Copy Selected Music Frames to Selected Pages - Use-Case Difficulties

[Joshua_Stamper]

Greetings All,

I have a unique layout problem that I could use some help with:

I’m working on a piece that requires several small music frames displaying excerpts of different flows on the bottom of each page of the score. They need to contain the same music page-to-page, as a sort of footer. When I try to use the engrave-mode feature ‘copy select frames to selected pages’, it will copy the frames, but the music in the frame will advance from where it stopped on Page 1, rather than staying the same. From everything I understand about Dorico, this is operating as expected. I’m wondering if there is a way to disable this default behavior so that these footer music frames are the same on every page.

Other things I’ve tried / other questions:

1 - One solution to the problem is to access the music frame selectors, choose ‘unlink’, select the appropriate flow, etc. However, with several music frames in the footer and a lot of pages in the score, this is a heavy time-investment.

To add to the cost time-wise, these footer music frames are necessarily small, showing each excerpt of the music at .5 scale. In order to access the music frame selectors I need to increase the size of the music frame first, make the appropriate changes, then resize / reposition, which takes much more time that it seems like it would. It’s sort of defeating the time-saving purpose of the ‘copy select frames to selected pages’ feature (granted, I’m trying to use it differently than probably intended).

Historically, the music frame selectors are only visible / accessible by the music frame itself being a certain size. I don’t suppose this has changed?

2 - I’ve also tried to create a bespoke master page with the music frame footer, with the appropriate flows selected for each frame, but the result is the same as above. Subsequent pages with the same master page advances the music in each frame.

3 - The only workaround I can see at this point is to create a graphic slice from the first page footer, and then just place that on the bottom of each page via a graphic frame.

If anyone has any suggestions, I’d be glad to hear them. Thanks, all, as ever…

Joshua Stamper

[Derrek]

I’m having a little difficulty visualizing what you are after. Can you post an image of what a successful rendition of such a page would look like?

[Joshua_Stamper]

Of course. Thank you, @Derrek.

Screenshot attached.

[Derrek]

Thank you.

If this is to be used on all pages, one way to handle it might be to create a separate flow just of excerpts using Codas or cutaways to position the elements and then use a reduced-size version of just that flow (which would be excluded from the principal music chain) to appear in a custom page template along the bottom of the desired pages.

[Joshua_Stamper]

Thanks so much for this suggestion, Derrek. It makes good sense. I’ll give a shot and report back.

Thank you again.

[Joshua_Stamper]

Hi there, Derrek,

I tried your suggestion today with creating codas. Things were moving along smoothly, but I’m now stuck with the horizontal positioning of each coda ‘cell’.

You’ll see with ‘Button Menu - Write Mode’,that some of the music examples need centering under their requisite text box.

With ‘Button Menu - Engrave Mode’, I have note spacing activated. The box on the left of each cell would be the obvious place to move things around, but nothing happens when I select and try to adjust.

If you have any other suggestions, I’d be grateful.

Sincere thanks, and be well…

[Christian_R]

@Joshua_Stamper

horizontal positioning of each coda

Hi @Joshua_Stamper, you can try adjusting the coda gaps, selecting one coda signpost and adjusting the gap in the Properties panel, and repeat for the other coda signposts.

If you would like, you could post the Dorico project, so we can experiment on your material, without the need of recreating it, and can give further advice.

[Joshua_Stamper]

Thanks so much, Christian.

I tried your suggestion, but while it got me a little closer to proper alignment between a given coda and its text box, decreasing the gap in the Properties panel didn’t do what I needed it to.

Here’s what I found:
• Selection of a coda signpost and adjustment of its coda gap re-positioned all the codas in the row, which created a ‘chasing your tail’ sort of situation.

• In some cases, a given coda and its text box were so misaligned that it required a substantion decrease in the coda gap. But this just ended up connected the staff lines to the coda to the left, which meant they were no longer discreet ‘cells’.

I hope the above notes make sense. Thanks for the invitation to upload the file. See attached.

Thank you again for all your help!

Bridges - Layout troubleshooting.dorico.zip (1.4 MB)

[Christian_R]

Hi @Joshua_Stamper, I came out with an alternative way to approach your setup.

Dorico file example (I polished the unnecessary flows, and I put 2 music flows as an example):
Bridges - Layout troubleshooting-ALTERNATIVE.dorico (1.6 MB)

Workflow:
I created an alternative First and an alternative Default page templates. In both I set the new bottom music frame to display a new MI music frame chain, with filter set to display only the Button Menu flow. While I created, in Setup mode, an extra flow for the actual music, called MUSIC, and assigned it to the filter for the main MA music frame chain:

I assigned then the Page templates, to the pages (alternative First, to the first page, and alternative Default from the second page onwards):

For the Button text, I used Staff Attached text, assigned to a custom Paragraph style (called BUTTONS, which you can of course adapt to your needs), with some settings to put the bordered text away from the staff. I then manually repositioned the text chunks horizontally in Engrave mode, to center them to each music chunk. This changes will be inherited in all subsequents appearance of those text. I think it is impossible to have the buttons equidistant, because the music chunks (separated by the coda gaps) are all very different in length. I opted to position them centred on each music chunk.

