Dorico 4 - there's no arrow in the tempo track to expand it

According to the manual, there should be an arrow to expand the Tempo track:
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But it doesn’t appear for me:
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And the button to expand tracks:
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Only expands instrument tracks:
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What am I missing?

Thanks,
Stephen

There are several elements that are yet to be reinstated into the PLAY GUI since it was completely rebuilt for Dorico 4. The dynamics lane is also missing. Daniel has mentioned that they will reappear in maintenance updates in the fairly near future. Just keep an eye out for them…

On page 11 of the Dorico 4 Version History:

“Play mode in Dorico 3.5 and earlier versions included a few other editors that are not yet included in Dorico 4, including the tempo editor and the drum editor. We are sorry that these editors are not included in the initial release of Dorico 4, but they will return in new and improved form in a future free maintenance update. In the meantime, we apologize for any inconvenience caused by their absence.”

Thanks

Apologies for the confusion @StephenWeatherford – your screenshot is from the First Steps guide, which was written in/for Dorico 3.5 and hasn’t yet been updated for Dorico 4.

For information about how the new Play mode works in Dorico 4, refer to the Dorico 4 version history (as this isn’t yet included in the Dorico 4 manual).

Any updates on getting this fixed? Unless I’m missing something else, without expanding the vertical space in a track, there appears to be no easy way to manually edit tempo changes. Thx.

Dorico 4.2 has brought back the tempo track. If you’re still on 4.1, I suggest you update! And 4.3 is not too far, as we’ve read in the forum, and should be quite satisfying for everyone.

Yes, in fact the tempo editor was reintroduced in Dorico 4.0.30, back in March of this year. As I wrote in the blog post announcing the release of the update:

To use it, first ensure the Key Editor is shown in the lower zone. In Write mode, if linked mode is activated for the Key Editor, selecting a tempo marking in the music area will show the Tempo editor in the lower zone; in Play mode, you can simply select the Tempo global track at the top of the track overview. The new Tempo editor should feel very familiar, as it is functionally identical to the corresponding editor in Dorico 3.5 and earlier versions.

For what it’s worth, the forthcoming Dorico 4 update will change the way you access the tempo editor again, allowing you to simply add a new lane containing the tempo editor to the Key Editor, regardless of whether you have a tempo item selected, which will make it much more convenient overall.

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Ugh. Thanks for adding it back. But it is completely undiscoverable!

I know there are tempo edits and I want to change them. Nothing about the Tempo editor shows how, and interacting with it does absolutely nothing (no hover, nothing on click/right-click, nothing to expand).

Went to the manual, it shows this entirely unhelpful page:

It does say this:


Key Editor, great! What’s that and where is it? Not mentioned in the links:

Okay, search docs for “Key Editor”. Nothing that seems relevant:


(It’s hidden under Lower zone, but that wasn’t obvious, especially after checking all the top results. Also, nothing so far had said to look in the “lower zone”.)

So I look further in Dorico to try to find it. Nothing under “View”, nothing on the left side. The bottom has this:


Nothing there seems to help.

Finally find it after more Internet searches outside of help.

I’m sorry, but I do not notice this small icon in the lower-left, all by itself.

That’s not where my eye tracks. After having found it before (a couple months ago, don’t use it often), this is completely frustrating. Especially since I went through about this same process last time (and before that couldn’t find it because it had been removed).

Your docs are generally high quality and the UI usually self-evidendent, but this is horrible. Please fix, thanks!

Also, why’s there no help topic at all for the Key Editor? Some of the button icons are non-obvious and since there’s no hover text and no help topic… Thx.

Documentation for the Key Editor has lagged behind the rest of the manual, but it should be available very soon. Apologies for the inconvenience in the meantime.

For now, you can refer to the Dorico 4.3 Version History for more information about the Key Editor and associated functions.

There is also a bit of explanation in the (updated for v4) First Steps guide relating to editing tempos in the Tempo editor, see here:

Thanks. This isn’t just a documentation issue, though. The UI should use a tab control or something to make this more obvious. If you have to go to the docs for this, the UI is not clear enough.

Also, when you mention in the tempo track to go to the tab editor, if you added “tab editor, in the lower panel” or whatever, it would have saved most of my headache. Thx.

When the manual is next updated and Key Editor topics are made available, there will be links at the bottom of that page that you can click to go directly to pages about the Key Editor panel and the Tempo editor, both of which will tell you exactly where you can find them and what you can do with them.

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