Selecting music

battuta has two selection shapes, and they are for different jobs.

Event runs — red

A run is an ordered stretch of events inside one voice.

• shift-click from the caret to another note in the same voice.
• shift + ← / → extends note by note, across barlines.

Runs are what you want for anything that applies to notes: transposing, accidentals, articulations, slurs, ties, hairpins, tuplets, pedal.

A run in red, shift-clicked along the treble voice.

Block selections — green

A block is a rectangle in the grid of measures × staves — the spreadsheet model, where measures are rows and staves are columns.

Drag across the score: as soon as the pointer leaves the measure or staff it started in, the drag becomes a block. Release to keep it.

A block in green: two measures × both staves, painted by dragging.

Blocks are what you want for anything that applies to regions: copy and paste, repeat barlines, voltas, reflection, inserting or deleting measures.

A two-measure, two-staff block — Schumann, Soldatenmarsch, op. 68. A block can be one measure of one staff, or every measure of every staff, and anything between.

One selection, every action

You don’t have to remember which shape an action wants. Whichever selection exists, battuta derives what the action needs from it:

You have	An action that works on notes	An action that works on measures
A shift-run	uses the run directly	uses the measures the run spans
A single-staff block	uses the run of events inside it	uses the block directly
A multi-staff block	covers every event in it (transpose, accidentals)	uses the block directly

So r toggles repeat barlines around the measures your shift-run touches, and ctrl + c on a run copies that run’s whole measure span. Where a span needs to start and end on notes — a slur, a hairpin, a tie chain — rests at the edges of the selection are trimmed so the endpoints land on real notes.

Endpoint pairs across staves

A run cannot span two staves, so shift-clicking from one staff to another selects an endpoint pair: just the two notes you clicked. That is exactly what the spans which legitimately cross staves need — a cross-staff slur or hairpin — and battuta writes them with both staff numbers.

Actions that genuinely require one voice (tie chains, the grace-note pair) refuse an endpoint pair, and say so.

What a selection enables

Selection	Then press
A run of notes	shift + s slur · t tie chain · p hairpin · shift + p pedal · shift + t tuplet
Two notes, different pitches	m grace-note cycle
Any notes	alt + ↑ / ↓ transpose · s v n accidentals · Delete to rests
A block of measures	ctrl + c copy · ctrl + v paste · r repeat barlines · shift + 1…9 voltas · shift + r reflection · +m −m ⧉m

Clear it with escape

esc drops both the run and the block. Clicking a single note also clears a block — which is the usual way you notice one was still active.

Next

• Arranging — what blocks are really for.
• Marks and expression — what runs are really for.