Yes, I am aware of that! And the defaults actually do a reasonably good job of being within shouting distance of what people want.
I think it’s easy to forget, on a forum like this, that most people who use it simply are not power users of Dorico.
I would say a sizeable minority of posts on this forum could be replaced with:
{exasperated sigh} Well, why don’t you simply spend 400 hours learning every fine detail, like I did?
I’m an experienced string player. I really don’t mean any unkindness, but there is nothing ambiguous about the first example. If a string player sees a tie, as in the first example, they will simply play a note of the length indicated. There is absolutely nothing in the notation that would cause a player to even think about changing bow direction or pressure.
But the thing is, I asked my string players about this, and some of them agreed with you, and some did not. So, by definition, it was factually ambiguous! And yes, slurs look different to ties. But they are similar enough that as the music is whizzing past, it could be one and it could be the other.
And again, I come back to the fact that the lower example is what I wanted, so it’s what I should be able to get. Which, with the help of forum members here, I now can.
Good point! Tantacrul has a new video out on the demise of Finale, and at one point he discusses user testing for MuseScore. He discovered that most users don’t learn more than a handful of shortcuts, relying instead on point and click.
It’s frustrating for me to see people (often my own students) using Dorico this way, because I know the shortcuts and they save so much time, not to mention possible hand and wrist injury. One of my favorite things about Daniel’s Sibelius manual way back when was the advice to put your mouse on the floor!
The manual for Sibelius 3, and then later, Sibelius 6 was, hands down, the best manual I have ever had the pleasure of consulting. It was the principal reason I cross graded from Finale, and I never looked back.
Right!
So, is anybody willing to give me their top 10 best shortcuts that I should use, and don’t, on the assumption that I only use the following:
Copy/Paste/Undo/Redo
Most Popovers
Numbers for note lengths
Letters for note names when not using midi input
Various combinations of ctrl/shift/alt and arrows for moving phrases up/down or left/right
And furthermore, is anybody willing to give me their top setup/preferences setting or tip which saved them from needlessly screaming at the screen?
I would hope that they are more like : “I’m telling you this, so you don’t have to spend 400 hours to find it out for yourself.”
Mostly, they are! And quite often, they are not…
Obviously, the main problem with this is not in any way the fault of Dorico, or Daniel, or the members here, or the frustrated newbie. The main problem is that, in order to be comprehensive, any piece of software (to do pretty much anything) has to have about a billion shortcuts, and whilst you only need to know about 50 of them, it’s a different 50 for each user.
I think that depends heavily on the kind of music you want to write.
I think you don’t benifit much from the preferences of a user who writes mostly Leadsheets if you’re writing for full symphony orchestra’s.
I therefor think you’d best, at the moments you’re shouting at your screen, count to ten first, and then ask the forum how you could achieve what you want.
Preferably by showing what you get, and what you want.
Here’s a few shortcuts (custom key commands) that I find helpful.
Remove rests
Beam Together
Cut beams
Toggle signposts view
Transpose
Filter almost everything
Change voice
View voice colors
Show hub
I recommend exploring key commands from the preference menu.
These are all great. I can add two more to your list that I use constantly, both in the Write menu:
Maybe you already use these? But for me, so much of composing is about adjusting timing - how long a note or chord is - just futzing around. It is so much easier to do this in Dorico than with pencil and paper, or any other software. It makes Dorico a real composing tool for me.
And finally, as in Sibelius, you can use option-click to copy just about anything: notes, dynamics, playing techniques, etc. etc. FWIW I also use a StreamDeck for things it’s hard for me to remember. Thanks for asking, and good luck!
PS. The jump bar (type J) is also fantastic for discovering many commands, I use it for some of the ones @lafin mentions above.
This one is already defined. On the mac it’s `, not sure on windows.
Duplicate to Staff Above/Below is pretty crucial. I’ve assigned Shift Alt N /M.
True, but, unless I’m mistaken (which is statistically likely 
) the signposts have to be showing to toggle off and only by holding the `. And this toggle is for all hidden items–again unless I’ve made changes that I don’t recall.
I prefer a command to specifically turn signposts on and off without having to hold a key.
Fair enough, I misunderstood.
I tell you what I would like, although I don’t know if it exists. I’d like to be able to input a slur and then extend it over multiple notes, like you could do in Sib 6. I find selecting all the notes I want and then pressing the slur key slows me down a lot. Is there a way of doing that? I tried looking in the manual but it just gives me a headache.
This has been requested before - I think it’s one of the relatively few things in Sibelius that we can’t easily do yet with Dorico.
If you want, you can just select one note and press S, to create a slur to the next note; then either drag the end to the final note, or extend the duration of the slur with Shift Alt Right arrow. (Same as extending the length of anything.)
That was outside of Note Entry. During note entry, pressing S will apply a slur until you stop it, with Shift S.
You only need select the first and last. Command click (or CTRL click on PC) to select the last whilst still keeping the first selection.
Perfect. Just what I wanted!