Preferences → Note Input and Editing → Double-click in Setup or Engrave mode switches to Write mode
Obviously, that was never going to solve my problem. But I had to rule it out before asking on the forum.
More details:
I enjoy the speed and control over using keyboard shortcuts to toggle on/off note input, pitch before duration, etc. I believe the problem is that for my laptop, for some reason, Dorico is frustratingly slow. And when I click on just about anything (switching back and forth between Write and Play modes, clicking on a note to change its pitch or duration, or clicking on a measure to select several notes) Dorico often times freezes up for one and five seconds. During that time, it frequently interprets one click as two, and then I get double-clicked into note entry mode. This is more frustrating when I’m two-finger scrolling around the score to find where I want to start editing, and all the sudden I’ve entered note entry mode and managed to “click” a few random notes into existence.
I tried searching the forum for how to disable specifically the double click into note entry mode, and I’ve spent hours pouring through Preferences → Key Commands to see if I could find anything there to disable.
I would love to solve the problem of Dorico freezing up all the time, but disabling double click from entering note input mode should be a quicker problem to solve. Either it can be done or it can’t.
The fact that Dorico freezes on me so often may suggest that my computer is simply too slow to handle the program. Here are my specs:
MSI Raider 18 HX
Intel Core i9-14900HX
GeForce RTX 4080
64GB DDR5
2TB SSD
Windows 11 Pro
Dorico Pro 5
Version 5.1.70.2200 (Nov 18 2024)
Dorico 5 AudioEngine Version 5.6.42.5
Your computer specs look fine, Stephen.
You might have activities running on your computer in the background that slows it down, I don’t know how to check this in Windows (antiviral software?).
In the mean time, instead of clicking onto notes when selecting them, you could use the arrow keys to quickly navigate to them. There are additional modifier keys, so you can move by bar etc. Combined with alt and shift there are also easy ways to make bigger selections like whole bars. This might be helpful for now.
TBH, I would try to investigate and fix this, rather than mitigate it by disabling double-clicking.
Dorico can become unresponsive when autosaving is triggered: if you have large files, using third-party VSTs, then this can take a bit of time. Perhaps reduce the autosave frequency and see if that improves things.
Yes, I agree with what others have suggested: we should really try to figure out why Dorico sometimes freezes when you click to select something. I also agree that your computer specs are highly unlikely to be the issue.
In general, making an initial selection, particularly a single selection because you’ve clicked on a single item, or even a block selection within a single bar because you’ve clicked in a blank part of the staff, should be more or less instant.
So it would be good to figure out under what circumstances this isn’t the case. Do you find that it happens in all projects? Does it seem especially bad in one particular project? What playback template are you using?
Stephen, just to pick on that comment, you can select the notes with the arrow keys, you can adjust the notes with arrow keys, if you hold down alt at the same time. This is for pitch adjustments (up and down) or for changing position (alt+right/left arrow keys). Adjusting the note length or rhythmic value can also be done without the mouse/trackpad.
Stephen, these are two different actions single-click and double-click. If your computer can’t distinguish them, might it be that your trackpad is of minor quality or your operating system strangles user input, that’s where you will find the best place to improve your situation. It might be an idea to get a separate mouse to make things easier. You might try to run your Dorico Software with a lighter Playback Template and, as suggested, increase auto save timing. If your Software crashes, immediately post the Diagnostics file here. This has helped 100s of users already and will most certainly improve your situation.
ps. and please keep the forum etiquette, don’t post in bold or capital letters. This comes over as offensive and will also keep other helpfully minded users stop reading your contributions.
It sounds like there’s a perfect storm of problems. You’ve got lots of VST plug-ins, which can sometimes affect stability. You’re running VSL, which is a large library in terms of RAM/file size. You’ve got auto-save set to every minute, so every minute Dorico is pausing to save your large files.
I agree that you should supply a Diagnostic Report after the next crash, t osee if the team can identify the problem, and perhaps prevent it.
Are you using VEP (Vienna Ensemble Pro)? This basically ‘hands off’ the samples to an entirely separate app, making Dorico a ‘guest’ to VEP’s host.
Many people have found that it solves the problem of very large data involved with Vienna’s libraries.