I’d like to suggest a few improvements that could greatly enhance workflow and usability:
Paragraph and Font Style Editing – Apply Button
Currently, when adjusting paragraph or font styles, there’s no “Apply” button. This means I have to close and reopen the dialog each time to preview changes. It would be very helpful to have an Apply option, similar to what’s available in Engraving and Notation Options so changes can be previewed without closing the panel.
Layout Propagation Flexibility
At the moment, layout propagation is only available from part to part. It would be great to have the ability to propagate layout settings from a full score to another score, or from score to part, providing more flexibility when preparing consistent layouts across multiple configurations.
Rest Position Behavior
Adjusting the vertical position of rests can be cumbersome. When “Rest pos.” is toggled on, it resets to 0, which often moves the rest drastically. It would be much more efficient if enabling this preserved the current position, allowing for subtle adjustments up or down without starting from scratch.
Tie into Note Option
Obviously, having a dedicated “tie into note” option to avoid workarounds.
Page Templates Workflow Improvements
The current system for page templates is still time-consuming and not very practical. It would be a big improvement to:
Copy/paste frames across templates
Align frames more intuitively
Copy/paste frame settings
Most importantly, copy layout from the score directly into a page template
Undoing Pasted Lyrics
In Sibelius, when pasting lyrics and realizing an error (like pasting within slurred notes instead of skipping the melisma), using Undo brings the lyrics back into the clipboard—making it easy to retry. In Dorico, Undo removes the pasted lyrics but doesn’t restore them to the clipboard, which slows down the correction process.
It might help the team to detail what is intuitive for you. Intuition is based on prior experience, and we don’t all share the same experiences. What’s intuitive for an InDesign user, will be different from users who’ve never used a proper layout program.
Yes, in Amadeus this is typed ~? (IIRC) and is very useful for alternative endings etc, but naturally not semantically correct (Amadeus is not about semantics, it’s more a “typewriter for music”). I’m sure we’ll see an innovative solution to this someday using a regular tie in Dorico, and hopefully also for slurs that “track back” to the start of the repeat.
A disadvantage (IMO) of layout propagation is that is converts System Breaks to Frame Breaks when they occur at the beginning of a Frame. (I acknowledge this might be desirable behavior for some, but it is generally not what I want as different parts will often need different page turns, even if the musical structure is similar.) I usually add an additional System Break in the very first bar, even though that is unnecessary. That way in Write mode I can Select All, Filter for Breaks, navigate to another Layout, and Alt-click the Break structure into that Layout by clicking the first bar of that Layout. It’s a quick and easy way to copy the structure from one part to another without creating additional Frame Breaks. I even have a Stream Deck button to automate this.
This isn’t exactly what you are asking for, but you can hack in a keycommand to set a rest at a specific position. I use this one often when writing Drum parts. (Non-percussion staff, just what the player needs to see, I don’t care about Drum playback most of the time) Anyway, if you find you consistently are repositioning rests at a specific location, this could be helpful.