Metagrid Viewset for Sibelius

By

Michele Galvagno

It's with great pleasure that I present to you the first complete viewset for Metagrid that covers the entirety of the Avid Sibelius application. 

Once properly setup it will allow you to control Sibelius from your iPad, taking advantage of all the features one would normally spend ages looking for in the ribbon. 

The setup process is very easy and explained in the included README file, which I kindly advise you to read thoroughly before installing (unless you are a veteran user of Metagrid). I also advise that you backup any of your pre-existing views for Sibelius, should you have any, in order to avoid any data loss.

The best feature I am so proud of is the Keypad scene, where one can finally have all the Sibelius keypad layouts in one single screen! This is the only place where clicking on a button will also change the layout in Sibelius! It's pretty cool to behold! 

How does it work?

Launch Sibelius and Metaserver on your Mac and Metagrid on your iPad and, well, that's it! You will see seven scenes at the bottom of the screen, through which you can tap to navigate to the different sections of the program. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of Sibelius's UI, it was not possible to have a view automatically show up when you select something in Sibelius. Should this change I will gladly update this viewset. 

Customisation

Metagrid assumes—sadly—that every user is equipped with a UK/US layout keyboard, which was not the case for me at the moment of programming this product. Luckily, Sibelius automatically translates the keyboard shortcuts to the keyboard layout you are currently using. 

Still, some keys react badly to the Shift modifier in some locales (languages layouts) so it may be possible that in your personal configuration some buttons will seem like they do not work. Your best option is to change the shortcut assigned in Metagrid and in the Keyboard Shortcut in Sibelius for that precise button. 

In my personal layout a couple of buttons needed to be wired to Keyboard Maestro (a separate software not needed to use this viewset successfully) but, luckily, it was only a 2 of them. 

Should you not be liking something in this viewset you will be able to change and customise anything you want, from actions to shortcuts, from buttons to colours. This viewset is not something I am imposing to the music notation world as a fixed and final truth, rather I am sharing my personal setup, hoping someone will find it useful and will want to contribute to the amount of time spent in setting all of it up. 

Bottom Line

First of all, thank you for supporting my engraving work with purchasing this or any of my available scores. I hope you will find this useful in your everyday's workflow. 

Should you encounter any issue not described here or in the README please do not hesitate to drop me a line here on Gumroad and I will gladly help you.