Can you edit frames in engrave mode without entering page templates, then save and have the changes affect the templates? That way you could address a problem right on the score (or part) and have the changes update to the templates without having to leave your actual music and enter a mode which has nothing to do with music?
And no complicated workarounds, please, just a simple yes or no answer is enough. (Although if it is a yes, please then tell me how to do it.)
Cheers!
No you can’t.
If you go to the bottom Property Panel, you can make a note of the frame sizes and positions and then adjust your Page Template accordingly (in Page Template Edit Mode).
Ok, thanks. I think this could be improved, to me it would seem more intuitive to be able to work where you can actually see the changes and then just commit to those. Perhaps this could be implemented in a future version. Hopefully someone in power sees this.
This has been requested several times over the past few years but presumably is not an easy change to make.
Ok, nice to know I’m not alone in wanting this. Thanks for the info.
It has everything to do with music. Your score is printed in paper or PDF with a layout for pages. That’s the whole function of the Dorico engraving program. The notes don’t exist suspended in some vacuum. So it’s a crucial part of your Dorico work, or any music engraving program for that matter, even if you are not interested in that aspect.
Hi Andro, thank you for your comment. What has and what hasn’t everything to do with music may be just semantics, but I disagree with your statement. My definition of music doesn’t include fonts, mainly because you can’t hear fonts. Of course I understand that engraving is an important part of the process of getting your music printed, although I don’t find it at all interesting.
What I meant was this: when you are inputting notes, you are making music. You hear the notes in your head and you want to get them on paper (or, in this case, on the screen) and I personally find it extremely unintuitive to exit that place of my workflow to enter into a different mode where I’m looking at the blueprints of the score, make a small adjustment there, go back to the score to see whether it was good adjustment or not, continue if it was and go back and repeat if it wasn’t, when in an ideal world you could adjust whatever it is that you’d like right there, push a button to make it apply everywhere else and that’s it. Much as you would do when you are writing notes by hand. Now, someone else might find the status quo intuitive, and that’s fine, to each their own, intuitive is a highly subjective word, but to me not being able to make adjustments without the dreaded page overrides is a mood killer. Apparently I’m not alone, so perhaps one day Dorico will overcome this limitation and I don’t have to dislike the engraving workflow as much.
I just thought of something: English isn’t my first language, so if by “music” you meant the graphical representation of the tones and their rhythmic qualities, then I agree, engraving has everything to do with that.
All changes that affect the music (playback) are made in Write Mode. Changes made in Engrave Mode only affect the appearance on the page.
You might find that your creative work (entering notes, chords, dynamics and playing techniques) is done best using Write Mode (Galley view or Fill view and not Page view).
Sorry, but I really do not understand what you are asking for here. Could you give us some examples?
We all know that adjustments made in the Edit Frames tab of Engrave mode cause a page override. OP is asking for the option to then propagate said adjustments to the page template directly, so they stop counting as overrides. Without using the I-word, this would be more WYSIWYG than having to go to the page template editor.
IMO it’s a reasonable and clearly formulated request but I also think it’s unlikely to be implemented anytime soon, as Dorico is usually very strict about separating global and local edits.
Where this thread derailment about musical semantics came from, I do not know. Feel free to ignore that bit.
Something I would like to see, and imagine might help the OP, is a preview-mode when editing templates, so that I could see how the template would look when filled in. Let me pick a layout to see while editing the template and a button to turn that preview-mode on/off. That would make small adjustments to frames easier to judge.
But they were also specifically talking about the music creation process and not the layout. That is what is confusing me.
I don’t think the OP was talking about music creation – they specifically say “in engrave mode”. I think Andro misunderstood the OP’s reference to “leaving your actual music”. The OP’s point is that when you’re editing a template, you can’t see the actual effects on the page with music. Either being able to propagate page edits to templates or implementing a preview mode in the template editor would help with this.
One tricky thing is that page template edits affect all layouts using that template, of course. So you might make a change in a particular layout, propagate it to the template, and unintentionally cause problems in other layouts. Having to edit page templates separately reinforces the idea that these entities are not tied to a particular layout.
Hi Janus. my question was already kindly answered, but my initial complaint (if you’re still interested) is that I would like to be able to make the sort of engraving decisions and commitments I now make in Edit Page Template mode without having to stop everything and go there. I’d like to make those decisions when in the basic view of the engrave mode, where you can see the music on the staves, how everything fits or doesn’t fit together. Now if I find a particular piece of text, say a composer information or whatever, really, could be positioned slightly differently, I’d just like to grab it, move it, know that it will stay there forever and live happily ever after. Instead I get a page override and my colleagues will scold me for not using Dorico the way it wants me to use it. So I have to stop with my (incredibly) creative process, enter Edit Page Template mode where I can’t see my music, move the damn composer name (which is me, by the way) just a bit, return to the normal view to see whether the adjustment was good or not, do this as many times as necessary and when I’m finally back my inspiration is long gone along with my masterpiece. Now I should point out that as an old Sibelius user I was used to doing this without exiting to any other mode ever, so the fact that I’m quite happy to go to engraving mode to begin with tells you just how much I’ve grown as a human being. I just would like to make engraving decisions while simultaneously seeing how it affects the actual music on the pages, not stare teary eyed at the green and blue boxes filled with unreadable tokens of different sizes, all stacked on top of each other, dreading the upcoming process of trying to activate the one text frame which of course is on the very bottom, obscured by four others. But my question regarding this was already answered, so consider this just a rant.
But you did ask…
Cheers.
I agree to the OPs request, as I am one of those who have some difficulties in going back and forth between the actual written notes and the empty template. A preview mode could help a lot to go from WYnotSIWYG to WYSIWYG. This could make the whole process of engraving more fluent and less abstract.
Hej Rikard
I thought there was something called Instant Print Preview but couldn’t find any key commands for that. I guess it had something to do with me using a Nordic keyboard.
This probably won’t be much help to you, but I used to be very careful not to create page overrides whenever possible, though I’m becoming less and less hesitant about it. Sometimes it’s just faster to use a page override on the page I am editing (often the first page) than to keep switching back and forth between the score and the Template Editor.
Hi Jeurg
Oh, I totally agree. Especially if it is something as simple as a one page lead sheet I have no qualms. In this particular instant that I was bitching about I was simultaneously trying to build a template for the whole project. That’s when you are asking for trouble if you don’t fear the page overrides.
Sounds like you’re thinking of this: Hiding non-printing elements? Yes, using that would require changing the keyboard shortcut on some keyboard layouts (including mine). Not related to this topic, but I did try to look for it in the Key Commands preferences to see if I could find it for you. I couldn’t. Don’t know if the key is hardcoded, or if I’m bad at searching.
Hej Rikard
I too was unable to find it. Perhaps Dorico has something against the Nordics…?
No, if the key isn’t modifiable, I’d attribute it to a simple oversight rather than malice. It could also be that you and I are missing something and that it can be changed.