4=eight note 5
=quarter noter etc…
This is handled in Preferences > Key Commands. I would start by drilling down to Note Input > Set Duration and removing the existing key commands for each duration; then you can add the ones that you prefer.
Here’s the manual section about assigning key commands:
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Easy. Just change it in the preferences under the key commands.
Honestly, if MakeMusic hadn’t abandoned Finale, I would have never bought Dorico. I’ve been using Finale for years and, although it had its quirks, the speed of writing with Speedy Entry is unbeatable.
The problem is that now that Finale is obsolete and no longer supported, I was forced to look for another option. Everyone was recommending Dorico as “the most advanced notation software,” so I decided to give it a shot and invested quite a bit of money in the license.
What a surprise it was to find out that writing in Dorico is a nightmare. The two-step note entry method (pitch before duration) is completely unnatural and breaks the workflow. I need a program that allows me to write fast and without interruptions, not one that forces me to deal with a methodology that just complicates things.
On top of that, it seems designed specifically for those using MIDI keyboards, which makes it even more frustrating. Not everyone has or wants to use a MIDI keyboard for every project. And even when using one, the method is still awkward and slow.
To give you an idea, transcribing Strauss’s Alpensinfonie in Finale took me about 4 months using Speedy Entry. If I had done it in Dorico, it probably would have taken twice as long or more, which is just unacceptable.
I don’t understand why you can’t implement an option similar to Finale’s Speedy Entry. It’s something that has already proven to work, that many users are asking for, and it doesn’t compromise Dorico’s academic or professional approach in any way. It’s just about giving users a tool that speeds up the writing process instead of slowing them down in every measure.
If there’s anything you can do to improve this, you should seriously consider it. There are plenty of users going through the same frustration, and honestly, we feel pretty disappointed after investing in Dorico with the expectation of a more efficient software.
Can you give an example of a specific passage of notation that is slower to enter in Dorico than Speedy Entry?
Have you tried using Dorico with pitch AFTER duration?
Personally, I’m much faster in Dorico than I ever was in Finale; and even if there are occasional procedures that might take an extra keypress, that’s more than made up by the time I’m not spending moving stuff around the page afterwards.
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See here for a recently-utilised forum thread, where the available options to make Dorico’s note input feel more like Speedy Entry are discussed - some users have very kindly embedded a number of useful links to the source information.
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I couldn’t do it
(By the same user.)
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It looks like double posting the same thread, that’s confusing. Where should we answer?
@WhiteTiger1987 ?
As a multi-decade former Finale user, I’m not sure I understand the issue. In Dorico, Pitch Before Duration mode is Speedy Entry. And if you use Duration Before Pitch, that is Speedy Entry with the Caps Lock key on (so you’ve already eliminated the keystroke of turning the caps lock key on).
I nearly always used a MIDI keyboard with Finale. Initially (as in 1991 or so, before I had the Ensoniq KS-32 synthesizer I still use to this day), I entered notes manually, using my PowerBook’s keyboard letters. Once I got the synth, it proved to be a much much faster method, so I strongly encourage that. But regardless, using Dorico with letter keys on a computer, while I’ve not yet needed to do that, should be no slower than doing the same thing with Finale. Again, if you use Pitch Before Duration, it’s identical to Speedy Entry in Finale. A MIDI keyboard is always going to be helpful for any notation program, including Finale, as mentioned. There are 88-key MIDI keyboards one can get for very little $/€ and from my own experience, they work well.
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I sense that WhiteTiger uses the numeric keys for rhythm with arrow keys for pitch, which I find totally incomprehensible given the workflows I have developed over the years, but apparently this is the biggest perceived lack expressed by a number of Finale alumni in the version of Speedy Entry that Dorico has provided so far.
Yes. And that’s a shame. While I did make use of that on occasion, it was mainly to change the pitching a note in a chord. I recently did that in an old Finale file to transpose the lowest note of a marimba chord up an octave. But it’s maddening, since the target is not very large and it’s hard to know if you’re on the notehead or not (and if not, nothing happens when you drag). It was always also a pain to just select one note in a chord by using the cursor in order to display a cautionary accidental. Off by a mm or so, and it affected the entire chord. In Dorico, this sort of thing is trivial, since it is a filter operation. I never liked dealing with the cursor in Finale. That app worked great when it came to copy-dragging portions of measures (in Finale you drag notes and it automatically copies them there; it’s not a “move” operation).
I am not exactly sure what the two-steps are referring to as being different from Finale (since I’ve never used it), but in Dorico last year I made a “controversial” custom key re-mapping by switching the up and down arrow keys to basic re-pitching (and hold alt for chromatic). I then moved the navigation up/down command to ctrl+arrows. This goes against the Dorico design philosophy which was meant to represent a logical consistency across the app, and my divergence from that I’m sure makes both the dev team and many users’ skin crawl at the thought 
but I can safely say after ~6 months of daily use it’s been working really great for me, since I discovered I am focused on repitch tasks on a single staff at a time with a much greater frequency than navigating up and down to other staves. Of course, this all depends on your workflow.
I am not sure if it will be closer to what you imagine but I find when I am doing P.B.D. that I can really fly, untethered by modifier keys, one hand on the numeric keypad and the other hand on the arrow keys.
@WhiteTiger1987: Please check out the source Lillie Harris today refers to.
Remap the numbers in /properties/keycontrols/note-values as described there.
(if I guess the english translation right for the menue…)
However:
As I initially share(d) the very same impression from WhiteTiger1987, I tried somewhen after realease of Doricos version 5.1.60 creating a script which does all the the Finale-Input-Settings automatically, using the newly given possibilities inside Dorico.
In example, in my case I find it useful mapping also “#”," “b-flats”, dots etc. to numblock.
But as far as I experienced until now, Doricos properties seem not being accessible via scripting.
Probably the developers know pretty excactly, why! 
Nevertheless, and on own responsibility: Maybe there might exist a hidden flag or what ever, which let modify some properties via makro? Does someone know more?
I would tempt my fortune, and if such a script really works, I would share it for all the finale-alumni beside me around here. Could be a quick solution as well in case of updates or new installations.
White Tiger has also only been using Dorico for a few days. Back when I switched from Sibelius to Dorico, it took about 80 hours of focused work in the program before I got up to about 85% or 90% of the speed I was working in Sibelius. Weeks later, I was faster in Dorico than in Sibelius (after years of working in Sibelius). You just need to give it enough time. Expecting to be just as fast after two days is not realistic, because at that stage you’re always hitting the wrong buttons and fighting against muscle memory.
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Agreed. And I would also say that, compared with Finale, Dorico’s automatic and better page layout, and not having to deal with rest input much or at all, are big time-savers.
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One of the beautiful things about Dorico is that you can really customize pretty well any function in the program in order to suit your own mind set and work flow.
I’ve been using a StreamDeck for several years now, and it’s fantastic in the way that you organize menus to suit your particular notation needs. And, Dorico itself is already setup with such a great system of options built right into the program.
Depending where my finger are at any given point of time in the composing/arranging/editing/engraving process, I can use the StreamDeck or just use one of Dorico’s built-in keyboard commands to do what’s needed.
Ahh…you people already know this…I’m just cruising through and offering my thoughts…
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