Displaying two(+) flows, which don't follow the playhead?

Dorico
1

Hi there,

I am not sure if that feature exists and if I’m too blind to find it.
Scenario: I am using a separate flow for sketching out stuff - some harmonies, some melodies etc. I create a second flow for refinement of that sketch, and maybe more flows (Orchestration, alternate orchestration etc).
What would be ideal during that kind of work is to have two flows open (e.g. the sketch and the refinement) to check and look stuff up on my sketch, and work on the refinement. In general that works nicely (either with splits or separate windows), until I want to check one flow via playback - then the playhead (of course) jumps to the playback position and starts playing - all windows/panes syncing to that flow that plays. The issue/question is - how can I make sure that e.g. the sketch flow doesn’t follow the playback?
Meaning - as If I would open an exported PDF on the side - just stay still while e.g. the left split pane is playing back.

So, is it possible to “freeze” the pane(s) or window(s) to not follow the playback display? Or if not, would that be useful to others and make it as a feature request for the next update?

Best,
Mat

1 Like
2

“The next update”? :laughing:

1 Like
3

I’m afraid this feature is not currently available. You’re not the first person to request a feature like this, Mat, and it’s something that we will certainly consider for future versions of Dorico, but I can’t make any specific promises about when it might be implemented.

4

Thank you Daniel. Good to know that it’s on your radar.

5

+1 on adding this feature!

6

Good news! It was added in version 5. Look for the Follow playhead slide switch in the status window. Now you can open two windows and have one set to follow and one not. It’s a great feature.

1 Like
7

Disabling the Playhead entirely would indeed be a great option, since it always seems a few beats late, it actually makes reading music along the playback a less than stellar experience.

8

@Chester.Jankowski Wow! Thanks for pointing this out!

@Emmanuel_Cambier : The playhead for me has always been exactly on the beat. You must have a lag somewhere in your setup! (Sorry I can’t tell you what the problem might be…)

1 Like
9

Good to know it works for some, I’ll try to find where the lag comes from, but still… I’d like to be able to disable the playhead for a more “paper” like feel !

10

You can disable the playhead! It’s the toggle Chester mentioned above.

11

This will not disable the playhead, this will just keep the windows from following the music… a very different concept. And the Playhead is still following the music !

12

Wait, that’s so weird, toggling definitely got rid of the playhead for me a few minutes ago when I tried it, but now I see it’s back to how you describe it. I must have had a glitch in Dorico, or a glitch in my brain…

13

Maybe you where in print view, the Playhead never appears in this mode, but the pages won’t follow the music either… which is even more “paper” like than I envisioned :grinning:

14

Coming back to this because I realized there’s more to it than I thought - nothing to do with playback.

In split screen mode, I’m getting an annoying behavior where whenever I do Undo, one split will suddenly jump to match the other location and I have to scroll through to find the right place again.

Any way this can be prevented?

15

This certainly has nothing to do with playback or the playhead. There’s an option in Preferences to determine whether Dorico will move the view to follow changes of selection on undo, but that will affect all views.