Is it possible or practical to have the menu display the voice colors (if voice colors are selected)? Sometimes I’m not sure if which is Up stem Voice 1 or 2. See attached picture of the menu: for example, color the menu item “Down stem Voice 1” to orange, “…Voice 2” to Purple (or whatever colors they are). I’ve been using trial and error which costs a little time in complex voicings.
Voice colours do not correspond directly to voice numbers, so unless that behaviour is changed, I can say categorically that it’s a no. Voice colours are assigned in a specific order as voices are created. In most cases the first voice created is upstem down 1, and the second voice created is downstem voice 1, but just try introducing a piano or other grand staff instrument and you’ll see that your assumed “rule” immediately flies out of the window, because colours are shared across each instrument, not across each stave (and this is because with cross-staffing you wouldn’t be able to tell which stave a voice had started on if the colours were the same).
I guess the question that nobody’s asked is “why not share voice numbers across instruments, in order to keep the colours consistent?”. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that in that scenario (on a grand staff instrument) you’d have the same problem of not instantly being able to see which stave a voice originated on, and the additional problem that you could end up with a Downstem Voice 3 without ever having created a Downstem Voice 2.
Maybe I’m not explaining this well. The project is on a grand staff. I selected a note in the bass clef in the example. There are three voices I can change to that are in the bass clef (I’ve never seen the treble staff voices as an option with this command). Each has a color assigned and I know I want one of the downstems, but can’t tell which one. I realize there can be cross staffing with M and N commands, but I believe those would still be assigned to one of the staffs in the Grand Staff.
Actually, Dorico uses different colors for Grand Staff which is also handy. So if you use M and N to cross staff, I can still follow voices ok.
I don’t care what the voice is called (I “Finale” got used to that, yuk, yuk) like voice 2, 3, or whether Dorico called the voices Leo and Steve and Daniel. But Dorico knows and could potentially display the choices of existing voices in a staff in colors (if the QT menu system can deal with such a feature). For example, if the Leo voice notes were blue, then Edit>Voices>Change Voice>Leo would have “Leo” colored blue.
Not sure this explanation is any better! It’s easier to show someone in person.
Your explanation is perfectly clear. I guess I was considering use cases where notes are selected on multiple staves - not unusual when filtering, for instance - whereas you’re considering selections on one staff.
We won’t be colouring menu items according to voice colours, definitely not. That would look horrendous. However, we agree that it would be helpful to be able to identify the voice of a note more easily, and in the next update you’ll be able to see a read-out of the voice direction and index in the status bar.