Can't get rid of unwanted meter signpost

Again in that PhotoScore->MusicXML->Dorico score: A multi-rest is unexpectedly broken up from 9 to 1+8. At the unwanted break bar is a meter signpost ( 4 /4,1+1+1+1). The whole piece is in 4/4, no pickups, and this is measure 220. I cannot delete that signpost. If I select it and hit delete, it simply hides the unnecessary 4/4 marking. If I unhide it, select the 4/4 marking, and delete it, it is hidden again, but the signpost is still there, just faded. There’s no reason for that “meter change” (that isn’t actually a meter change) to be there. How can I get rid of it?

Select the barline and hit backspace/delete.

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Brilliant! How did you know?

To be honest, reading up in this forum.
If one can’t get rid of the signpost it means that there is an explicit bar line. In those cases one can delete that added bar line.

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Thanks for additional information! I looked at the threads you referenced and apparently (as I suspected) this can be an artifact of music XML importing. I also looked up explicit barlines in the manual, and the information is sort of there, but not very clear, which I wish it were. Glad I asked and grateful for your help.

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If you would like to expand a bit on where you found information, and what would be more helpful, please go ahead.

It’s tricky for the manual to be completely tailored for the sorts of gremlins that can occur via XML import, because this can be fairly file-specific, and there are native Dorico reasons why someone might end up with an unexpected time signature signpost for either incomplete bars or barline overrides that needs to be accommodated, too.

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Thanks for asking, Lillie. I got the information from the forum posts by Dan Kreisler and all the rest of the posts in those threads referenced by @k_b in his Feb. 4 post.

It might be helpful to have a little paragraph explicitly about explicit barlines; when I search that term in the doc, the information is sort of there, but a little difficult to parse; and Leo’s information about deleting, for example, double bars to get back to single bars was also new to me. I can’t find it in the doc, either, though I’m willing to believe that it’s there. But I’m not a newbie at figuring out computer programs, either….
I do want to say that I think the Dorico documentation is outstanding, as is the support on this forum. I am very grateful for it, and your reaching out on this topic is another example of Steinberg’s commitment to excellence and responsiveness, along with your own fine personal contribution.

Can I check that you’re referring to the note on this page, that explains that explicit barlines show signposts, break multi-bar rests, and are a result of (natively) inputting barlines directly?

There is a similar note at the end of the topic about how to input barlines, too, which also includes the hint about deleting barlines to remove the override.

I will look into improving the ranking of these pages when you search “explicit barlines”, as well as the handling of explicit barlines that come via XML. However, common XML gremlins would perhaps be deserving of broader handling, and that might be the sort of information that’s best suited to a blog post rather than the manual whose primary purpose is to describe how to work in and with Dorico.

1st question: Yes, that’s the one. I think it might be clearer to say “Barlines that you have input directly are called “explicit barlines”. They are treated as hidden time signatures and break multi-bar rests.” etc….

2nd one: Again I think it might be clearer to say something like “Barlines input via the popover are known as explicit barlines” etc. “Explicit barlines” is a kind of term of art in Dorico so it would help to provide a simple definition. So obvious to you guys, and clear to me now, but it wasn’t at first.

And again, although I see it is mentioned, I wonder whether it would help to say at the end of the note, “to return from an explicit barline to a normal one generated by Dorico, delete the explicit barline (even if it is a single barline), rather than adding a new single barline. This will eliminate the unwanted breaking of multirests.” I think you can likely improve on the concision of that wording, but I’m sure you get the idea. To me (and evidently for others) it was intuitive (I know, I know) to believe that to change from an explicit double bar back to a single one, I should just select the double bar and click on the single bar.

Hope this is helpful.
Best wishes,
Bill Conable