Traditional voice parts beam per syllable sung. In practice, this means that all notes that are connected by a slur (one syllable) are beamed, but not the others. Is there a way to achieve this in Dorico, other than editing by hand note for note? If not (which is what I’m assuming), this would be a great function to have (“unbeam unslurred notes”) and probably not too difficult to implement.
You need to handle it manually.
Thanks Derrek. An interesting read. I also hate unbeamed vocal music myself, but since it’s so wide-spread, it’s a bit strange to have it so low on the Dorico priority list. You could either have it as a property of a lay-out, or as a “function” in e.g. the edit-Beaming menu, I reckon.
We’re doing our bit to hasten the demise of this impractical and outdated notation by making you work harder to produce it 
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This seems to be a conflict between engravers who want to reproduce earlier printed scores as closely as possible (I’m not entirely sure why, but they do) and composers who want to make rhythms as easy to grasp at a glance as possible and thus follow the more recent convention.
I guess I’m in the latter group, so the preferences set in Dorico (and Finale, for that matter) suit me.