Oh my goodness … I’m honestly speechless and don’t know what to say to that.
Look, I appreciated you’re having a tough time, you’re getting plenty of good help here so give it the old college try and see if you can get clear on it - best of luck
I know nothing about programming but googling MVC (Model-View-Controller) appears to be exactly about User Interface.
No one here is minimizing your frustration with getting Dorico to work for you. Most of us have had various issues as we learned the program and have sought help here and from the manual.
To characterize those of us who have managed to be happy with Dorico as people who have simply drunk the Kool-Aid is not a fair characterization.
Many of the most devoted and experienced users here have written of concerns, frustrations, and requests that the developers have positively responded to.
MVC is a software architecture pattern that separates an application into three interconnected parts: the Model, the View, and the Controller. The Model represents the data and the business logic of the application, the View represents the user interface, and the Controller acts as an intermediary between the Model and the View, handling user input and updating the Model and View accordingly. So, it’s unrelated to ui design and it’s the choices from the design that I have issues with. I’m sure no one is interested in discussing software design patterns so it’s not something I would have chosen to bring up.
Perhaps your imagining how you would have programmed Dorico is getting in the way of understanding the best way to use it. One of the advantages some of us had reading Daniels posts prior to Dorico’s first release was the foundation it gave us in the philosophy behind the program.
View (as in MVC) does not relate to the design of the interface.
Don’t we all notice and contemplate design all the time? You see a teapot without a spout and you think; “Well, that’s not what I would have done, but I wasn’t in the room during the design philosophy meeting so perhaps it’s a good decision which simply eludes me.”
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For those interested, there is a brilliant book called “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. While vested in Web design, there is still some terrific advice there on making systems easy to use. The title alone should be a mantra for any designer.
I once led a research project at Uni investigating website usability. My project involved using eye-tracking software to see how users interact with various systems. Two things came out of it for me:
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Our notion of intuition comes not from a single piece of software but from the corpus of software. If a company breaks from established conventions, it is automatically “unintuitive”. In this sense, intuition is acquired practice.
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Despite that, there are design metaphors that are driven by physiological or psychological factors: we can always see the mouse pointer but we can never see a keyboard shortcut; people stop hunting for something if they can’t find it halfway across a row or halfway down a column.
Keyboard input requires you to learn the transaction code behind it, very different from menus or “pick up and drop” mouse actions. Using a mouse is an analogue to the physical world and its use is inferred quickly.
Beginners and casual users seek parallels with other software and digestible mechanics. They feel disenfranchised if they cannot use acquired practice. Menus are easy to learn but slower to use. Frequent flyers and experts prefer transaction codes, which are harder to learn but quicker to use.
I think Dorico is terrific - I’ve completely ditched Finale and Sibelius - but I believe it to be software written by experts for experts. The need for a 100-page “First Steps” or the dozens of didactic videos are testament to that. I love those videos (Anthony and John - I’m talking to you) so keep them coming, please. Dorico SE is not for beginners; it’s for those who cannot afford or don’t need the Pro version. It does not provide an easier route to notation software, only a cheaper route.
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Sounds like an interesting read. I’ll pick up a copy. Thanks.
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the basic design pattern of Dorico is that it is like emacs.
that’s it. that’s the flow. it is that simple.
and that style of user interaction predates nearly everything.
Using Microsoft Windows, which is basically designed to crash especially for audio apps, and blaming it on any app itself, when it is Microsoft at fault (and their poor interaction with dozens of hardware manufacturers) nearly all the time, is pointing blame in the wrong direction.
I beg to differ. Dorico’s design originally revolved around a non-touch, no mouse, Apple laptop “on-the-go” paradigm. Daniel has hinted at this origin a number of times in the past.
That’s fine, but it didn’t really jibe with a lot of users with other, maybe more involved setups.
But the fact that it became pretty flexible in the end concerning input and control (MIDI, Streamdeck, touch, and yes, mouse…) is encouraging and we can hope that the last usability niggles will be ironed out with subsequent releases.
And Windows has been super stable here for me always, with a good audio interface and stable drivers that is, using only pro-level software like Dorico and Cubase with serious VSTs.
B.
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Very pleased that Dorico 5 now has the option to move notes with a mouse. They keyboard never worked for me.