Feature request regarding (un)beaming notes

Dorico
1

First of all I’d like to emphasize that I’m writing a lot of vocal music the “old” way which means unbeamed syllables. My clients don’t want the modern notation.

As Dorico doesn’t support “beam by text” I have to unbeam the notes manually which is fine, I’m not requesting this functionality.

But I’d like to have the literal opposite to “Split Beam” ideally as a Key Command toggle:

  • If one note is selected beam/unbeam the adjacent note to the left ignoring other notes in the group.
  • If more than one note is selected beam/unbeam the selection.

I’ve already assigned custom shortcuts to the menu items "“Split Beam” and “Beam Together”. When you mistakenly unbeam the adjacent note with “Split Beam” you have to extend the selection to the left and then call “Beam Together” to reverse the action. This could collaterally unbeam other notes in the group what is often not intended. Yes I know there’s “Undo” but ⌘Z is farther than pressing the same key a second time.

After some weeks Finale feels like a dinosaur. I do like Dorico, I’m not looking back. The page layout, the condensed scores with dynamic cues, the flows and much more is brilliant, I like also the zillion shortcuts which are very helpful for my workflow even I have to remap most of them – in by brain not in the application :wink:

2 Likes
2

I would probably ignore the beaming whilst entering the notes/lyrics. Then just use make unbeamed on selections at the end of the process.

3

Thanks for the suggestion, @Vadian. I’ve made a note of this, and we’ll think about it for future versions.

4

Thank you for your response, @Janus.

It’s not only about the lyrics stuff. Imagine you want to unbeam a note group in an instrument staff to make clear the phrase of the music. For example a phrase ends with an eighth note and the new one starts with a pickup of three eighth notes. This is not covered by the beam grouping preferences.

5

Select the first note and make unbeamed. It separates and the beam is left intact on the remaining 3 notes.

6

I know, the request is about to be able to undo the action with one (the same) keystroke in case you split the beam accidentally at the wrong place or simply to beam to the next note to the left without selecting two notes.