I’d like to suggest what (I hope) is a relatively simple addition to your implementation of cues.
In the contextual menu (at the bottom) for any cue, you currently give option of “rhythmic cue”. Could you add a checkbox for “Only indicate instrument entrance”?
Consider the screen capture I attached to this message - from a piece I’m currently working on in Dorico. This is extremely useful and common in a variety of types of music (particularly broadway scores, but also used in band and orchestral music). Although it is currently possible to do this as a workaround with text, that creates a host of extra work (making it invisible and 0% in size so that it doesn’t show or affect spacing in the score).
This is clearly part of the cue family of phenomena. It should show only in the part and not affect layout or condensation in the score (unless the “show cues” is checked for that layout). It would simply create a +Bsn1 or +Timp at the position indicated by the beginning of the cue point.
Steve,
You can simply create a text enty to do that very thing. To me, that would be an easier (and more uniquely customisable) option - or am I missing something? You can ‘hide’ the text in the score by setting the alpha channel to 0.
Thanks! Yes, the current way of implementing such a thing requires setting the alpha channel to 0, but also reducing the scale in order to prevent the invisible item from affecting layout spacing in the score. Further, it also has a residual (disruptive) effect on the staff condensation in the score.
More fundamentally, though, it is my understanding that the programmers at Dorico have expressed a strong desire to implement all these indications in a musically meaningful way. Since this IS a cue… and it should follow all the behavioral flow of a cue, it makes sense (to me) to implement this option as an extension of the cues feature and thus avoid the awkward workaround.
I’ll certainly keep entering them the way you describe in the meantime.
The semantics of this are different from a conventional cue, though.
Presumably, if you change the score so the horns come in 4 bars earlier or later, you really want the “+Hns” cue to automatically MOVE four bars in the cued part?
Otherwise the player is going to get a bad surprise when you forget to update it manually. At least a cue showing notes always shows the correct notes, even if it’s not the most helpful passage that could have been chosen as a cue.
I’m not sure I follow. The implementation I’m suggesting would mirror the existing cue behavior exactly. Currently, if you create a cue to show the trumpet part, and then you later delete the trumpet part in those measure, the cue you created remains where you put it, but now just shows rests. It doesn’t move to some other location. It is up to the arranger to proof his/her cues to make sure none of them have been orphaned.
I would think the +Tbn type of cue for entrances would either behave the same way. They could, of course, automatically disappear. I’m guessing that in some future incarnation of Dorico it will have a “show orphaned cues” feature which could easily resolve both traditional cues and the ones I’m suggesting in the same way.
