Dorico Key-Entry Improvements for Finale Users

Thanks for the recent speedy entry options (rhythm before pitch). With that being said, as a long time Finale user, I find it extremely difficult to get use to the fact that when you delete back to the first note of the current measure, that it automatically deletes the note and jumps to the previous measure. Finale’s behavior is that when you reach the first note and press delete key, it deletes the first note but does not jump to the previous measure. I wish that there was a setting that lets you turn this off. Maybe there is already a way to do this but I have not seen it. I realize that Dorico is the only gig in down now, so I hope that you continue to embrace Finale users.

If you think about it, that behaviour is illogical.

Not only does it jump to the last note of the previous measure, it also deletes the note. I have wrecked many passages like this. Right now as a Finale user, I am just practicing speedy entry to see if I can get good at it.

Of course it does (if you pressed delete when you got there). It deleted every previous note on your way didn’t it? So why would that behaviour change just because it crossed a barline?

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I wrote this from the perspective of a Finale user based on how finale currently works and my real time key entry challenges doing speedy entry in Dorico. That is why I requested it as an option not a bug fix. I.E, the duration before pitch which is a game changer:-)

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And I would kindly ask you (and all your fellow Finale refugees) to take a few moments to understand Dorico’s logic before requesting changes just to suit your old workflow.

(btw duration before pitch is the preferred method for many of us, and the converse has always been available)

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I have no issue with people suggesting improvements - many are on the backlog. But I do have an issue with people simply wanting to replicate ancient Finale behaviour.

You are now in a different garden - the paths are laid out differently here.

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@Janus is correct that you should take time to acclimate to Dorico’s way of doing things, but there’s nothing wrong with making a request. If it weren’t for the requests of Finale refugees for Speedy-with-arrows, we wouldn’t have gotten it. And I’m glad we did.

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Finale is somewhat limited when inputting as everything is in relation to the Speedy input frame. Finale doesn’t “think” outside the frame. Dorico doesn’t work like that. When you start a file from File / New, there is no meter or any barlines. Dorico doesn’t care about that and that’s not how Dorico works as open meter with no bars is fully supported in Dorico. I seriously doubt that the developers are going to completely change how Dorico works to accommodate users that are used to the Speedy frame, but they do listen to every request. (Finale user for 25+ years here, who saw the writing on the wall and switched about 5 years ago.) It definitely is worth it to spend a month and learn Dorico the way it was designed, then modify it to fit your workflow.

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I feel ya. It took me a long time too. I even decided to learn Dorico’s numpad shortcuts (5 is eighth not quarter, which I now mess up in Finale). Like I said though, give yourself an entire month to learn the “Dorico way.” There is a logic to how Dorico is designed. I’m way faster at input in Dorico now, using pitch-first with a MIDI keyboard, than I ever was in Finale. (I have over 14,000 Finale files and made a living as a Finale copyist for years.) There is a learning curve though. Don’t try to treat Dorico like Finale as it works very differently. (And some things like chord symbols and percussion aren’t even remotely similar!)

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Don’t forget Undo. No need to lose work.

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I think many/most of us Finale expats are indeed trying to start anew and with a fresh perspective. Dorico doesn’t owe us former Finale users anything. But, keep in mind that Dorico is newer than both Sibelius and Finale (I remember when Sibelius was heavily marketed to us Finale users, and I’m very sure many jumped ship to Sibelius at that time, even thought Finale was still very much actively developed and had an edge over everything else). Since Dorico is newer, it will attract former Finale users and not vice-versa (certainly not since the MM announcement, but I’m sure that was true even before the announcement). And while I think I and many other former Finale users have pointed out many advantages Dorico has over Finale, many of us will still prefer to start with pitch before duration (if anything, it avoids accidentally inputting notes, which is not hard to do with duration before pitch if you use a trackpad like I do). I use duration before pitch when emulating Finale’s Speedy Entry caps lock mode to input a lot of notes of the same duration (eg, runs of 16th notes). So Finale also has duration before pitch in Speedy Entry; none of us were thinking of it that way, but it does have it.

