For me, Insert Mode is like a hob turned up to maximum. After a few ‘ruined pans’, I turn the hob down to zero before answering the phone. Like benwiggy. Of course, it would be nice if the hob were already glowing from the start… Greetings from the kitchen!
Yes, the caret changes appearance, which is great if you’re actually inserting new notes. But my most frequent use case for Insert mode is to copy a group of notes or measures and hit R after I’ve already composed music after that point. For example, say I’ve written 10 measures and then decide that I’d like to insert the contents of measure 5 before measure 9. There is just no indication, other than the icon on the left that is easy for me to not look at, to tell me I’m still in Insert mode after I’ve done the insertion. What would work better is for there to be a change in the Select cursor arrow (maybe making it larger or a different color?) to apprise me I’m still in Insert mode.
Absolutely agree. After messing up several times, I have finally leanred how not to turn insert on when I don’t want it, but a warning would still be very nice. (It’s entirely too easy to turn it on by accident.)
To all respondents to this post:
Thank you all for your feedback! There were many great suggestions. I am now performing insert reversal surgery and the patient is still breathing. Yes, inserter beware! Another thing: Henceforth I will save each day’s work with a date so recovery is easier. I guess I just get too wrapped up in finding new ideas, but that is what I really love about working with Dorico.
Happy New Year!
Ken
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To the Dorico powers that be—
I too, as a new user, have complained about the dangers of the insert mode. Most of the responses were on the theme of “Be more careful.”
But I think the number of posts from users who have been burned should be an indication to the development team that something should be done to make the insert more less dangerous. Perhaps a warning window: “THIS INSERTION WILL CHANGE THE HORIZONTAL ALIGNMENT OF SUBSEQUENT MUSIC. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS?”
Based on the amount of feedback, there is obviously need of better notification when entering Insert mode. We’ve seen a lot of suggestions of how to go about it. But UX designers need to consider maintaining consistency and cascading effects.
I would hate having a notification popup. I generally don’t have issues with Insert mode and having my train of thought interrupted with a popup would be annoying to me. So, if that were the solution to the issue, I’d ask for a checkbox on the popup to never bother me about it again.
Dorico is big on internal consistency. What other things should have warning popups (and disregard options)? Will we need a UI to reset all the disregard settings? Will that UI be a single button to reset all popups or will it be friendly and list all the disregard options so we can reset a single disregarded popup rather than be forced to reset of all of them? This suggestion is now looking more impactful than at first appearance.
I’ve seen enough feedback from the dev team to be confident that they are aware and are thinking long and hard about how best to cover everyone’s desires (satisfying everyone is probably impossible) in a way that makes sense for the entirety of Dorico.
This is in no way intended to suggest we refrain from making suggestions. I just wanted to point out often things that seem easy go far deeper than they appear. Every software developer (which I am) is well acquainted with the phenomenon of “this should be easy” when it isn’t (and the rarer inverse “this is probably too hard”, but actually…).
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I don’t think that’s necessarily a good argument.
People who have no trouble with the current behaviour do not complain about it, so their voice is never heard.
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An excellent point! But while I don’t have issues with insert mode, my designer brain concedes there is room for improvement. Although I wouldn’t put it at a very high priority. Some will disagree.
Anyone who has used a computer knows that repetitive “Are you sure?” warnings are seen as annoying to progress, and just clicked through without any thought, even when we might not want to do this.
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I was not seriously lobbying for a warning window, which I agree would be annoying. I am sure there is a better solution. I just wanted to emphasize that I cannot imagine ever wanting to change the horizontal alignment of unseen music to the right of the specific measure[s] I am working on. Any tool that potentially does so seems to me to risk creating many, many hours of unnecessary and non-productive work to undo the damage.
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I’ve actually set key commands for each of these and so if I’m ever in doubt I just press the correct one and trust that the result will be accurate!
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It’s always astounding how many people respond to legitimate requests with “Nahh, you don’t need that.”
I’m also one of those who have brought quite some chaos to their music by not realizing that Insert Mode was on. I strongly request this potentially dangerous feature to get better guardrails.
(But how would I know. Those who argue against it surely also don’t want seatbelts in their car because you can “just drive safely” or don’t need traffic lights because you can just look for other traffic and not get into accidents.)
There is a reason why some street crossings have traffic lights and others don’t. You just don’t need them everywhere. We identify the spots that are more dangerous than others and put guardrails there. Some arguments are stronger than “consistency”.
Let’s also get rid of all the traffic lights in one swoop, they are way too repetitive! 
Guys, why are you so stronly arguing against something that would probably not interfere with you anyways? In the best case you would also benefit from it, and in the worst case, knowing the Dorico team, all you will need to do is press a “Don’t warn me again”-button once or deactivate the warning feature in the settings menu.
I just don’t get it. There is a real use case for the request here, and you all are telling us that it’s not. Just let the team decide, please!
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A good safeguard would be changing the background color while the Insert Mode is engaged.
[joking] or setup two-factor authentication with an access code sent to your phone. [/joking]
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Jesper
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I don’t object in principle to Insert mode being more obvious – I’m objecting to the suggested implementation, which I don’t think is the best way to achieve the desired result. You can still forget that Insert is on, after you’ve clicked the “Yeah, yeah, whatever” button.
And absolutely: let the team decide how best to include it.
But every feature that’s implemented comes at the cost of another feature that doesn’t get added. And every option to do it “this way or that” increases complexity of code (making bug finding more difficult), ease of teaching/learning.
The more users’ needs are supported by Dorico, the better; but at the same time, I have just as much vested interest in features that I don’t want to see, as those I do.
That’s a false analogue.
Anyway: as you say. The request has been made (and been made before). The team are well aware of it, so no more needs to be said.
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You are right, I went too far with my frustration here. Please accept my apologies.
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Gee, all
It was just a wish. Of course, it may be difficult to change the status quo, but there is a need for discourse, as all these posts seem to indicate. Yes, if you make a mistake, that is on you: AI can’t buckle your seatbelt for you (yet), [actually they tried that, didn’t they?]. How we went from INSERT to seatbelts to traffic lights is a wonder: what an interestingly vibrant community!
Thanks again for all the feedback!
Ken
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I agree on this one. I’m one of the many who have accidentally activated insert mode and found the subsequent bars in the score all over the place. The fact that when this happens accidentally, you’re not quite sure which insert mode is being activated until you check. Of course the usual suspects will simply tell you to be more careful or disable the keyboard shortcut and of course that’s fair enough advice. Perhaps an option to preselect the bars you want to have affected by the insert mode or something. Actually I myself am not against a confirmation dialog for this particular operation as it is potentially so destructive but no doubt the argument will go on and on. But I think this has been brought up often enough – there’s yet another thread on a similar issue as we speak – for at least a little time being devoted by the team to consider the best options, even though like everyone else, I have my own list of development priorities…
When I make a mistake, I figure it is my responsibility, and I hesitate to blame someone or something else as a rationalization.
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You can set an insert mode stop position.
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