Dear users and developers,
Currently adding intervals is only possible via the Notes popover. How about the following feature?
Best regards,
Here’s the problem: do the intervals automatically appear above or below?
It would be possible for you to use autohotkey or keyboard maestro to make a series of little macros that invoke the popover and do this for you. It would only take a few minutes to configure.
“alt+number” adds the new note above the currently selected note.
"Control+number adds the new note below the currently selected note.
Thanks for the information. I used autohotkey a few years ago. Anyway, I am on macOS now. I might look into “keyboard maestro”. However, from my previous experience on Windows and MacOS, such software does not work perfectly.
Your idea is how it’s done in Sibelius. So we can be certain the team thought about this very thoroughly in earliest development.
To me, the relative inconvenience of the notes popover goes along with the separate modes for writing and graphic adjustment. The point is to make it harder to change the music by accident. This is part of the bedrock design of Dorico.
Also of course the notes popover offers a lot more options than the instant add-interval shortcuts.
Yes, and Finale has adopted the idea. There are no keyboard shortcuts to customise different combinations of interval adds.
So you want to press Alt 3 rather than Shift-I 3? Hardly quicker!
Also shift-I is so flexible… build chords; apply to selections; use it to transpose whole lines; use it for large intervals…
Shift-I 3 enter
Alt-3 is half the keys.
Also alt-3 3 3 seems quicker to me than shift-I 3 space 5 space 7 enter
I’ve remapped the interval popover to Q, since I don’t use chord mode. And Q is up near the numbers already.
Q, 3, Enter. Easy.
you mean quord mode, right?
No, just no.
As stated there’s already one way to do it via the modal notes popover, which is the near universal way of entering commands, the Jump is just an extension of this to menu commands. This approach trades a few mS of entry for infinite flexibility. They smartly have a mini command language for these popovers, or at least a shorthand language, which is forgiving and flexible.
To trade this flexibility and extensibility for a for a hodgepodge system of hardcoded commands steals shortcuts, clutters the GUI and goes against the fundamental design. No problem you asked, but don’t ask for features like this, won’t happen for good reasons IMHO.
Hi! You can relatively easily add custom keyboard shortcuts to do this without external tools or macros if you go to Users/[Username]/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico 5 and add them to the keycommands json file like this:
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=3" : [ "Alt+3" ]
},
This example is adding a third, and you can just add the same thing with other numbers for other intervals. Hope this helps!
Edit: this would be added inside:
"context" : "kWriteMode",
"shortcuts" : [
I’ve done this with “I”
Can’t remember what it used to be but it obviously doesn’t bother me!
Developers often leave these open backdoors so that people who really want it can do it, but it doesn’t have to burden the main interface.
As others have noted, making key commands locally or via KM (I strongly recommend Keyboard Maestro, it’s a huge time saver - especially paired with the Dorico native scripting/macro recording functionality) is fairly straightforward.
I too find the I popover a pain to work with and would like to use a system like you have. I might adopt one of the above suggestions myself now.
Alternatively, no one has mentioned so far, that the mass edit function also allows for just option-drag your selection to copy/paste up or down the interval where you move the mouse.
But note - mass edit is only available in D5, and the scripting function is also drastically improved in D5 as well. Considering that you’d be skipping over D4 entirely, I think the upgrade price might be very well worth the investment. I know I found it to be.
I suggested a faster way to add a new note, but I did not suggest deprecating Dorico’s native way via the Notes popover. The fact that there are users who use “keyboard maestro” or “autohotkey” tells us that it is better if the Dorico developers implemented such shortcuts natively.
@hildemann
Thanks! Adding a new pitch is now much faster after adding the following lines to the json file as follows (alt+3 does not work in Dorico 4 Pro, but works in Dorico 5 SE):
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=1" : [ "Meta+1" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=2" : [ "Meta+2" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=3" : [ "Meta+3" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=4" : [ "Meta+4" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=5" : [ "Meta+5" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=6" : [ "Meta+6" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=7" : [ "Meta+7" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=8" : [ "Meta+8" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=9" : [ "Meta+9" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=-2" : [ "Alt+2" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=-3" : [ "Alt+3" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=-4" : [ "Alt+4" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=-5" : [ "Alt+5" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=-6" : [ "Alt+6" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=-7" : [ "Alt+7" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=-8" : [ "Alt+8" ]
},
{
"NoteInput.TransposeOrAddNotesToSelection?Definition=-9" : [ "Alt+9" ]
}
I’m glad you found this helpful 
Dorico has another method of adding notes to existing notes that might be less obvious, but is still reasonably fast: Q with L.
If you enter Q (chord mode) with L (lock duration), then you can add new notes with a MIDI keyboard (or QWERTY, or the virtual on-screen keyboard), matching the note duration of the existing note.
You have to press SPACE to advance to the next note, but with one press for the pitch and one for Space, that’s no more presses than Alt + Num. And if you want to enter two notes at a time, it’s faster still.
Thank you! I forgot… Oh… Even though I don’t often use MIDI keyboards, thanks for reminding me!