[EDIT: It appears the text I described in this post is actually called “regular text” (shift-X) not “system text” (option-shift-X). I’m new to Dorico and wasn’t aware of the distinction. I’ll leave the post as-is, but wanted to acknowledge that I was informed that my use of the term “system text” was apparently incorrect. Sorry for the misunderstanding.]
MarcLarcher and Derrek,
I’m thrilled to discover that indeed I can use system text to input tempo markings above each staff. After inserting the text once, I can then copy it via contextual menu (control-click) or keyboard shortcut, then select the corresponding note on other staves and paste. (I do understand these won’t affect playback, but I’m not concerned with playback in this case.)
Dorico developers, a couple of comments:
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I do wish we could make a vertical selection across multiple staves, then add similar, system text on multiple staves. That would save a lot of time (even more in pieces with more players or instruments!). Unless I’ve missed something, that doesn’t seem to work, currently.
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In the screenshot below, I’ve selected a note on the bass staff. In the upper staves (green box), I was able to easily paste the tempo markings (actually system text) via contextual menu. But on the bass staff (red box), with the identical location selected, Dorico sees the slur and refuses to paste the text above the selected note. Instead, it puts the text at the beginning of the phrase, which in this case is literally on the previous page. I then had to grab the text and drag it to the location I’d originally indicated.
(I encountered similar behavior, yesterday, when inserting either a tempo or dynamic marking (or both; I can’t recall at the moment). When Dorico sees a tie or slur, it (often) overrides the user’s choice and puts the marking at the beginning of the phrase or first tied note.)
Respectfully, I’m not sure this is helpful. When the user has selected the desired location, shouldn’t Dorico simply respect that? In this example, the fact that the selected note on the bass staff happens to be tied is irrelevant. That’s where the text needs to go.
I can understand Dorico applying logic when we’re inserting an element that would be an actual mistake (say, a 5th quarter note inside a 4|4 bar, or whatever). But I don’t understand why Dorico needs to “correct” our desired placement of text or other markings.
3. Finally, as I learn my way around Dorico, I find myself repeatedly visiting windows like Paragraph Styles in order to get something just right. But each time I do, Dorico defaults back to the uppermost tab—the Composer tab, in this case—requiring us to reselect the desired tab on each visit. This is also confusing because the tabs are, understandably, very similar in appearance. As a result, more than once, I’ve found myself changing fonts on the wrong tab, because I hadn’t noticed that the selected tab had been reset.
Would you kindly consider making windows like this remember the last-selected tab? That would be be a much friendlier approach.
Thanks.