If your music becomes longer, you can marquee select the Botton frame content, including the signposts, and press R to repeat. they will appear as an exact copy in subsequent pages, thanks to the alternative Default Page Template:

If you have more flows of music, you can add them to the filter for the MA music frame chain, in the appropriate page template/s. You can then use the new Flow Heading overrides functionality, to set the flow heading for the Button menu flow to none.

If you need to change the music content of your Button menu, edit the content on the Bridges layout, deleting the repeated material first (possibly using Delete and Delete bars from Edit menu, and also using Insert Mode (Global adjustment of current bar) to delete the unnecessary rests. You can then edit the remaining first iteration of your music chunks. Then switch to the full score layout, and with the marquee selection, including the signposts, Repeat (R) the material, until you reach the end of flow.

I hope it can be useful, and give you what you want.

Result (the Dorico file example is at the beginning of this post):

[Janus]

@Joshua_Stamper

3 - The only workaround I can see at this point is to create a graphic slice …

I admire @Christian_R’s incredible work. But surely Graphic Slices really are the simplest solution? (The only downside I can see is they are not dynamic. But your use does not seem to require that)

Create a graphic slice for each musical extract and add a series of image boxes in your Page Template footer zone.

[Joshua_Stamper]

@Christian_R,

I’m humbled by the time and energy you put into this thoughtful and comprehensive response. My deepest thanks!

Your explanations are very clear. Two follow up questions:

• You rightly note that the each chunk of music is different in length. Is there a way to adjust the staff length? For example, the staffs for Theme 1, Theme 2, Chords, Vamp 1, Tacet don’t need to be extend as far as they do after the last note.

• " If you need to change the music content of your Button menu, edit the content on the Bridges layout, deleting the repeated material first (possibly using Delete and Delete bars from Edit menu, and also using Insert Mode (Global adjustment of current bar) to delete the unnecessary rests. You can then edit the remaining first iteration of your music chunks."

Why is it necessary to Delete / Delete bars from the Edit menu and rests using insert mode? As opposed to another way of deleting things?

Thank you again, Christian. Just a massive help…

[Joshua_Stamper]

Thank you so much, @Janus.

The loss of dynamic cells would be a limit with future development (the addition and revision of existing coda cells) , but the speed of graphic slice creation is certainly a bonus.

Everything is a tradeoff! Again, much obliged!

[Christian_R]

Hi @Joshua_Stamper, it is a pleasure to help.

@Joshua_Stamper

Your explanations are very clear. Two follow up questions:

@Joshua_Stamper

• " If you need to change the music content of your Button menu, edit the content on the Bridges layout, deleting the repeated material first (possibly using Delete and Delete bars from Edit menu, and also using Insert Mode (Global adjustment of current bar) to delete the unnecessary rests. You can then edit the remaining first iteration of your music chunks."

Why is it necessary to Delete / Delete bars from the Edit menu and rests using insert mode? As opposed to another way of deleting things?

@Joshua_Stamper

• You rightly note that the each chunk of music is different in length. Is there a way to adjust the staff length? For example, the staffs for Theme 1, Theme 2, Chords, Vamp 1, Tacet don’t need to be extend as far as they do after the last note.

To answer your questions in a detailed way I made a 12 minutes video (you can set it also as HD quality) with all the explanations. I hope it will the useful:

Dorico 6 tutorial

And here the Dorico file with those adjustments:

Bridges - Layout troubleshooting-ALTERNATIVE-02.dorico (1.7 MB)

[EDIT: of course I noticed that I made some explanations that are nonsense, in my video: the Note Spacings and Note Spacing Changes, will only apply to the layout where they was created, and the Note Spacings in particular will not be replicated by copying the first corrected iteration of the music chunks. Sorry for that.
You are better served using a Note Spacing Change at the beginning, with some very low values, and then selecting all gaps signposts minus the first one, and augment the gaps all at once. Then selecting all music and signposts and duplicate (R) ]

[Joshua_Stamper]

Good gracious. Thank you, Christian. Such a help. Thank you thank you. I so appreciate it!

[Joshua_Stamper]

@Derrek, @Janus, @Christian_R, I so appreciate all your help.

Thanks to you all I now have some ways forward with this particular piece, but before I mark this thread as solved, I’d like to circle back the more general questions in my original query:

• Is it possible to disable Dorico’s default behavior of advancing the music of a flow to successive music frames? I know it’s possible to adjust what gets displayed in a frame through the options provided in the music frame selectors (including the possibility of overriding the default behavior of advancing music by ‘unlinking’ a frame from the frames before it). I’m wondering though if there are any ‘one-click’ options for adjusting the parameters and behavior of multiple music frames simultaneously?

• Historically, the music frame selectors are only visible / accessible if the music frame itself is a certain size. @Lillie_Harris, is this still the case? Is there an alternate way (other than frame size) to access frame selectors or frame settings? @dspreadbury, assuming the answer to the question is no, where would I go to suggest functionality for future Dorico updates?

Thanks as ever, everyone.

[Derrek]

Anything you write here can be considered as a request for a desired feature; Daniel and the team read every message and no doubt note down all requests and any other ideas that sound promising.