# Useful extra toolbar for Staffpad on Windows ** UPDATED with note input



## sundrowned (May 7, 2022)

I've found a toolbar app (TabletFriend) which works quite well with Staffpad. Some might find it useful. It can make a lot of the functions single click and reduces scrolling. 

Here it's docked on the left of the screen. It can be easily modified to have other buttons or button layouts, and can be docked anywhere on the screen or minimised.






Here's a quick overview video. (I had to reduce the resolution to upload)
Some of the buttons need a double click sometimes but I think that's mostly just a case of adjusting the timings.


View attachment Toolbar1.mp4


It's a combination of TabletFriend - https://github.com/Martenfur/TabletFriend
And an Auto Hot Key script - https://www.autohotkey.com/

For anyone interested I've attached two files in the zip. To run all the functions above you'll need to run TabletFriend and choose Staffpad-mini.yaml as the layout, and run the Staffpad-toolbar.ahk script in Auto Hot Key.

The current AHK script is for a surface pro screen resolution. It would have to be modified for different screen resolutions.

Any questions let me know.


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## Montisquirrel (May 7, 2022)

Wow...this looks super useful. I am going to check that out tomorrow afternoon. Thank you for sharing this.


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## CologneComposer (May 9, 2022)

This is great. But I could not get it to work. Maybe, it is because I am working with Windows11? Everything looks very promising. But the Buttons are not reacting. Only the esc Button.


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## sundrowned (May 9, 2022)

CologneComposer said:


> This is great. But I could not get it to work. Maybe, it is because I am working with Windows11? Everything looks very promising. But the Buttons are not reacting. Only the esc Button.


I've just tried it with a windows 11 device and I'm finding the same. Some of the buttons work but most don't. 

The strange thing is the buttons are executing the correct key presses. 

If you open a text file and press the hairpin button on the toolbar it will type h which is the correct shortcut key for hairpin. (If you press h on a keyboard it will select the hairpin tool in staffpad)

So I'm confused why it doesn't work in windows 11.


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## sundrowned (May 9, 2022)

CologneComposer said:


> This is great. But I could not get it to work. Maybe, it is because I am working with Windows11? Everything looks very promising. But the Buttons are not reacting. Only the esc Button.


Think I worked it out. Attached layout should work in W11.


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## CologneComposer (May 10, 2022)

Wow! Thank you so much. The Dynamics are working great. But Everything from the arco Button downwards is still not working. Perhaps it is because I use a german keyboard Layout? The Marcato does a job, but it is connected to "change notehead". But the Dynamics are great. Thank you so much!


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## sundrowned (May 10, 2022)

I'll look at it a bit later today.

The only thing I changed in the layout file from the original was removing "type" from the beginning of each 'actions' function. It should be very straightforward what's going on in the file if you want to change any of the buttons. And if you have a different screen size/resolution to a surface pro 7 you will need to edit the mouse click coordinates in the ahk script.


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## CologneComposer (May 10, 2022)

Ah now I understand the way, you triggered the different Articulations. Thats so cool. I will try to change the Buttons. I am using a dell Canvas. So it is no surprise, that the buttons are not working. But I will try it out aswell on my Surface 7. Where can you look up the Coordinates of the Mousepointer, to reprogramm the Buttons? (Found it: Window Spy in the ahk Folder) By the way I use a Streamdeck with Staffpad which works great as well, because you have a haptic feedback. But of course you have a thing more to transport with your surface. So your Solution is much more elegant.


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## wcreed51 (May 10, 2022)

Does StaffPad have enough keyboard shortcuts to use Stremdeck?


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## Kanter (May 11, 2022)

you wouldn't probably need a streamdeck for the basic operation shortcuts, but with the SDs nifty folder and multi-action options, you can program things like an endless amount of tempi, neatly stored away in folders like fast/medium/slow, that will apply themselves to the piece at the touch of a button, an action that is otherwise quite convoluted in Staffpad. Very useful if you are practising to a SP playback.


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## waterman121 (Jun 24, 2022)

This is such a creative idea! I've been running into an issue where the on-screen keyboard occasionally fails to pop up after using the right-click "enter text" command, making editing tempi & entering dynamics incredibly annoying. (Windows 11 thing maybe?) So I edited the TabletFriend file in Notepad to just type text and hit enter. I've got dynamics and a numpad function up and running very easily.


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## sundrowned (Jul 23, 2022)

I've made a new ahk script that's pretty useful. It draws in note shapes, so you can add notes without having to draw them.

I've got them mapped to key shortcuts below. So all I'm doing is pressing the key shortcuts and it draws the notes.
Shift+g = whole note
Shift+h = half note
Shift+j = quarter note
Shift+k = eighth note
Shift+l = sixteenth note


View attachment Staffpad 2022-07-23 21-46-27-1.mp4


I can't get it to work with tabletfriend yet, and as is will only work using a mouse or graphics pen and tablet. But with some better scripting I think it might be possible. Maybe there's someone with better scripting ability that can get it working with tabletfriend and on touch devices.

Edited to add
Shift+i = 32nd note
Shift+o = 64th note
Shift+n = rest line
Shift+u = two 8th notes


View attachment Staffpad 2022-07-23 23-05-21-1.mp4


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