Thanks for becoming part of the StaffPad family! We hope you get as much enjoyment out of the app as we do, and that you’ll find it as effortless and inspiring to compose some beautiful music with it as we hope.
StaffPad is a music notation application, designed entirely around pen and touch. It’s quite important, therefore, to remember and be aware of what StaffPad is, and what it isn’t.
StaffPad is designed to be a composition environment, rather than a layout or desktop publishing environment. The focus is exclusively on reducing clutter, and allowing the composer to think about what they want to write. It’s worth remembering this concept as we move forward with learning the app, as it has influenced every design decision down to the very core of the app. Our focus with StaffPad was to get back to what it was originally all about: writing down your ideas quickly, and easily.
StaffPad requires a device with a digital pen and touch capabilities. The reason for this is that we need a device that can distinguish the difference between your finger and an accurate pen tip. Not only is this useful for accuracy and actually being able to comfortably write music, but it allows us to make very intuitive decisions about the user interface.
Thus, to scroll around in StaffPad you just use your finger. Without doing anything else, you can swiftly move to writing music by simply setting the pen tip to the screen and starting to write. The app knows the difference; there’s no need to switch a mode or take any special gestures; just write with the pen and move around naturally with your finger.