I don’t understand why “Fingering and Positions” in the bottom panel doesn’t “slide” into position directly under the music when a finger number is selected in Engrave mode. It does jump to the appropriate category for notes, beams, slurs, repeat endings, pedal lines etc., which is very helpful.
It doesn’t actually do that, John. There’s no behaviour at present that makes Dorico scroll a particular set of property groups into view. We have ideas about how to improve the ergonomics of the Properties panel for notes, since notes tend to have the largest number of property groups.
I think I understand. Fingering is a “property” of a single note, like an articulation marking, as opposed to a beam which is not, and the bottom panel only slides into position for non-properties. Improvement would be very helpful.
No, everything in the bottom panel is a property (it’s called the Properties panel, after all). Dorico doesn’t automatically scroll the Properties panel for anything, though as you change the selection, items of different types cause varying numbers of properties to appear, which changes the overall width of the panel, and it will certainly move if you are scrolled further to the right than the new width of the panel after you change selection.
Thank you for your patient explanation, Daniel. I had a completely mistaken view of the lower panel, but understand now. Yes, it would be good if the very long Notes panel could scroll to the property being selected in the music. I have my monitor in portrait mode and have a very limited view of the panel.
Unfortunately it’s not as simple as all that, since when you have a note selected, all of those groups are valid. Further, in Write mode all of those groups are equally valid because you cannot select (say) an accidental or a fingering independently of the note itself. In Engrave mode, of course, it’s a bit different and you can select individual fragments, but it’s still not straightforward to know unambiguously which group you would want to see. However, as I say, we have plans for ways to improve the ergonomics of the Properties panel in future.
For the user, of course, it is not at all ambiguous. If one selects a fingering, one expects to see fingering properties. A tie, tie properties. I also noticed that when one selects a beam, nothing at all appears except Common; not even Notes and Rests, and yet there is a category for Beaming under Notes and Rests.
I hope this is not tedious. If so, please ignore this post. I console myself with the thought that initial reactions from a newbie might be helpful, if only in understanding their misconceptions.
John, I agree with you about the options in the Properties Panel when a fingering is selected in Engrave mode. Its confusing to see all those categories if only the fingering is selected.
That’s not to pile on, I did see that Daniel mentioned future streamlining to this UI.
Thanks, Dan. I didn’t intend to belabor this, and understand that they are working on it. I just wanted to clarify for myself that the ambiguity Daniel mentioned was Dorico’s.
Most of the Beaming properties apply to a single note, not to a whole beam. For example, you can’t apply the “split secondary beam” to a whole beam.
Eh?
In Engrave mode, if you select a Beam then the Beaming properties don’t appear. This is likely because most of these properties don’t apply to a beam, they apply to the notes (or some of the notes) under the beam.
Thanks, pianoleo. I get it now.