Hello everyone,
As a French Finale user, I am currently testing Dorico 5.1.
As you know, contemporary music requires fairly powerful tools, as does early music.
I would like to know if it is possible to make one or two barlines invisible (or delete them) on a single staff (only) of the score, without affecting the others.
I have tried several manoeuvres, tried to create a different metric, but nothing is fully satisfactory. I went through the huge manual and couldn’t find anything useful in it.
Having browsed the forum, I’ve seen that barline editing is a black spot and generates a lot of requests from users.
But, If you have any tips, I’d love to hear from you.
You can use a Tick barline, and then edit the length of the tick to be zero. (-1/2 spaces on each side of the line.)
If you don’t need to use Dashed barlines, you can set the length of the dashes in Engraving Options to 0, but this applies to all dashed barlines. Using Ticks lets you set each one.
Also, it is possible to create “local” time signatures that affect only one staff, by holding Alt (option) when you press Enter in the popover.
There’s an article about techniques for Early Music here, if that’s useful:
Unfortunaly, the “tip” of tick adjustment doesn’t work as I would like it to, since all staves are affected. In my test, I would like only one staff in the score with invisible barline (or no barline), here and there.
Yes, as Janus points out, a local time signature should work.
Bring up the caret in one staff, at the start of the bar, and enter the time signature that you need for this long bar (e.g. twice the normal). Hold Alt when you press Enter.
Unsatisfactory because, if I change Time Signature on one staff in order to obtain some blank barlines (with popover+option key), this change will be affect all my staff along, and I have to change again afterward this time signature.
It is possible when we are inputting music, but very counterproductive in editing way.
Anyway, I have to admit that Dorico doesn’t have the equivalent of Finale’s staff styles, and I’ll be waiting for it to offer more flexibility with barlines in future versions of Dorico. Browsing through this forum, it seems I’m not the only one hoping for an improvement on barlines (an invisible barline doesn’t have to be that complicated to incorporate into the available ones, I think).
So… in Dorico 5.5 ? 6 or 7 ?
A last question : in write mode, doesn’t the normal panel allow you to do the same thing by clicking, for example, on the data to be entered (meter or key signature or whatever) while pressing the option key ?
Only the popover can do that ?
I mean, of course, enter a data in an independent staff.
One can select a note and then hold the ALT/OPT key down while clicking a time signature in the righthand panel if one does not wish to use the popover.
And, another important point to end this post :
It would be nice if Dorico could make changes only within the limits of what has been previously selected (for TimeSignature or KeySignature, e.g), and not to the end of the score.
In Finale, as in Sibelius, if I select a measure, for example, or part of this measure only, what I ask for will not go beyond the limit of the selection. Maybe I’ve missed an episode in Dorico, but if not, I’ll add it to my wishlist.
A recent update introduced the ability to add things like clefs for the duration of the selection, so I dare say that function might be spread more widely – unless there’s a good reason why it wouldn’t work well for time sigs, because of some other workflow that we’re not thinking about.
Regarding the idea of changing the meter for only one bar: When it’s for all instruments (i.e. not the use-case in this thread), look into the 4th scope of insert mode, “Global Adjustment of Current Bar”. You can insert or delete notes freely, and Dorico handles the meter changes for you.
The other thing about rebarring in Dorico is that it is completely non-destructive. If I change the meter and change it back in the next bar, everything after that is back exactly as it was.
I’m adding a short post to tell you about a brilliant idea that was given to me in my sleep by the God of engravers (Wotfriedhilde).
If I’ve understood correctly, Dorico doesn’t think in terms of staff, like Finale (with the so powerful “Staff style” tool), but rather in terms of « instruments », a bit like Sibelius does.
As a result, a small improvement to the create an instrument dialogue box (which you’re all familiar with) would be a great addition to future versions of Dorico (5.5, or 6 ?). [Please, dear developers, read this]
In the screenshot below, you can see the staff type commands for a new instrument ; all you’d have to do is add :
the ability to select 0 lines (For the moment, we cannot go below 1), and then we’d obtain those famous white staves that many people have been asking for
add everything to do with barlines for this new instrument
: types, or no barline at all, and that’s it.
Alongside the implementation of an « invisible barline » in the list of available barlines by default, and we access suddenly to the Walhalla. (end of Das Rheingold in background music of this post)
What do you think about, friends ?
This would be the most practical way of getting what you want from part of one staff only, as contemporary music today often demands.
And this would mark the end of bald Dorico users (tearing hairs out) dreaming up complicated workarounds.
how did I not know this!?
