Skip to content
MusicStation – Home

Header bar

The header bar runs along the top of the main window and shows global status information: the product name, the project name with its unsaved marker, the Panels menu, the Workspace menu, the current tempo and the button that opens the help. It is always visible, whatever the rest of the window shows.

Project name

Shows which project the current state belongs to and whether it differs from that file: the base name of the project file the engine reported, or Untitled while the state has no file yet. As soon as the state differs from the file it was saved to, the word unsaved appears next to the name in the accent colour - it is the marker the entry Open… asks about before it replaces the state, and it disappears the moment the engine reports the state as matching its file again (see Save).

Pointing at the name shows the full path of the project file as a tooltip, which is the one thing the base name cannot tell you. The name is file data and is never translated; only the words Untitled and unsaved come from the interface language. The element is read-only - it carries no menu and no click of its own; the entries that act on the project are in the Project menu of the menu bar (see Menus).

The iPad remote has no project surface at all: it neither saves nor opens a project, and the header of the remote shows its own connection state instead (see iPad remote).

Engine status

The status line at the right end of the transport bar shows whether the user interface is connected to the audio engine. It has four states:

  • disconnected - there is no connection. The interface retries on its own: the first attempt follows after about 250 ms, every further one doubles the delay up to 10 s, each delay carries a fresh variation of up to 20 percent. A connection that stayed up for at least 5 s resets the delay to its shortest value. All transport controls are disabled while there is no connection, because the engine could only answer their commands with an error.
  • connecting - a connection attempt is running or the next one is being waited for.
  • connected - the engine accepts commands. Only in this state are the transport controls enabled.
  • incompatible version - the engine closed the connection because it speaks a protocol version this build does not implement. Retrying cannot help, so the interface stops reconnecting and the status stays until the application is started again with a matching version, or the engine is updated to the protocol version this build expects.

The status line is also read out to assistive technology. On the iPad remote the same connection states appear in the header of the remote window - Disconnected, Connecting …, Connected - plus Incompatible version and Connection failed for a pairing the bridge rejected (see iPad remote).

Tempo display

Shows the current project tempo in beats per minute (BPM) with two decimal places, for example 120.00 BPM. The display is read-only and follows every engine transport snapshot: the tempo field of the transport bar, a tempo change from the iPad remote and any other source inside the engine all move it. Use the Tempo field of the transport bar to change the value (see Transport).