Entering dynamics (again!)

Dorico
1

I’m sorry to harp on this point, but part of developing an efficient workflow in Dorico is entering dynamics easily. There’s a lot of music which is literally littered with dynamics and Dorico’s method of entering them is cumbersome compared to what I’m used to. As I wrote before, Finale’s metatools enable me to hold down a single key (e.g., ‘3’ for mf) and then simply to click on a note (or all notes in rapid succession without even having to lift the ‘3’ key) where I want a mf.
Dorico’s method:

  1. select the note with the mouse
  2. press Shift-D (two keypresses)
  3. type mf (two more keypresses)
  4. press return (another keypress)
    and I have to repeat this for each and every iteration of mf. I can’t even select all the notes where I want a mf and enter them all at once. If I do select more than one note and then call up the dynamics popover, Dorico cancels all the other note selections and the dynamic gets placed only on the first.
    If I have to enter a lot of dynamics, this takes so much longer than what I’m used to that it would actually be more feasible to enter the dynamics in Finale and then import the file as an XML. For a program like Dorico which is wonderfully designed and implemented, and has fantastic potential, this seems like a step backward compared to the competition. I appreciate the response I got from Daniel when I remarked on this before, but trying to get a macro program like Keyboard Maestro to intercept my click-keypress combination isn’t really a good option although, admittedly, I need to experiment with this some more. There must be a better way! Entering articulations using Dorico’s predetermined keys is a lot easier but it only facilitates entering a handful of the most common articulations. Do no other users of Dorico find this as cumbersome as I do?
2

I use a different method, for sf (which you choose being sforzando or subito forte…). Once a sf dynamic is written, I select it and copy it with alt-click. The only drawback of this method is you have to re-select the dynamic if you need to copy it with another alt-click. I am confident Daniel and his team will fix that !

3

I agree that Finale’s method of entering expressions with meta-keys is more efficient than Dorico’s current implementation, and I hope Dorico will develop something equally efficient. (I’m sure they hope to.)

At the same time I seem to recall it took Coda/MakeMusic something like ten years to implement that feature in Finale, and I look forward to seeing a comparable convenience in Dorico in less time. Meanwhile, as you said, you can use Finale where it has essential features as Dorico develops. I have high hopes for Dorico and trust they are working to make the program as convenient as possible to a wide range of users.

4

I have high hopes, as well, and that’s why I’m mentioning this pretty central aspect of music notation as being inconvenient at the moment. Hopefully more users will recognise this and chime in. But you’re right, it took Finale and Sibelius decades to get where they are now and it’s pretty amazing that Dorico is already able to compete and, in some cases, even surpass them!