Formatting System

Hi. I have big trouble formatting Systems in Dorico.
I can separate bars and put into the next system.
But if I try to combine bars and put them into one system, I get weird results.
In Sibelius i can quickly mark several bars and quick put them into one system.
I hope that this is an issue, that is in the beginning will be fixed.

Best Regards

You should be able to put the bars that you want onto the same system. In Engrave mode, select the first note at the start of the bar you want to begin the system, then select with Ctrl+click the note at the end of the bar you want to complete the system, then choose Engrave > Format Systems > Make Into System.

Allright! I was used to click on the barlines. Is it possible to give this a shortcut. This is a very oftenused command for me.

Yes, you can define a shortcut for this on the Key Commands page of Preferences.

Inserting and Deleting Bars; Formatting Bars and Systems

Is there no functionality for grabbing measures and adding/subtracting them without note selection? Perhaps I am missing something, but that is formatting the staff, not the notes. If I want to arrange a layout that has no notes on it, is there no option, other then entering a bunch of placeholder notes, arranging the systems, and then deleting the placeholders? A simple +/- you could click on at the end of the system would eliminate a lot of extra clicks, unless that is a proprietary idea of other software.

Also, how would you insert or delete bars in the middle of a page, rather than having to add and subtract from the end? It presumes having the music handwritten before entering it, but I would think many solely want to use the software.

You should be able to select the bar rest in an empty bar and use that as the basis of the selection for setting system and frame breaks. You don’t need to put notes in just for those purposes.

To delete bars from the middle of the music, double-click the staff to show the caret there, then use the Shift+B popover and type e.g. -10 to delete 10 bars to the right of the caret. In due course we will have a new user interface element called the system track that will make it easier to do this directly with the mouse, but in the absence of that, using the popover is the way to do it.

Is Finale’s method of clicking a bar (anywhere in a system) and arrowing up or down unable to be used?
I’m not sure it can be bettered for speed. It’s even easy to send a bar to the next/previous page.

I agree that Finale’s method is very quick. Perhaps in due course we’ll be able to implement something similar.

Finale’s method : +1!

I must be missing something. As per instructions, in Engrave mode, I select the first note I want in the system, but when I control+click on the final note I want in the system, I get a popup that allows me to adjust stems, beaming, etc., but it doesn’t select the bars I want to reformat into a system. When I then go into the Engrave menu and select Format Systems, Make Into System, nothing happens. I’m running Mac Sierra, and Dorico February 22, 2017. I’m just a week in with this software, and so far this is the only thing that has me completely baffled. Any help much appreciated. Thanks.

are you sure you are ctrl-clicking…? You seem to be doing the equivalent of rightclicking on Windows, which brings up this menu. When you’ve done it correctly the first and last note will both be orange and the menu commands should work as you expect.

On Mac you need to Cmd-click (Ctrl-click on Windows).

Cmd-click it is!! Thanks.