This is a bug in Dorico due to incomplete implementation in Dorico. It is not a symptom of, “Oh, you should have used Insert mode first” or “Oh, this happens to new users only”. It sounds like the same bug which I regularly run into with time signature changes, and tried to explain in my previous thread (Time signature changes cause incorrect measures from incorrect number of beats) .
The bug is that Dorico does not Signpost any incomplete-meter bars as it should. No amount of documentation will get around the fact that Dorico has a bug:
- Dorico knows the time signatures of all measures and knows the notes currently placed
- Dorico knows the measure is incomplete
- Dorico has a Signpost (a fairly confusing signpost, “q, 1+1…”, that is already cryptic and hard to find in the documentation) which it places when an added barline causes a measure to be ‘incomplete’
- Yet Dorico does NOT use this flag when the measure is incomplete due to time signature, and that is a bug.
- Dorico has many “View->Signpost” options but does NOT have an option “View->Signpost->Incomplete Measures” and that is a bug.
This bug has nothing to do with “Oh, we don’t want Dorico inserting time for us” or even “Oh, the user does not understand Insert Mode”. This bug is a failure of Dorico to properly implement Signposts to show the composer that measures are incomplete when Dorico internally knows that a measure is incomplete.
The only developer excuse could be that Dorico does not actually know when a measure is incomplete. Yet that should never be possible, Dorico always has to know the number of beats in measures. So it must be a bug (incomplete implementation) in Signposts.
The Signpost of this style could appear on incomplete measures:
If Dorico, for some bizarre design reason, can’t display a Signpost for incomplete measures in real time, then there should be a new feature added to specifically check a flow for incomplete measures, such as “Edit->Verify Time Signatures and Meter”. (Which would be a ridiculous feature to have to add, a huge step backwards.)