Best way to enter hairpins differing in length from their attached note

[donhartmusic]

I’m finally able to take some time this week to learn Dorico and (try to) unlearn Finale. It’s going pretty well but entering hairpins is a bit frustrating. In many instances they’re longer than I want since they are automatically the length of the note they’re attached to. I’m learning the key commands to move, shorten, etc. after they’re entered, but it feels like unnecessary work. Am I missing something? If not, could something like a modified drag-select enabling hairpins to adhere to the confines of the selected grid be a possibility?

Attached is a screen shot and the file. It includes examples of what I’m talking about in measures 49 and 52, where the hairpins had to be shortened. Thanks in advance for any help.
Shade.dorico (578.7 KB)

[DanielMuzMurray]

If you’re entering the hairpins via selecting the note and Shift+Ding, I don’t think you can change this behaviour.

It’s FARRRRRRRRR easier to enter the dynamics with the caret active. This way, you can start/stop the hairpins at any rhythmic position.

Inputting dynamics with the popover

Make sure that you follow the Start note input (by pressing Shift+N) directions.

[benwiggy]

The answer to the question “How do I add something at a given rhythmic position” is always: use the caret.

This covers other kinds of notation, like fermatas, text, etc. too.

[Christian_R]

Hi @donhartmusic, besides the given suggestion, maybe you are looking also for a global ways to set the gradual dynamics to not cross the barlines, when their ending is attached to the first beat of the next bar:

[donhartmusic]

Thank you, Daniel, Ben, and Christian. That helped a lot.