Flow headings and numbers: editing and hiding

After looking at a number of videos and (older) forum posts that deal with Flow “tokens”, and how to edit them, hide them, and change their placement, I’d welcome some clarification, please:

  • Layout options/page setup/flows: Use this to completely hide flow headings, whether for one or many flows and/or layouts?

  • Engrave/Flow Headings/Default: Use this to make changes to flow headings/numbers that affect all layouts and all flows within the current project?

    • If so, is there a way to make these changes as program defaults (ie, for all future projects)?

How to make changes that are not intended to affect all layouts and flows?

Thanks, in advance. . .

Flow Headings are per layout so, each Layout can be set to hide or show independently. They are not, however, per Flow although, you can skip the first Flow.

If you want different Flow Headings for different Flows, you can define new Headings and do an Insert Flow Heading Change at the appropriate page.

If you want different default Headings for different Layouts, you can define new Master Page Sets and assign them to the appropriate Layouts.

You can’t change the defaults for future projects. It’s best to save a template file and use that for future projects.

Thank-you, Craig.

I’m new to this, so I’ll have to digest some of the terminology. :smiley:

What I’m mainly concerned about is how to hide flow headings (including their numbers), versus changing an aspect of flow headings – for example, keeping flow titles but suppressing their flow numbers, or changing the font or text attributes for all flow titles.

From what I read in earlier posts (and saw/heard on videos), I got the impression that show/hide is done via [Layout options/page setup/flows], but that changing flow title attributes is done via [Engrave/Flow Headings/Default]

Is this basically the case, or is it much more involved than that?

(thanks again!)

If one wants to eliminate the Flow Number from a Flow Header (or many Flow Headers), one can create a new Custom Flow Header in the Engrave > Master Pages section.

One can then put that Custom Flow Header into a new Master Page Set and can export that MP Set for import into new (or even pre-existing) projects for assignment to any flows one wishes.

Aha! Thank-you very much, Derrek!

From what you’ve written, I gather that the advantage of creating a new Custom Flow Header – as opposed to simply changing the existing Default Flow header – is that one can then export and then import it into other projects – yes?

Is there any danger in simply changing the Default Flow header, if I know that I want that change for the entire project?

You can’t hide a Flow heading per Flow, but you can define a custom blank Heading.

If you want to remove the Flow Number but keep the Flow Title, then just edit the Heading in Engrave mode.

To change fonts styles etc, Use Engrave > Paragraph Styles. You can edit existing styles or create your own which can be used when editing the Heading.

Not at all. It will only affect that project file.

Thanks, Craig – I appreciate the help!

Probably more that having more than one flow heading design/template means you can have different flow headings on different pages in the same layout - say only a couple of flows have lyrics so those flow headings need to include the librettist, but you don’t want to show that for the flows that don’t have lyrics.

Flow heading changes can apply to individual pages or from a specific page onwards.

Thanks, Lillie!

So much to learn. . .

I wonder: rather than picking up different aspects (e.g., of “tokens” – which began today’s journey for me) from different sources, is there any ‘unified’ way of going about learning Dorico? A series of in-depth tutorials, perhaps?

The Dorico forum is really excellent, but – for a beginner like me – it’s a bit like walking into a detailed conversation that is already underway, and having to fill in all the blanks in my own knowledge in order to understand what is being discussed.

Have you tried the First Steps thingy? Dorico First Steps Documentation

Thanks, pianoleo.
I think I have burrowed through some of the sections, but not systematically.
I’ll recheck that . . .

You could start by watching full playlists from the Dorico YouTube channel and picking up workflows and philosophy that way.

You could also jump into John’s Discover Dorico sessions on the YouTube channel too.

And yes, as Leo says there is now a First Steps guide that doesn’t cover everything, but takes you through preparing a complete short piano project and along the way touches on bits of Dorico’s approach that ideally you can internalise and take away with you. Of particular interest in that guide that’s pertinent to this thread, is this topic about information shown on pages by default - which I feel I may have already linked you to?

The intent behind the First Steps guide is it’s more like a walkthrough tutorial than a manual: it’s designed to be read from start to end. There are a few places that stop and list useful key commands/ideas in one place, but a lot of the time the tips and tricks are spread out as and when they come up in the context of working on the project.

Thanks, Lillie.

I turned to the YouTube channel at the very beginning – nicely produced videos, but – for me, at least – they were a random scattering of disparate topics. I dug into some of them deeply, and (as you know) had to ask the forum about many aspects that I didn’t quite understand. (Looking at John Barron’s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRHO_vw1pkI right now. . . )

I don’t recall seeing this before – but perhaps something you had sent me was part of that page. Looks promising. . .

First Steps guide: as I mentioned to pianoleo, I’ve worked thru some of its pages, but not systematically. I’ll give it a try.

Thanks for these recommendations!

Getting back to Flow headings and numbers: Is there a way to undo an override that was previously done to a Flow heading? (I checked for this in the forum, but only found something related to undoing a beaming override.)

(Changes that I make in Layout Options - Page Setup - Flows do work in any new project I undertake, but don’t seem to have an effect on a previously created project, and so I am guessing that I changed its Flow Heading manually, before realizing that this might be an override.)

Thanks.

Flow headings and master pages “refresh” in new projects. If you want to reset a flow heading whose template you’ve edited, you could import your flow into a fresh project. Importing the default master page set (which you’ve exported from a fresh project) and applying it to the layout might also do the trick - flow headings are included in master page sets.

If you mean you edited a flow heading on a single page, removing the override for that page will reset it back to the master page and flow heading template.

Or, if you edited the flow heading template but don’t want to import into a new project/import a master page set into the existing project, you could just re-edit the flow heading to add back whatever information you removed etc.

Layout Options: if you save a set of options as a new default, that won’t affect existing projects (which already have options set in them), unless you open the existing project and reset its options to your defaults - that will reset it to the current state of the default settings, ie your new defaults.

It’s always so gratifying when something works! :wink:

Sure enough, there was a red triangle showing, which confirmed the override on that page.
However, when I hit Remove Overrides, it deleted the entire Flow heading! I’m not sure why.

However, this project was only a self-created Dorico ‘exercise’, so the important thing, for me, is that - thanks to your help – I now know how to undo a single page override. No need to fix this page for posterity! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

If the override predated you hiding flow headings in the layout, that would explain why it disappeared when you remove the override. Overrides fix pages at the moment of the override.

Got it – thanks!

So, in a similar case – let’s say I override a Flow heading, and after an hour of score-creating later realize that I don’t want that override – I would probably need to try one of your other suggestions (import the flow to a new project, or apply a default master page set [from a new project], yes?

Depends what the change is and whether you mean “editing the flow heading template” or “overriding an individual page”. If you edited the flow heading to remove the flow number, you could just simply edit the flow heading again and add it back. Quite possibly simpler.

Or, where you’re not sure at the outset, create a new flow heading and use that as I mentioned earlier in the thread. Like master pages, you can have any number of flow headings available in the same master page set.