FR: global distance between immediate dynamic and text suffix

I use the dynamic suffix property quite a bit to include expressive instructions, but I always find myself adding an extra space at the beginning, especially in the example below. It would be nice to have a global option to increase the distance there.

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I don’t think this is quite as simple as it may appear, because it comes down to the width of the space in the font you are using for your suffix, and the last character in the actual dynamic itself. I suspect different values would be needed for a bunch of different situations.

But wouldn’t be that be the reason to put it in Engraving Options? The dynamic suffix font isn’t going to change within the project, and neither is the music font. Sure, the last character would create some variance, but Dorico has already chosen a “global” width that generally works, just not always. That’s already a “one size fits all” approach.

The Engraving Option could be set to Dorico’s current defaults, and the user could deviate from them if needed. I just wish the default were universally one space wider.

Although Dorico seems to eliminate extra spaces in the popover, you can still add them in the suffix field in the properties panel.

Right, but individually for each and every instance!

Would adding an unseen space to each dynamic interfere (perhaps only subtly) with the justification of the dynamic used without suffix, particularly when a dynamic was centered on the notehead?

Well, in that case I just wouldn’t add the extra space I guess.

Perhaps I should have said, “Would having Dorico add a a default unseen space…”

No, I wouldn’t think so. The hidden item would be the immediate dynamic, and the visible item would be the suffix. I think the space between them would be immaterial. But if course this is all speculation.

The behavior of Dorico not inserting a space automatically between the ”f ”(forte) mark and the suffix is a bug, isn’t it? Because in the cases after the ”sf ” (sforzando) and after the “p”(piano), Dorico automatically inserts a space.

space between dynamics and suffix, bug?.dorico (364.7 KB)

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For comparison, the Opus font for Sibelius has a nice, wide space character, very suitable for this. When I want e.g. “mf broaden” in Sibelius, I type no space between them at first, then go back and add the space after the f to force Sib to use the music font.

Of course Dorico does this completely differently, and of course there are kerning issues with an italic f in fine typography. But I would be quite happy with a default space the size of an en-space between dynamic and text.

I am having exactly the same need, and using an extra space as a workaround now. So just to follow here if any updates happened in the updates?

No, there haven’t been any changes in this area recently.

I’ve just run into this, and I concur with @tomotomo2 that there is less space after an f dynamic
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Screenshot

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After inspecting SVG output I can confirm that there is a bug where the output for mf to ffffff (including subito f written as sf) do not have a space between the dynamic and the suffix, while the output for sforzandos do have a space, so this is indeed inconsistent.

However I think the better work around is to actually not display the space after f because the lack of a space italic-corrects for the top hook of f. If I want to type a sforzando, I would hide it, then add a subito forte, displayed as sf, with no playback.

There’s no bug here, but there are deliberate inconsistencies in terms of which dynamics will add spaces before suffixes and which will not. We could ultimately expose this as a set of options, but it’s not currently a high priority.

Sorry to be a pain, but can you explain why this is deliberate? Is there some other use case where it actually is the right thing?

I can’t honestly remember the details, though I remember the conversation. I’d need to step through and have a look at exactly what Dorico is doing.

Please consider it a low priority!

Surely the spacing after sf and mf should not be different though?
And as people have shown above this doesn’t work well with different music fonts.