're probably no longer interested in changing that note via context menus, so un-highlight it. That would enable you to then enter a second interval (B or D in this case) without showing context menus on the previous note. I seem to remember that that this useful trick worked in earlier versions, but might have been removed recently?
One final suggestion would be to also combine the edit/delete/change pitch and Note Adjust menus to remove one tap from the cycle.
This behavior is extremely frustrating - it can take 13 careful taps to enter a simple seventh chord. It would be trivial to fix: simply change SP to only show context menus on the highlighted note if you tap within one note (B, C, or D in the example) instead of within two notes (A, B, C, D, E). If the user has any difficulty in hitting a three-note window around the highlighted note, they're unlikely to find touch entry useful in the first place and are probably going to use keyboard/MIDI entry instead.
Changing the context menu window from five to three notes would solve the problem of entering a third interval with one tap instead of four. What about entering a second interval? I'd suggest changing SP so that if you tap anywhere in the bottom menu area after entering a note, you're probably no longer interested in changing that note via context menus, so un-highlight it. That would enable you to then enter a second interval (B or D in this case) without showing context menus on the previous note. I seem to remember that that this useful trick worked in earlier versions, but might have been removed recently?
One final suggestion would be to also combine the edit/delete/change pitch and Note Adjust menus to remove one tap from the cycle.
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