IWBNI there were utilities that could be used to freeze or unfreeze the current accidental state of all notes in a selected region. As it is now, the current accidental state of a given note may be frozen with the speedy entry tool by positioning the crossbar on the note and pressing Ctrl+*. Or, the option Auto Freeze Accidentals may be selected on the Cautionary Accidental Options dialog box to freeze the accidental state of all notes for which an accidental is displayed (but not the accidental state of notes for which an accidental is not displayed).

In preparing a score, for many, the task of checking and adjusting the enharmonic spelling of notes and adding courtesy accidentals is one of the first steps performed after all notes have been entered. This feature would allow one to freeze the accidental state of all notes immediately after such corrections and alterations have been made and would prevent any subsequent operation (e.g. adjusting the position of a tie with the tie tool, or using the simple entry tool in any way, or accidentally using the speedy entry tool with the option Check Accidentals selected) from causing an accidental to appear or disappear on any given note as a side effect of the operation. This would be analogous to the feature that allows one to lock all systems to prevent measures from moving from one system to the next after layout decisions have been made.

This could be implemented by adding menu items called Freeze Accidentals and Unfreeze Accidentals to the MassEdit>Utilities submenu. These operations would affect the state of the Freeze Accidental flag for all notes in a selected region.

Note: The current state of the Freeze Accidental flag for a given note may be viewed (and changed) on the Edit Frame dialog box which may be displayed by selecting the speedy entry tool and clicking a measure while pressing the Ctrl key.

Created: May 12, 2000
Last Updated: May 12, 2000
Version: Finale 2000b