I cannot speak to the Finale forum, @kasky1, so I don’t know what the culture there was (is??). (I used Finale for 32 years, but never used the forum.) But I will say that in my two years of actively engaging with the Dorico forum I have not once seen anyone called unintelligent.
Granted, there is at times lively discussion — even heated debate — on topics notational and musical. And yes, there are a few Mac- or PC-“haters” who occasionally grumble. There are even a few who take vague swipes at “modern” music and notation.
And sometimes one’s simple ignorance of a feature in Dorico is pointed out in a thread (it’s happened plenty to me!). It may sting a bit in the moment, sure (depending on one’s relationship to pride, embarrassment, etc.). And I’ll grant that some have a brusquer “forum-side manner” than others.
But I hope that as you spend more time here in the coming months and years you’ll see what a generous and good-natured forum-space this is.
@judddanby , I have found that there a few vociferous folks in this forum that are downright mean and bully-ish. Maybe they lack the sensibilities of positive interaction, I don’t know. Never-the-less, I have found your responses and those of a few others actually helpful.
I have no problem being corrected but I do have a problem with disingenuous commentary. Tell me that’s not how Dorico does it and I am fine with that. Tell me that I am stupid for not knowing how Dorico does it and I am not fine with that at all. It narcissistic bullying when that happens and I will call them out on it every time.
Never-the-less, I just wish there was a way to block those who are inappropriate with their commentary from my views so I don’t feel compelled to read their drivel. That way, I could concentrate on the helpful information that is actually being shared.
That’s what I am doing but thank you for the advice. I still believe that this could be a reasonable request and time saver for some of us in our personal workflows. Thanks, again.
As the program has deepened since its birth, one sees more and more that there are (like Finale!) many different ways to achieve the same result. That is a strength IMO. I don’t see a reason not to have the choice on the context menu.
My way of transposing is often just to alt+shift+arrow the music to where I want it and then change the key. Works fine for simple choral settings for instance. But not for all cases.
What does the word assailed mean?
(English not my first language).
To all Finale users:
Starting with computer notation I tried Finale - but gave up, because it seemed too complicated to learn - at least for me.
(I then went with Sibelius for decades).
How long did it take you to learn Finale?
Hopefully it was a bit easier than for me. Still, you probably invested a lot of time. By all means, this investment should not be lost, so it is probably sensible to continue working with Finale, as long as it will possible.
Dorico is a completely different application to Finale.
It needs time to get grips of the concept of this new software. My recommendation: allow yourself at least the time you needed to learn Finale.
To come back to the Transpose dialogue, we did not mention yet that one can also use the Jump bar for this, hit j and trans to bring up that dialogue.
Btw, the other day I also had a look at the context menu looking for the Transpose dialogue… Yes, this could be another additional place for it, indeed.
Hi. The forum has been quite overwhelmingly active since Makemusic made this move towards the end of Finale… I for one have been used to read everything here for eight years, but I can’t now
Every answer I could give, I gave it. As clear and concise as possible, as there were sooo many.
Many of those questions happened to be quite the same (there was a time when reminding people to search the forum was a thing, but then the Team asked not to do that…), and many times it was about getting the same workflow as in Finale, without learning the Dorico way first. I can understand some people get a little bit annoyed by all this ^^
Don’t judge this forum by the little time you’ve been using it (which are not normal times, and I can’t emphasize enough how friendly most of the people have been during those last weeks trying to welcome as best as they could the Finale orphans). Give it time. In eight years, I can only remember ONE real troll. Everybody here is a very good musician, sometimes extremely good one, and a nice person. This is my eight years experience
IIRC, Daniel himself asked very politely (yet clearly) to keep those messages as rare as possible in order not to give newcomers the impression that they’re not welcome.
assailed means assaulted and I have felt assaulted more than a couple of times in this forum;
it really doesn’t matter where anyone started with notation as those of us moving our work to Dorico are only interested in being productive ASAP because we have work to do;
Dorico, being a different application, is not an issue but its inability for the user to customize their workflow to minimize keystrokes is a bit of an issue;
I have spent nearly four weeks, 6-8 hours daily, 6 days per week learning Dorico and I am producing output but in about 3 times the amount of time because of how things function in this software; and
I allowed myself two weeks with Finale and was twice as productive as I am now.
With all that being said, I have found some things I really like in Dorico. I am not giving up or giving in to anything other than finding a workflow that works for me and that is a mix of keyboard and mouse. I really do not like moving back and forth so much between the two but I only want to learn as many keystroke combinations as I will truly need for my work. Finally, despite the workflow issue of keyboard vs. mouse input, it really would be nice if ALL properties and options for any given “thing” were in one place and not scattered between layout settings, engrave settings, write settings, properties…
Well, that is poor manners and is not professional in any sense of the word. Professionals nurture newcomers to their arena so that are embraced in a way that promotes optimal learning of new things. There seems to be a not so subtle undertone that many users would prefer that we, Finale “refugees”, would not post anything here. And, just because one makes a feature request that others do not care fore, it is unnecessary to be strident in one’s response.
I want to be sure I understand you, @kasky1. Which part is ill-mannered and unprofessional: having a gap in one’s knowledge pointed out or someone being brusque in the process?
Kent, thank you for your nice and considerate reply.
Two technical remarks
all people who have a history with Sibelius (and not Finale), remember the first brilliantly written and printed manuals, when Sibelius just entered the market in 1993.
The one chapter everyone remembers from those marvellous manuals was the advice to hide the mouse in a drawer and try to work the software without it.
So I guess, we ex Sibelius users are a little biased…
yes, it does feel as if Properties and Options are scattered all over the place.
But there is actually a logic behind this, Properties regarding the content are to be found in Write Mode, Properties regarding the display of that content one will find in Engrave Mode. Options regarding the layout of a score or part will be found under Layout Options…and so on. This whole structure actually helps to understand the Dorico software, as annoying as it may seem initially.
I think many of us find this separation to be immensely helpful, not least because the sheer quantity of available options and properties would overwhelm a single workspace.
I do understand that. But why can they not be located in the same screen real estate as properties rather than be hidden behind a drop-down menu? That does bring me to one other thing that seems counter-intuitive: greyed out properties. In my experience, most software, in general, greys-out properties that are not adjustable in that context rather than greying out the property because it is turned off. That could probably make the biggest difference - grey out only properties that not accessible for whatever reason in the current context. That way, we know what can and cannot be turned on. The properties that are set to default to off or null could remain that way with the property name not being greyed out when in the context where that property can be adjusted.
As I understand it (and I may be misrepresenting the design philosophy). There are global options (set on the various library menus). Properties are context specific and allow you to override those global options that are applicable to specific (selected) objects.
The separation of Write and Engrave simply ensures that any changes you make to the layout on the page will never affect the music information that is used for Playback.
That’s because you’re learning Dorico after you’ve learned Finale and used it for a long time. It’s natural for one to “unlearn” and “relearn”, perfectly normal.
Regarding this transposing topic, I think perhaps setting a hotkey in the File > Preferences > Key commands > search transpose > type your shortcut > Add Key Command should be very good for you if it’s something you do frequently. You could press something like Ctrl + Shift + T on a section of your music and it pops up the transpose dialog, it’s not your workflow…but it seems faster?
The properties panel has options “greyed out” because you didn’t enable overrides to the object you’ve selected. We say overrides because Engraving/Notation options affect everywhere. This is actually one of the things I believe everyone stumbles upon and asks themselves: “why is there a tick box to enable a tick box for a check box?” type of thing like Tantacrul said once. It’s not upfront clear.
Ex Sibelius user here, I used the mouse a lot, so I’m going to be casted out
