Chord Symbol appearance control Confusion

[spencermusic]

I’m striving to better understand the various methods of controlling the appearance of chord symbols in Dorico.

At first, I did a LOT of custom formatting in Library>Chord Symbols… Project Default Chord Symbol Appearance:

I’ve since learned it’s better to start in Library>Engraving Options… Chord Symbols, and I think I understand the affect of all the settings there.

To that end, I’d like to delete all these customizations. I’m able to do it here, but they keep reappearing, but not immediately- I can’t figure out what makes them show up again. Is there a prefs file I can edit or delete somewhere so my default template will not know about these?

I also now know I can change Font Styles for Chord Symbols components- but how to tell what part of the symbols are affected by which style, or how to specify a style to be used for specific elements? As you see, I’ve renamed some of the 6 (!?) entries in the Font Styles list that were simply called “Chord Symbols”. The ones that I could figure out now have names that tell me what I can expect them to alter, but some seem to do nothing. I’d expect to be able to independently change setting for the basic note name, the accidental, the alterations, etc….

For example-

I’d like the “maj” and the “7” a bit larger, and be able to control the baseline height independently for superscripted elements like these.

when I set the prefs to put “mi” on the baseline, it’s a different size than when set to superscript??? Is there a setting for these sizes?

With this Engraving Options setting,

why this result?

Why the () on the #9- it makes no difference whether I type it with or without the parens- and why different size than the #5 on the G7, and why are these parens different than ? Can I adjust the size and baseline of the (#5 #9)?

I did find a Font Style that affected only the parens in the D7(#9)- (see my rename in the Font Styles dialog screenshot)

I have more puzzles to solve- I think Dorico is great, but I do wish things like this that changed via multiple settings could have a detailed explanation somewhere.

Guidance here GREATLY appreciated.

[FredGUnn]

@spencermusic

To that end, I’d like to delete all these customizations. I’m able to do it here, but they keep reappearing, but not immediately- I can’t figure out what makes them show up again. Is there a prefs file I can edit or delete somewhere so my default template will not know about these?

Click on each of those customizations in the left panel of Project Default Chord Symbol Appearances. If the Save as Default star at the bottom is solid rather than an outline, click it so it becomes an outline. Once all of your customizations have the outline star, hit OK. Re-enter the Project Default Chord Symbol Appearances window and either Delete (trash can) or Reset to Default (circular arrow) all of your customizations.

After doing that, open Library Manager. A quick fix would be to reset everything in Collections to the Factory settings, but I think you can just do all the settings that relate to Chord Symbols plus Music Symbols and Glyph Primitives.

@spencermusic

I’ve renamed some of the 6 (!?) entries in the Font Styles list that were simply called “Chord Symbols”. The ones that I could figure out now have names that tell me what I can expect them to alter, but some seem to do nothing.

Here are the Font Styles that Dorico uses for Chord Symbols:

To avoid confusion, you should hit the Reset circular arrow to reset any that you renamed. Delete any additional styles you added.

@spencermusic

I’d like the “maj” and the “7” a bit larger, and be able to control the baseline height independently for superscripted elements like these.

when I set the prefs to put “mi” on the baseline, it’s a different size than when set to superscript??? Is there a setting for these sizes?

Those settings are here in Engraving Options …

… but I can see that you already have overrides for “All roots min7(+alterations)” in your Project Default Chord Symbol Appearances window. Those overrides tell Dorico to ignore the Engraving Options and position the elements as you have customized. You have to remove your overrides if you want the Engraving Options settings to work properly. That’s why it’s important to specify all the Engraving Options first, before diving in and doing any customizations at all.

[spencermusic]

Thanks TONS for your patient help…

@FredGUnn

o1300×590 34.2 KB

… but I can see that you already have overrides for “All roots min7(+alterations)” in your Project Default Chord Symbol Appearances window. Those overrides tell Dorico to ignore the Engraving Options and position the elements as you have customized. You have to remove your overrides if you want the Engraving Options settings to work properly. That’s why it’s important to specify all the Engraving Options first, before diving in and doing any customizations at all.

Right, that’s why I’m trying to delete my customizations…

I would really like a detailed explanation of the logic of the design…

How would I know to “unstar”, then close, then re-open and delete?
What’s the difference between the “revert” (circle with back arrow) and the trash can? What enables the trash can?
Do I have to revert each individual element in the customization?

Still can’t get rid of these 3…

Why the Why the two 9s with the red triangle? Do I delete those specifically? Doesn’t seem to help…

Is this causing this output?

This one is empty but still refuses to die….

[Richard_Lanyon]

@spencermusic

How would I know to “unstar”, then close, then re-open and delete?

The problem here is that your edit isn’t actually carried out until you OK and close the dialog. When you “unstar” the chord symbol, that marks the appearance for removal from the user library, but until you’ve OK’ed the dialog it’s still actually in the user library and therefore you can’t yet remove it from the list.

@spencermusic

What’s the difference between the “revert” (circle with back arrow) and the trash can? What enables the trash can?

“Reset” is for built-in chord symbols, “Delete” is for custom (i.e. user-defined) chord symbols. The difference is that once you’ve deleted a custom chord symbol then you can’t use in your project at all, whereas resetting a chord symbol just changes its appearance back to the default, it doesn’t stop you from using it.

[spencermusic]

@Richard_Lanyon

in the user library

Can I just delete the User Library?

[Richard_Lanyon]

Of course, as long as there’s nothing else important that you’ve saved in there. It’s a file called userlibrary.xml in the Dorico application support directory (/Users/yourusername/Library/Application Support/Dorico 6). If you are going to delete it then make sure that Dorico isn’t running when you do so. You might want to rename it rather than deleting it in the first instance, just in case it turns out that there is something you want in there.

[spencermusic]

I found the [chordSymbolAppearanceComponentCollectionDefinitions] and [chordSymbolAppearanceDefinitions] tags in Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico6/userLibrary.xml, deleted both entire sections, several thousand lines.

All good now. Thanks for your help. A decent HTML editor (I use Sublime Text) and a bit of perseverance is my friend here. Thanks again for your efforts. I really have read almost all of the Manual, having printed it out and having it bound (4 400+ page volumes!), but there are a lot of things not explained.