And manipulating the program to do things by non-standard means risks such techniques being deprecated in future versions of the program.
With all due respect, Derrek, Iāve only been using Dorico for several weeks, and - despite trying very hard to discover those āstandardā techniques - I donāt yet know which are standard and which arenāt.
Hi, Pianoleo;
The main difference stems from what Dorico does when one creates a pick-up bar after having created some music without it ā that is, it pulls some of that music back into itself. Personally, I donāt usually compose a line with a built-in pickup if I donāt want a pickup. Should I later decide that I do want a pickup, I then write the pickup note(s) that I wish to use. But my main goal, with these questions, is to learn the proper way of doing the things that I need to do, with the least number of workarounds.
This is why Iāve brought up the concept of ārhythmic positionā - the first note on the first beat in your flow will be the first beat in the flow, whatever you change regarding the time signature and pick-up bar, unless or until you explicitly change that - e.g. by inserting notes/beats or by removing them. Dorico wonāt assume when you add a time signature with pick-up bar that you want to insert time at the start of the flow, so if you do want that, all you need to do is tell Dorico to do that (e.g. by using the system track, or the bars and barlines popover).
That is, if you have a note on beat 1, in bar 1, with a time signature of 3/4 and then you change that time signature to have a 1-beat pick-up, the first beat in the flow is now āinsideā the pick-up. The barlines move around the notes in their fixed beat positions.
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The tools you have are the System Track, the time signatures popover and Insert mode. Used in combination, you can do pretty much anything time-related in two steps. These arenāt workarounds; theyāre the tools that have been designed for the job.
Thanks, Lillie. I think Iāve got that by now ā itās how to deal with Doricoās thinking, in this case, that Iāve been trying to figure out. But, thanks to yours ā and everyone elseās ā feedback, I think (I hope) I have the information I need. Now I just need to practice using it - a lot!
I mean āworkaroundsā in general ā thoā I still have a different opinion about this case than you. You guys (on the forum) have been amazingly wonderful, but you have to understand that this is a completely new ācityā for me (after 30 years learning Finaleās esoterica), and what is obvious to experienced Dorico users is anything but that to me.
Argh. . . 
I finally get your point, pianoleo!
My apologies, but O, what a complicated program this can be!
There are other ways around the situation, incidentally. If you have a 3/4 bar with a pickup, you could add another 3/4 on whatās about to become the first beat, then use the System Track to delete the pickup bar. Or you could replace the initial 3/4,x with just 3/4, then use Shift-B -xq on anything from a single stave (voice?) to the whole ensemble.
There are multiple useful tools for this sort of thing. The best tool (or combination of tools) is largely dependent on what it is youāre trying to achieve.
(And yes, itās complicated, but you got your head around Finale, so Dorico is surely achievable 
)
Thanks for the vote of confidence, pianoleo 
I think these were among the procedures with which I was experimenting over the past few days ā I had either stumbled onto them, or picked them up from older forum threads. Itās great that these options exist, but Iāve become confused when using their particulars to try to deduce how Dorico āthinksā. As youāve seen, I can come to the wrong conclusions, even while using them in ways that seem to āworkā.
Thanks for your help, pianoleo ā I appreciate it!
Hi again, pianoleo. Iām still trying to put it all together, and have another related question:
I begin with this:
. . . and create a pick-up bar by clicking on the time signature and adding ā,1ā :
Then, to āpushā my flow back to its original position while still preserving my pick-up bar, I use the bars and beats popover to add a beat to that pick-up bar ā [shift-b1q]:
. . . which does push my flow back to its original position, but also seems to add a bar to the end of the flow. I think that Iāve only added one beat, but Iāve obviously added another bar along with that beat. What causes the creation of this added bar?
Thanks!
Image one is six beats long.
Image two is seven beats long - youāve created an extra beat at the start. Bar 2 is still a complete bar.
Between images two and three, youāve moved beats 1-7 a beat to the right, meaning that Dorico now has to fit eight beats into a 1-beat pickup bar followed by some 3/4 bars. 8-1 = 7 and 7Ć·2 >2 so an extra bar has to be created.
Thanks once again, pianoleo. I see that Iām still thinking in terms of Finale input ā and, for that matter, how I work with music manuscript and pencil. Doricoās foundational premise is so foreign to how I think as a composer!
Fundamentally it shouldnāt matter. Dorico automatically creates (full length bars) as you type music in, and the Shift-B popover allows you to add and remove bars or beats anywhere you like. Shift-B fin (or final) Enter is a quick way of trimming the end of a flow and simultaneously adding a final barline, anywhere in a bar.
Dorico wonāt let you overfill a bar - unless you resort to tuplets - but very happily rebeams and regroups notes if you happen to rethink the meter.
Thanks, pianoleo. I think my problem is that I view the opening bars as place-holders for their notes, so if those notes are shifted to the left in the creation of a pickup, I assume that the whole stream ā including those ending rests ā have also moved to the left. But, of course, Dorico has to fill those remnant bars, and each time it fills them with another rest or two, those rests are now added to the flow.
Iāll āget itā one of these days . . .
P.S. Do I understand this correctly, pianoleo: That from the moment that Dorico has to add a complete bar in order to accommodate a note, it thereafter considers all the beats in that bar to have been permanently added to the flow? (I just noticed this behaviour when using Marcās āmove notesā technique: as I moved them further and further to the right, they eventually caused the formation of a new bar at the end of the flow; when I then moved the notes back to the left, that new bar didnāt collapse or disappear ā it remained. )
You know that you can āmoveā a selection(by the rhythmic grid) by simply alt-cmd-arrow (left/right) the selection? If you havenāt already, I invite you to try that. Moving, lengthening, shortening musical content in Dorico is such a joy
Wow, thank-you for that, Marc ā I had no idea. Iāll certainly try it!
Aha ā I see that it moves it in increments that are determined by the note-values chosen for the rhythmic grid. Very useful!
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Thatās one of the beauties of the levels of abstraction on which music lies in Dorico. The representation of the music is highly changeable, depending on its placement in a meter (or no meter), a key signature, etcā¦ and the content is still left untouched 
Hmm. . . a little more light may be appearing now: in Dorico, moving notes is not the same as āadding a beatā in order to move those notes. . .
I hate to keep coming back to this topic, pianoleo (re. my own sanity as well as yours!), but can you please explain the following?
You have shown why adding a beat in the pickup bar (shift-b,1q) creates a new bar at the end of my flow:
So letās begin with that same scenario:
And, instead of adding a ābeatā , we Insert a note or rest:
Youāll notice that ā now ā Dorico has not added another bar to the end of the flow. If I understand Insert correctly, it too adds to the flow, rather than replace an existing note, so why does adding a ābeatā add that bar, while inserting a note not do so?
Thanks for your patience, pianoleo!