I’m trying to come up with the best way to handle dialogue and related attached text in theater and opera scores in Dorico, and I’d like to hear from others what they use in their scenarios especially when in development.
My top-level goal here is to attach dialogue to a specific bar, and for Dorico to handle it’s vertical spacing, placing the text on top of all the other elements attached to the measure. I would like this text to be dynamically linked to the measure, in case said measure moves around (which happens a lot when in development). And it would be great to choose which layouts this dialogue text block appears in - I.E. I might have a Piano/Vocal layout that includes a rehearsal piano staff and vocal staves, and want the dialogue to appear above the top stave of a system. I also might have a Keyboard/Conductor score that has a different set parts, and perhaps also a Full score, where I would want the dialogue to appear above that system, even if the vocal staves don’t appear at the top of the score order.
What I’m currently doing:
In my full score, I attach dialogue as staff-attached text to the rehearsal piano right hand, (even if there are vocal or other staves above, because those staves may come and go if material is taken out, or if a staff break is added that causes those upper staves to be hidden - the Rehearsal Piano part is almost never hidden, so it’s a safe place to attach.). I then turn off “avoid collisions.” Then, if the text is at the start of a flow, I add a blank flow heading override to add appropriate vertical space (I do not put said text INSIDE that flow override in case material is added BEFORE this moment. Again, keeping text tied to the actual space in time in the music.). When text appears elsewhere in the piece, I must use manual vertical adjustments to make space for them.
Then, I need to duplicate these text blocks if I want them to appear in other layouts that DON’T include a Rehearsal Piano part, like in the full score, or in the conductor/keyboard part.
Obviously not ideal, not exactly speedy, and with many opportunities for errors. Of course, if the music wasn’t changing at all, I could use different text frames and music frames to keep Dorico in charge of spacing—but this won’t work when scores are constantly and quickly changing (I think?)
What I think might be useful:
It might be great to think of these dialogue text areas not as staff- or score-attached text, but as some other specifically defined type of object, behaving a bit like chord regions. Where, one could add the text ONCE at a specific location in time/specific measure (like a chord), then add a “text” region which would cause the text to appear at the top of the systems (or, if like chords, to the top of the selected staff) and in the layout of my choosing—wherever one has a ‘text’ region active. They might act almost like their own dynamic text frames, so that line breaks, and font sizes could be specific to different layouts and page sizes. They might have properties to show on the top, bottom, left, or right side of a system, and what order they appear in (a ‘stacking order’ perhaps?) in case there are more than one text block at the same time.
As a Finale convert, I very well might be over thinking and overdoing things that could be much simpler, and I’d love to hear how others are handling this.
Additionally I’ve read elsewhere that the development team has this on their list for down the line, and hope this might inspire thoughts.
Related topics:
Difficult Feature Request
Thanks!