Colored Notehead Styles

Version 01.65.00
Added 20 May 2015 (last updated 22 Nov 2016)

For use with Sibelius 7.1, Sibelius 7.5, Sibelius 8.x, Sibelius 18.x, Sibelius 19.x, Sibelius 20.x, Sibelius 21.x, Sibelius 22.x, Sibelius 23.x and Sibelius 24.x

This is a suite of plugins and data files which allow you to use colored notehead styles to color notes. The advantage of this over traditional Sibelius coloring of notes is that notes in a chord will retain their separate colors. The enclosed document Coloring Notes in Sibelius Using Colored Notehead Styles.pdf will be installed onto your desktop in Sibelius 7.x Plug-ins Documentation, and will explain how to use colored noteheads and the tools in this suite.

The plugins that will be installed are

Import Colored Notehead Styles

Colored Noteheads On Harp Strings

Remove Colored Noteheads

Colored Notehead Data File

Colored Noteheads On Strings

A data file, Colored Notehead Styles.sib, will be installed into a subfolder of the user Manuscript Papers folder,and will be used by various plugins. You should also install the plugin Color Enharmonic Pitches, from category Color, and possible Filter Other, from category Filter and Find.

To use these plugins, install this suite, then install Color Enharmonic Pitches, and use it to apply the colors. The enclosed PDF document explains more things you can do.

This plugin and the concept of using notehead styles for colors was inspired by Kai Struck, who also created the SVG graphics used to create the Sibelius symbols and noteheads in this score.

Updated 15 June 2015 to update PDF file. No code changes were made.

Updated 25 July 2015 to include new plugin Colored Noteheads On Strings and String numbers for notes in stringed instruments in Sibelius.pdf

Updated 26 April 2016 to fix typo in Colored Noteheads On Strings

Updated 12 November 2016. Added the color White as a color choice and now allow multiple data files in addition to Colored Notehead Styles.sib.

Now any score in the user Manuscript paper folders whose name has the prefix "Colored Notehead Styles.sib" will be made available as a notehead set the plugins will recognize. This version adds the file Colored Notehead Styles_Bordered.sib, and it will be installed into the For Plug-ins subfolder of the Manuscript paper folder along with Colored Notehead Styles.sib

If there is more than 1 data file installed, the plugins will let you choose which one to use. Colored Notehead Styles_Bordered.sib uses a set of noteheads that are colored with a black border around them, which are more visible especially with lighter colors.

You should also install the updated versions of the plugin Color Enharmonic Pitches, from category Color, and Filter Other, from category Filter and Find.

As before, Kai Struck kindly created the bordered noteheads for me, and donated them to the Sibelius community.

Coloring Notes in Sibelius Using Colored Notehead Styles.pdf explains how to create you own custom data file

Updated 22November 2016. Only the file Colored Notehead Style_Bordered was replaced. Kai created some noteheads with a thicker border which I preferred so I am replacing that data file.

Plug-in written by Bob Zawalich.

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