Yes, lots of advantages to Dorico’s system. But also some challenges. For starters, terminology. Just consider the discussions about what global and local mean in terms of frames and layouts. And Frames is a new concept for many of us, as is “flow.” The manual is not entirely clear about a lot of things; as many have said, it explains perhaps what something is, but often falls short of explaining how to do it. Videos, while helpful, are not always the answer. I’d much rather read something quickly to understand how to do a task than spend minutes hoping to find it in a video. That’s just me, but I suspect others may feel similarly.

No software is perfect. If some of us Finale users have some suggestions based on what we’d used for years and decades, it isn’t necessarily because we feel entitled to having things our way while using Dorico, but because there may be some things in Finale that could be generally beneficial. For example, rhythm copy, which saved me tons of time in Finale and I hope may come to Dorico. There may be a workaround using Lock Duration, but when one sees the power and convenience of that one Rhythm Copy plugin, it is as impressive as using R to repeat content (which really impressed me in Dorico).

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Are you familiar with the Lock Duration function? You can repeat a passage (using R, as you know) and then repitch the notes by selecting the first note you want changed and then playing the new notes. Dorico will preserve the rhythms. It’s not exactly the same as Finale’s Rhythm Copy plugin but the result is the same.

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He just said,

True. I guess I don’t look upon it as a workaround.

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You might excuse us old Dorico users, as since weeks there are Finale people coming, requesting things to behave like Finale did, and only after they have been forced sometimes to try it the Dorico-way come to realize that it might have its benefits. That’s of course not every new user, but several enough for us to become a little weary.
A lot of us have worked together with the team here for years to find good and modern ways of how a notation software should behave (additionally to the teams own work, which is the majority ofc). Non of us were Dorico natives, but we recognized the advantages in Doricos approach and we used our experience of other software in suggesting improvements, including Finale.

tangent

as @dan_kreider regularly points out, he has been advocating for “speedy entry” for years :wink:

So all we ask old Finale users to do is to take some weeks or months and first try to really understand the “Dorico Way” (and maybe also read up if a feature has been requested here already…). And until then excuse our shortening fuse for our new friends :slight_smile:

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As mentioned, but copying and pasting to another non adjacent measure or staff after locking duration and then changing pitches are extra steps. With rhythm copy, you copy one or more measures and paste into the same number of measures in one or more staves and voila.

No reinputting notes or changing pitches needed. That’s the advantage. Which I think you already know.

Trust me, I’m working on learning the way Dorico does things. I just finished a 45-minute work in Dorico and proofreading it was wiicknsincenindidnt have to fix up much (literally, I just had to change one measure by using lock duration, copying to another measure and changing the pitches; which would have been done with the JW Rhythm Copy in Finale were I using Finale). Dorico saved me a lot of time even as I was learning how things are done. I think I get it as evidenced my several of my posts here noting how impressed I am with Dorico.

But it seems counterproductive to not also consider other ways of doing things (the “not invented here” syndrome). I am just being honest. Clearly the fact that Dorico has incorporated some external ways of doing things as options means the team understands this can be beneficial.

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But doesn’t that assume that you’ve already entered the notes in the target staves? IOW, Finale workflow is to enter notes in all staves, with correct rhythm in one, then paste the rhythm to the target staves. Dorico workflow is to enter the notes in one staff with correct rhythms, paste to target staves, and then enter the notes in the target staves. Seems about the same to me.

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Nobody doubts that there are ways inspired by other software on how to improve Dorico, and if you look through the development history you’ll find plenty.
But: there’s a difference between just wanting a thing to behave like in another software and the feature being integrated into Doricos logical structure. The library manager is a great example, or the new “speedy entry emulation key commands”. But: no feature exists within a vacuum, so it has to be considered how it fits, or even benefits, with the rest of the software.
Lastly, Dorico is far from being a finished product. We still don’t have cut-out-scores, and as the team has pointed out: coding time is finite. Anyhow Dorico has already the most responsive developement team of any notation software.

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Yes but they can be one or two quarter notes of the desired pitches instead of entering them as the planned tuplets etc. I’ve also found rhythm copy useful if after the fact (as with my latest score) I want to make changes to the rhythms of notes that were already entered. In such cases it seems efficient to use the rhythm copy idea since I alteady input those notes some time ago. Anyway, I’m not the first to suggest it in these forums. Happy to use lock duration, as I have learned to do. Just wondering if rhythm copy would not be also useful to have in many cases.

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