I couldn’t find this topic searching the Forum.
Since one or two versions ago, entering “cresc.” in the dynamics popover will be displayed in that way and don’t change into a hairpin by default anymore. I just discovered, that this is true for the score, where I entered the “cresc.”, but in the part, the word will still be exchanged into a hairpin. I would prefer when the part(s) will also show “cresc.” by default in this case.
This would be true whether you entered the dynamic via the popover, or the panel, or whichever way: the appearance of gradual dynamics is specified per-layout, and like all per-layout properties there is at present no way to apply the properties in one layout to all other layouts. We will definitely be doing some work on this in the future, to come up with a way of retaining the current flexibility without requiring you to do a lot of busy work that you would really rather avoid.