(Don’t read anything into that - that’s just what I say generally to mean “here’s what you can already do, in case you weren’t aware”)
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I didn’t think of this at the time; I’m glad for the reminder. This would have saved me some labour in a few spots.
In an SATB octavo with homophonic rhythms, this is not the case. Every now and then, breathing isn’t obvious because of the text of a long phrase, so selecting a column of notes and applying a breath mark en masse would be very helpful. But as you reminded me, the caret would do in these situations.
As to what happened yesterday, I had a three page work that I could fit all on my large monitor at one time. I thought, “I’ll just command-click each note I want breath marks to appear after, and add them all in one go!” I proceeded to spend a minute doing additive clicking only for it not to work. While I definitely had a few spots where the caret would have helped, there were plenty of areas where rhythms were dovetailed too, and thus clicking would be the way to go about it.
“Homophobic rhythms” has made my day 
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Thank you autocorrect…
(Fixed it)
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lol … I live near San Francisco, so lots of homosexuals and we have a jazz festival. Doesn’t seem to be any rhythm issues
I have a wind player background, and there I don’t think I’ve ever seen a breath mark in a score, that was always player added. Having the ability in Dorico makes me wonder about whether to include. Sounds like only if there’s no good place in the phrase2, then it’s a good idea to give a hint as to what you think it should go?
Yes. I’m thinking in terms of choral cohesion. If, as a conductor, I know I want everyone to breathe between beats two and three of a particular phrase (for textual or rhythm reasons… whatever the case may be) I like to put the breath marks in so I can just tell the choir, “the breath marks are marked; observe them” rather than waste rehearsal time telling everyone to pencil them in.
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I would love the ability to override the Engraving Options locally for ties, having just now
encountered this situation (circled ties preferred):
For the moment I’ll have to deal with the displaced staccati. It would be ideal if every Engraving (or Notation) Option could be overridden locally as a last resort, though I’m aware that can’t happen overnight!
What I meant by that was how Dorico categorises them and how they function specifically within the app: they’re a notation object, and notations objects in general can only be input one-at-a-time. Notations that are properties of notes are different, as they’re not distinct items in their own right, as it were.
My previous reply wasn’t meant as a comment on stylistic or circumstantial requirements. I’ve been writing a fair amount of choral music of late so I’m very familiar 
I understand. That’s all well and good to have that distinction behind the scenes, but from a user perspective, that distinction is immaterial to most of us. All I know is I can input somethings to more than one note at a time and, weirdly, I can’t to the same thing with other objects. From a user perspective this is confusing and frustrating (or at least disappointing).
I shared the thought to try to help/demonstrate the approach: if it’s directly attached to a note (like a jazz articulation), it’s almost certainly a property of said note. If it’s not, it’s almost certainly a separate object. I feel like Dorico is consistent in this, so whether or not it’s what you would prefer in X or Y situation, it’s at least predictable.
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Perhaps where this particular situation gets confusing is that the ordinary approach to entering a breath mark is to select a note and then click the icon (assuming you’re not using a popover for this) and then it appears behind the note with an orange line linking to the note (or more accurately, it’s rhythmic position, but it looks like it’s attached to the note).
So in this respect, it is misleading, even if consistent in a broader categorical sense. It seems very much like the breath mark is linked to the note and not something arbitrary like shift-x text, for example.
(I should clarify, I still appreciate your responses and I’m glad to know the distinction even if I’d prefer different behavior by default.)
I see your point, but that’s not limited to notes - like any other notation, you can select a note or item at the rhythmic position where you want to input something. You could select a rest, or a text object, or a chord symbol… and input a breath mark the same way. Attachment lines are to rhythmic positions, not specific notes (indeed, things that are properties of notes have no attachment line).
This is fanTAStic! because it can be applied even following notes of different lengths. For those who haven’t tried it: start by selecting the latest note rhythmically (as you would do to apply a fermata), caret, extend up/down, Shift-H, comma, Return. It works even if not everyone’s note ends at that position! (If a part is in mid-tie-chain, the breath mark goes after that.) I am very appreciative of working methods like these.
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Might be minor or superfluous, but it also could be nice to have a few extra buttons in the left Write Mode panel for quick notation fixes, such as Group Dynamics and Split Beam/Beam Together/Make Unbeamed.
Many of these options are available as custom key commands, fwiw. If you have a stream deck these types of things are very easy.
Definitely! My thought process was these buttons could be nice for first-time users or people who like using the mouse.
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I just had an idea!
As I write vocal music, sometimes I need to have a closer look at the harmonies. It would be amazing if I could enter a kind of “step by step mode”, where I can move the play head both forwards and backwards by the amount defined by the rhythmic grid value, and Dorico would play any instruments that is to play a note at that time.
And then, if the rhythmic grid value is set to a quarter note, if a singer or an instrument is to play a note at any point within, say, the second beat, Dorico will play all notes that are within that beat.
And what’s more, I would make it so that for instruments that do not fade over time, like a clarinet, for instance, you can define whether Dorico keeps playing the note until you stop playing the music (by hitting space) or set a specified time the notes are played for. A second or 1.5, for instance. That goes for instruments that do fade over time too, of course.
A final feature that comes to mind is a kind of “dynamic grid”, where the play head will move to the next attack of any instrument across all instuments in the piece.
I realise that I can come close to this by switching to fixed tempo mode and changing the tempo way down, but the flexibility of holding staying at a point in the music for as long or short a time as I want, and even moving backwards would make this feature a favorite of mine, I’m sure.
Ps. Happy new year, all Gregorian calendar subscribers!
Thanks for the suggestion, Jim-Roger. This has been suggested before and is sometimes known as “scrub playback”. I agree it would definitely be useful and it’s on our list of things to add in a future version.
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