Hi everybody Could you consider implementing a visual selection interface in a future version of Dorico for various options such as noteheads, fonts, ornaments, articulation styles, playing techniques, and other engraving elements? Currently, many of these are listed only with text descriptions in the editing phase, making it difficult to navigate and select the right option efficiently. A graphical preview alongside text descriptions would significantly improve usability.
Additionally, in popover menus, pressing the down arrow key could display a dropdown list of available options, instead of requiring users to remember them all. This would make workflow much smoother and reduce the need to constantly consult documentation.
In the end, I think we are very close to making Dorico the best software out there—these improvements could make a real difference in usability and workflow.
It’s possible that Daniel took this in without commenting – his forum workload is pretty immense, on top of everything else.
Can you explain your idea a bit more? Most notation is graphically displayed in the side panels, where it can be selected. Or do you mean that the popovers would just show a graphical selection of objects.
For some popovers, the syntax is almost endless in its combinations, so a list of available options would be overwhelming.
What I mean is this: being able to choose a notehead by visually browsing the available styles — rather than having to remember their exact names and decipher what each label refers to — would save an enormous amount of time. It’s much faster to recognize what you see than to guess what a term means and check it graphically afterward.
This is just an example but everything that is strictly graphic should be seen. I’m talking about lines (when you edit them, not in the side panels), Start cap, end cap, Body styles, fonts, Music fonts, Playback techniques (in edit mode), Glyphs and so on.
I am trying to think how I might program this given that different fonts would all have to be taken into consideration to display the graphic in the appropriate typeface.
I understand that text fonts are a special case and not easily cacheable, but perhaps the same constraints don’t apply to the other graphical elements. Most of them are defined within Dorico itself and don’t rely on system-level variability like text fonts do.
It seems reasonable that these other elements could be cached or at least rendered once and reused, rather than redrawn every time — which would improve responsiveness when editing. Even a lightweight caching mechanism could make a noticeable difference in usability.
They don’t have to be: Noteheads, Playing Techniques, etc can be SVG graphics.
There may be merit in the idea, but I can’t imagine that it would rise sufficiently high up the priority ladder (given the time and effort) until many other things are completed.
That’s true — many of those elements are implemented as fonts (especially SMuFL glyphs and related symbols), but the key difference is that they come from known and consistent sources within the application environment. Unlike text fonts, they’re not subject to the same system-level variability, substitution, or localization issues.
Because of that, even if they’re font-based, their graphical output is predictable and controlled, which makes them good candidates for caching or static preview rendering. I’m not suggesting dynamic rendering of every possible symbol — just that a lightweight system could reuse previews once generated, rather than forcing a redraw every time a panel is opened or a property is modified.
