In my big orchestral piece there is a whole section where all the instruments play half-tone trills. It is a real pain to change every single time the trill property from Major second to minor, as well as show trill lines (which has both a button and a box, for some reason). It would be so great to be able to change, project wise, the default trills properties, as well of being able to set a key command for trills. If I am missing something, please let me know, thank you!
From Engraving Options > Ornaments you can change the global setting for whether trills show extension lines or not. It is the existence of this global setting that necessitates both a toggle and a box in the properties panel: the toggle tells you (and Dorico) that you want to override the global setting. The tickbox determines whether your override is for the trill line to show or not.
As to the interval, can you not set the interval for a single trill, then Alt-click that single trill wherever else you need it? It’ll retain its interval property.
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Thank you so much for the engraving option tip. I am not sure what do you mean by Alt-clicking (option in mac, right?) the trill- what exactly should I do when I create a new trill?
Select the trill, option-click where you want a copy.
Jesper
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If you type “tr m2” into the popover, it’ll immediately give you a half-tone trill. Similarly, “tr M2” will create a whole tone trill.
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where do you actually find this in the documentation? Perhaps because major is in general the default, the ornaments popover only gives the example tr m2 for minor
A full list of what you can enter into the ornaments popover is here. The task only gives a common example or two, so as not to distort/disrupt the flow of instructions. There’s a link to the ornaments popover reference at the bottom of the task for inputting ornaments/trills.
(This is consistent across the Steinberg manuals: tasks are very focused, whereas further reference information will be in a separate topic.)
There is also a separate popover PDF here, accessible from the manual landing page (e.g. here for Pro).
thanks, Lillie. I went into the Help, typed “ornaments” and chose “Inputting ornaments/trills with the popover” which is where I’d expected to find it but failed as there the full list isn’t shown. Would it not be consistent with the manual design if the full list relevant to trills was shown here?
Anyway, I’d somehow missed the relatively new complete popover list (probably I use popovers less than some others because I’d never be able to remember most of them) and this is certainly useful.
No, as I said in my reply above, the Steinberg manual style is to keep full reference material separate from tasks. The link to the full popover ref is the first related link at the bottom of the task. That is consistent in the Dorico manual - tasks involving popovers always have a link to full information about that popover (or at least they should - if they don’t, I’ve missed it.)
ok, so in a situation where I find a task-related entry is lacking full information then I should always try the TOP related link underneath? If this works consistently, then I should instantly become better at finding the info I need in situations like these.
Well, not necessarily literally just the top entry because there are probably a few instances where the popover isn’t at the top, although it usually is - it depends what you’re looking for. Popover references are consistently named: “X popover”. So if you want more examples/instructions about what you can enter into a popover, try one of those. If you want more information about a notation generally, go for the topic with that notation as a title: “Dynamics” “Figured bass” etc. If you want to know what different varieties are available, go for the topic with “Types of X” as a title.
useful tips 
– I obviously meant the top entry when it seems relevant and not as a dogmatic decree.
I don’t all that often need to go into the manual these days but these suggestions have given me a better idea of what I should be doing when I’m there!