Chord Symbols have been around since D1.1, but as of D4.3 the chord symbol suffix editor is still the same one “borrowed” from Edit Playing Techniques, which was available in D1.0. Perhaps it’s time for chord symbol suffixes to either get their own editor, designed for the needs of chord symbols, or a “skin” for the current editor that presents the elements used in chord symbols in an accessible way. When editing / creating chord symbols, it makes logical sense to first present the elements most likely to be used for chord symbol suffixes, but the current editor instead hides them all away. Here’s what I mean …
The user is greeted by the above editing window when clicking Edit Component with the #9 selected. Logically I would expect the user to maybe want to alter either the accidental, the number, or the positioning of those items, so tools to do those edits should be immediately accessible. Instead, Dorico presents a palette of accidentals, none of which are actually used in chord symbol suffixes! There is not a single accidental in that palette marked with a red X above that is actually used in a chord symbol suffix by default.
So where do the chord symbol suffix accidentals actually live? Buried in a long text-only list of “Composites” under obscure names, rather than any kind of graphical display that would be helpful to the user.
The accidentals circled in green above are the accidentals that Dorico actually uses for chord symbol suffixes. The user needs to see those accidentals, as well as any other common suffix elements like dim circle, major triangle, etc., when opening the suffix editor, not a palette of incorrect accidentals. (As far as I can tell, none of this is documented either.)
If a user logically assumes the accidentals presented in the first image above are the accidentals they are supposed to use, then the user quickly ends up with accidental potpourri in the score. Does it matter for a jazz gig? Probably not, but for publication, I would imagine any decent music editor would catch the discrepancy below, where the accidentals marked with the red X are custom suffixes using the accidentals initially presented in the window, and those with green checks are (correctly) using the default glyphs from the Composites list.
(Yes, the “composites” are actually just the Standard Accidentals for Chord Symbols SMuFL range, so an informed user could select that range from the dropdown, but then Dorico doesn’t apply the scaling factor from Engraving Options as evidenced by the gigantic sharp below.)
When adding text, Dorico should really default to the Chord Symbols Font font style. This is the style the user will modify when they wish to make a global style change. Instead Dorico defaults to a completely unrelated style, Bar Repeat Count. There’s even a preset selection of text available that the user would naturally assume is the correct style. Nope. Once added, it’s obviously incorrect when compared to Chord Symbols Font, as below:
When using the Chord Symbol Suffix Editor, Dorico should make it easy for the user to choose the correct glyphs and fonts, and harder to choose the incorrect glyphs and fonts, but instead does the opposite, making it easy to choose the wrong glyphs and virtually impossible to choose the correct ones unless you hang out on this forum. (Remember there’s no documentation for the suffix accidental glyphs.)
A wishlist for the chord symbol suffix editor:
- Make it easy to select the “correct” accidentals. Don’t bury them in an obscure text-only list, but present them graphically in a palette as soon as the user opens the editing window.
- Hide the “incorrect” accidentals. I have no idea what others require for chord symbols, so I would always want a way to access any sort of glyph, but don’t immediately present the wrong glyphs in a way that user thinks those are the glyphs that should be selected.
- Any additional text should always default to the Chord Symbols Font style, as that’s what the user expects. Sure, there may be times a user wants something else, but make it harder to select that “something else,” not harder to select what is almost always going to be wanted. Perhaps a checkbox to lock any text to that style could be selected by default in the editor. If a user really wants another style, then they can uncheck it and pick whatever they want. A novice user will then be lead to most likely choosing the style they will expect to be choosing though, instead of defaulting to a completely unrelated style.
Playing Techniques really need easy access to an incredibly wide range of glyphs, while chord symbols typically use a much more narrow range, so it makes sense that their respective editors should appear different to the user. It would be really great if the chord symbol suffix editor could put the correct glyphs and tools needed to edit chord symbols front and center when opening the window, rather than incorrect ones.