Daniel Spreadbury has stated recently that the default placement of paragraph styles is something that will be adressed in the future, which is great! This topic is not meant to keep nagging about that, but I’ve been searching the forum on somewhat related issues with placement/formatting of text items and while I found quite a number of topics, I couldn’t find any (recent) statements on whether these issues also will be addressed in future updates (if I missed that, please correct me ). I have some examples of a couple of related issues which would also be huge time savers if they could be addressed:
Font styles: separate size for parts
The lack of this option is inconvenient for larger scores that require a smaller rastral size (e.g. an A3 score with 25+ staves) because you’ll end up with Tempo markings that are either too small in the score or too big in the parts. I know the workaround of applying local scale changes to tempo marks in the score, but that’s a lot less efficient and more error-prone. Also, I fail to grasp why this is possible for Paragraph styles but not Font styles.
Positioning of text items vs. tempo markings
I am studying a piece that incorporates a number of folk tunes in the composition. The tunes are marked in the score as follows:
I recreated this in a practice file because I was curious how this would work in Dorico, and it turned out to be an unexpectedly annoying process for something so basic (I extensively searched this forum, the help files, the facebook group and used google; if I somehow missed an efficient way of doing it, please point me towards it ). There is no possibility to automatically stack a text item above a tempo marking and there is no option to align a text item with either a barline* or the tempo marking. So you have to uncheck collision avoidance in the properties and manually move the item in Engrave mode while trying to eyeball the left alignment (side question: why are these changes not visible in Galley view?), after which, if this were an actual project, you’d have to move the X/Y offsets from per-staff to common in order to be able to propagate the properties to the parts. There are about 25 of these items in that score so I’m glad I don’t have to engrave this piece in Dorico right now. I imagine making stacking options flexible is probably quite complicated, but just the option to align a text item to the barline or other items in the same bar (e.g. tempo markings) would already make a huge difference as that would eliminate a significant part of the eyeballing.
Since one of Dorico’s principles is to avoid manual adjustments at all costs, I find it odd that these seemingly straightforward tasks require manual workarounds. Especially since the solutions are actually already available somewhere in the program, just not in all the places where they can be useful. So I hope these will also be included in future updates!
*I know about the ‘align with system start’ option but that obviously does not work if the item is not at the start of the system.
Galley View has no pages. It doesn’t space out systems, nor does it vertically adjust the music. So you can’t move things there, because you don’t know how the page is going to look.
Yeah I know that I get why you can’t move items in Galley view. What I was wondering is why changes that have been made in Engrave mode to e.g. X/Y positions of text items, are not visible when switching back to Galley view. Obviously (staff) spacing changes would not be visible in a view that doesn’t show actual pages, but I don’t get why that also has to apply to items that are attached to bars/notes as they don’t depend on frame/page formats or other page related variables. It’s not part of the feature request and I would normally make these changes at the very end anyway, but it just crossed my mind.
Galley view is for entering the music where you can see all the staves. It is expected that by the time you are adjusting things in Engrave you will be mostly done with galley view.
In addition to the points I mentioned above, another peculiar thing I found is that some text items are not positioned according to their baseline, but to the lowest point of the item. Meaning that alignment is messed up as soon as you have a character with a descender in there:
In the screenshot above I used playing techniques, no manual adjustments. If I enter the same things as default text (shift+x), they are properly aligned:
This could actually be a reason for me not to use playing techniques when I should which I hardly think can be the intention. But I’d rather type the words mute and open 100 times in a project and be done with it, than having to inspect every playing technique for alignment. I also don’t get why this is inconsistent between different items in Dorico. I didn’t have the time yet to find out whether playing techniques are the only items that behave like this… Would be neat if this can be evaluated as well.
You can also “Group Playing Techiques” to align them, which works somewhat similarly to the “Group Dynamics” option. This also creates a transition arrow between the techniques, but you can hide this by adjusting the line style to “none” in engrave mode.
Then what would explain the difference between those 2 screenshots? I made no manual adjustments in either (only thing I changed is the distance to the staff in Engraving options, but that does not influence their position relative to one another). Adding a character with a descender to a playing technique alters its position, while this does not happen in a text item.
Also: in general, why would text alignment not be based on the baseline? That’s the stuff of OCD nightmares
Tempo markings and dynamic text font (the one used for modifyers, when hiding the intensity marking) are also aligned to baselines. Dynamics themselves however can be both, they appear to be aligned to the ascender but only when there are items below the staff for some reason:
My first post on this forum was actually about this. Daniel responded that this was expected behavior. Two months into Dorico this is still not what I would expect however ;). This is also not how I see p and mf aligned in practice, nor in Gould (e.g. p. 105). (I know I can group them, I just don’t get why that is necessary for dynamics that ought to be at the exact same baseline position). As I approach the stage of actually finishing my first projects in Dorico these things drive me nuts as well… I feel your pain @dan_kreider.
I expect the positioning of the mf and p in your example is designed for efficient use of space. Having them appear close beside each other, although not exotic, is less common than having the marks appear farther apart where the different baselines will not be as evident and the efficient use of vertical space may be a benefit.
This is incorrect. In your second bar they are not aligned to each other at all; they are the same distance from the note. In your first bar the grouped dynamics are aligned on the baseline. Since f and p both have descenders, they more or less align at the bottom, the same as any bold italics: mf p.
Then let me rephrase: the point on the dynamic from which the distance to the note is measured in the second bar seems to be the ascender line, rather than the baseline. So to claim that the dynamics “are the same distance from the note” depends on your perspective. If you look at the baseline as an anchor point, the mf and p are at the same distance from the notes in the first bar, but certainly not in the second.They are also not aligned at the bottom at all:
When typing bold italics mf p they are aligned at the baseline as well. The fact that the descender lines look more or less aligned as well is coincidental.
In any case, I only brought that up in response to Dan about which items in Dorico seem to align at baseline and which ones do not. It wasn’t the main point of the topic (and, as opposed to the other issues, it can be fixed relatively quickly by grouping the dynamics).
). I have some examples of a couple of related issues which would also be huge time savers if they could be addressed:
). There is no possibility to automatically stack a text item above a tempo marking and there is no option to align a text item with either a barline* or the tempo marking. So you have to uncheck collision avoidance in the properties and manually move the item in Engrave mode while trying to eyeball the left alignment (side question: why are these changes not visible in Galley view?), after which, if this were an actual project, you’d have to move the X/Y offsets from per-staff to common in order to be able to propagate the properties to the parts. There are about 25 of these items in that score so I’m glad I don’t have to engrave this piece in Dorico right now. I imagine making stacking options flexible is probably quite complicated, but just the option to align a text item to the barline or other items in the same bar (e.g. tempo markings) would already make a huge difference as that would eliminate a significant part of the eyeballing.
That’s the stuff of OCD nightmares 
