Hi,
I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to change the default text (or any fonts) to always have the background erased?
I can’t find this as an option other places than a checkbox in the Engrave Mode.
Furthermore, it seems impossible to create a shortcut erase background. Am I wrong/right? An help on this topic is appreciated.
You could manually add something to your user-level keycommands_en.json file, perhaps. The command string required to activate the Erase background property for a selected text item is:
UI.InvokePropertyChangeValue?Type=kTextErasure&Value=null
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Thank you so much for this. Unfortunately I could not make this work, as I didn’t find the user-level file, only the system-file. And adding this string there only made Dorico behave strange. Any suggestions?
Define any key command you like on the Key Commands page of Preferences (e.g. for the Aout Dorico dialog) and that will ensure the user-level key commands file is created.
If you’re on Mac, you’ll find the file in /Users/your-username/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico 4.
On Windows, it’s in %APPDATA%\Steinberg\Dorico 4.
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Again, thank you for trying to help. Nevertheless, I can not get this to work the way I imagined. I now have a (very nice) shortcut for erasing background for text objects. But only in Engrave mode. Which makes sense. But I’d love the shortcut to work regardless of modes - is this also possible?
Thanks for good advices!
No, the property is only available in Engrave mode, so you have to be in Engrave mode to use your shortcut as well.
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I made myself a script that includes switching modes, so it’s one step to run it:
local app=DoApp.DoApp()
app:doCommand([[Window.SwitchMode?WindowMode=kEngraveMode]])
app:doCommand([[UI.InvokePropertyChangeValue?Type=kTextErasure&Value=null: ]])
app:doCommand([[Window.SwitchMode?WindowMode=kWriteMode]])
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Thanks Daniel, it works perfectly 
It probably should be available directly in the keycommands tool in some later version of Dorico 
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You can of course set a Background colour to any Paragraph Style, so that includes Condensing Labels, Instrument changes, etc, and any text expressions that you might add.
But not dynamic prefixes/suffixes, which is surely the biggest lacuna.
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I edit my previous answer. It does work perfectly for text items
For some reason, it does not work on lines or gradual dynamics. I wish one command could rule this.
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Hi – I successfully got this working in the keycommands file, but is there another syntax in the command that can make the property toggle on/off with the same shortcut? Thanks!
No, in general not, because the command to set a property is different to the command to unset the property.
what would the command be to turn OFF erase background, then? I can at least set it to a different shortcut.
The same command with Value=false
as the argument instead of Value=null:
(I found this out by recording a macro of me doing the action.)
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For text items, you can also edit the corresponding paragraph style to have a white background wherever that paragraph style gets used, which should (if my memory serves) result in the same effect).
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I’d just like to put another vote here that having a engraving rules option to have all dynamics erase background by default would be greatly appreciated. I can’t think of a situation personally when I wouldn’t want the background erased
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