(Feature Request) Having built a lot of expression maps this year I run into a thing which is minor but can be at times a little confusing (I imagine especially for anyone building maps their first time) - and that is that the window where you go to add base or add-on techniques in the EM editor force all lower-case techniques at the bottom of the list, in other words sorting a-z only after A-Z:
And it will also display out of order in the actual built map which can be confusing at a glance.
I realize there is a search bar above but this can lead to confusion since it is not consistent with the actual playback or playing techniques windows which are all sorted logically Aa-Zz:
When I started out working with Expression Maps, I had what I thought was a good idea for my custom Playing Techniques and Playback Techniques. I named them with non-caps in order to easily distinguish them from Factory techniques. Didn’t work out so well for me when it came to the sorting of lists, though. So I kicked that idea to the curb.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years with Dorico, it’s to avoid trying to make features work the way I want them to rather than how they are designed to work. I’ve always been an “against the grain” sort of guy. With Dorico, I learned the hard way to stick with the intended design.
Hi, I’ll be honest while eventually I started thinking that’s a good idea for making it easy to distinguish, much of the time, especially when I was just starting out, I was not whatsoever paying attention to whether or not I capitalized things - I was just trying to work fast and unless I’m writing a paragraph or formal message I don’t tend to capitalize single words. This is especially why it confused me when making my first maps, seeing them out of order - I had no intention behind this decision originally.
Seeing as how it sorts logically in the other menus, but not in the EM editor, this does not appear to be how Dorico is “designed to work” given that it’s inconsistent within the app. I would think that a consistent approach would add clarity all around. But like I said it’s pretty minor, now that I know where to look!
I suppose also on a similar note, and probably something they are already thinking about, would be the ability to search for words that are not in an exact order.
For example I have relabelled ‘snap pizz.’ as ‘snap (bartok) pizz.’ - but unfortunately in neither the EM window nor the technique popover could you search this by starting to type ‘bar…’, as it must be typed in the precise order.
I have a few gliss techniques listed under minor (natural), minor (harmonic) but in reality I don’t say them that way, so same thing if I wish to start typing ‘nat’ or ‘harm’ they will not show up.
I am sure this has come up and the Dorico team is aware, but just throwing that out there since it’s relevant. Thank you!
Fortunately now that I understand many of mine are lowercase and therefore located at the end, technically no prefix is necessary - I just scroll down to the lowercase section. But a logical ordering would be nice to have so it’s consistent and clear.
If I want files to rise to the top of an alphebetized list, I use a 00_ prefix. But yes, giving users a way to organize these lists is useful and something Dorico should provide (and I think has given some indication that it may in the future).
Can the sidebar under ‘common’ be alphabetized as well. Currently it is in random order. Is there a command for this, This is where you normally select technique expressions from. It would make sense that the order of these expressions be in a logical order. Thank you. Randy
