I’m fairly new to Dorico, and it’s come up several times where I’d like a certain note grouping to be automatic, but I just can’t find the setting to do it. As far as I can tell, I’ve set every note grouping option in notation options to group as many notes as possible, whenever possible, but I still get the following:
I know each instance can be manually fixed with force duration, but I’m wondering if there’s a setting or a time signature option I’m missing. Any thoughts?
Hi @JaronL,
To make it easier, could you post a screenshot of what you actually want?
Thanks, Daniel, for your reply.
I wish for the above examples to show up as:
andBut I’m also wondering in the general sense if there’s a good way to force certain beat groupings for any given time signature or force notes to always group when possible.
Perhaps another simpler example would be beneficial. If I want to notate a [3+3+2+2]/8 in 5/4, Dorico automatically splits the second dotted-quarter when I wish it wouldn’t:
should be 
I get your second example with factory settings, so you must have changed something in Notation Settings > Note Grouping. Possibly this?
Try changing that to the first option.
There are usually other ways of getting what you want for different time signatures. For example, even with your current settings, you could put 5/4 in the first bar and [3+3+2+2]/8 in the second bar and hide that time signature – then you’d only have to fix up the first bar, and the others would display as you want them.
I don’t think there’s a way of specifying groupings in tuplets, but I could be wrong.
This is a great way as well.
@asherber Haha, I guess my last example was poor because of that exact setting; imagine a 7/4 or 2+3/4 or something. Thank you though; hiding a time signature in the second bar is a clever way to do it if the time sig doesn’t change too often.
It still would be nice to find a better solution for those works which change time signatures frequently, but still use consistent beat groupings.
If anyone knows how to force maximum-length groupings inside tuplets, or even has insight into why Dorico chooses to group or split notes the way it does, I’d much appreciate it.
I may be misunderstanding what you’re looking for, but you could just use [2+3]/4, which will display as 5/4, no hiding necessary. The only reason to hide the time sig in the previous example is because your desired grouping has a different denominator from the displayed time sig.
For pieces with changing time sigs, you could either cut and paste or Alt+click time sigs (after entering them the first time), create user scripts to insert custom time sigs, or edit your key commands JSON file to add key commands for the time sigs you want.
Having said that, I agree that it would be useful to have a section in Notation Options where you could specify groupings for various time signatures.
Amen to that. Not just note groupings but beam groupings and rests as well. I’m working on a project that has a long section in 5/2. I want 3+2 as a general feel and as note grouping for sustained notes that last more than a beat, but I don’t want eighth notes beamed by groups of 12 and 8. Dorico has some options to break beams at beat boundaries but you can’t get those to work for a 5/2. You also end up with dotted quarter rests in 5/2 which I find highly undesirable (I haven’t been able to find a setting that completely eliminates that and even if there was one, I also need 7/8 with dotted rests in the same flow). So I’m constantly force entering rests (“you don’t have to enter rests in Dorico”) and breaking beams (or alternatively, using force duration to enter a note of five beats als a dotted whole+whole note). Even when using alt+click this is a huge time waster.
I can imagine that the Notation options would become pretty unwieldy if it had to provide options for a million different time signatures, but if we had the possibility to define note grouping/beam grouping/dotted rests etc. in the Properties Panel when selecting a time signature, that would be a game changer. Guess I just snuck in a feature-request . 
Hmm, maybe I’m not even sure what exactly it is I’m looking for. I’ve thought the meter popover tool wasn’t quite powerful enough for my needs, but I’ve supplied a few supposed examples in which it is powerful enough, so maybe I’m just not intimately familiar with it yet.
As for additional settings to define custom beat groupings beyond what’s possible in the popover, it looks like I’ll have to wait for that for now.
Thanks all.
