So I was considering recommending that students download D5 SE for the fall semester since it’s free. I know holding down Ctrl while clicking the D5 icon with start Pro as SE, but it doesn’t really replicate the experience of SE, as all my usual Engraving and Notation settings, fonts, doricolib files, etc. get loaded at startup. Is there an easy way to start as SE with all the SE options loaded? (Obviously there’s no Library Manager in SE to quickly revert settings to factory.) Just rename or move my user folder first? I was curious what settings and options they would have, particularly with chord symbols and percussion, before recommending or making up a handout.
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Aren’t the engraving options missing and set to default, if you start dorico this way?
You might set the notation/engraving options to factory and save as default in pro and start SE.
To get them back just, open a file with your settings in pro and import them again?
I just renamed my user folder. It seemed safer to keep it fully intact. SE will recreate a new user folder if it doesn’t find an existing one so it was interesting to see what sort of things got saved in it.
It also became apparent that one could take any Pro settings like Engraving Options or Notation Options, drop it into that folder, and SE will still recognize and use them upon startup. (Or at least opening Pro as SE will.) Obviously that’s circumventing one of the whole points of free reduced functionality software, so I’d never do that or give my settings files out to facilitate this, but it was interesting to note that it seemed possible.
That’s the reason, why I asked if it start with all changes.
Is it the same behaviour if you create a new file?
If it’s a already existing one, it makes sense that you can see it as it was written and edited originally.
Yep, if I start SE, but leave my regular D5 Pro user folder as is, SE will start with all my Preferences, Engraving and Notation Options, fonts, doricolib files, etc. Any new files created from File/New in SE seem like they have all my Pro settings. I haven’t done an exhaustive test obviously, so maybe some settings aren’t carried over, but it definitely seems like most are, even if they aren’t usually editable in SE.
Yes, that’s correct. Dorico Elements and Dorico SE will load user data files that include settings that can’t be directly edited in the software. On one level, if people are willing to go to great lengths to gain access to settings that are not included in the version they’ve purchased, I’m not personally too worried about it. At least they’re using and are invested in Dorico, and perhaps pushing at the limits of the version they’re using will prompt them in future to consider upgrading to a higher product tier.
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