Frame/System breaks are driving me nuts.
I space staves exactly as I want but then have a lot of empty frame at the bottom. If I drag this up it respaces everything!
Help! (please!)
Related question:
Is it possible to copy a frame from one layout to another. I can’t work out how?
It would be great to be able to drag the actual stave rather than the frame boxes.
Also, it would be good to be able to select a frame in a way that precludes accidental grabbing of a slur etc.
Also, a ‘fit to music’ command for a frame would be nice.
Dear Steve,
First, you have to forget all the habits to manually do this stuff. Actually, trust Dorico, it will do it way better. That is what I’ve learned with LaTeX !
If you want to get rid of free space at the bottom of a frame, this can be solved with Layout options, vertical spacing category. You will find a Justify function at the bottom of that page, you change the % and it will automatically fill your page. If you find there are too few systems, THEN you can start playing with system breaks until it pleases you, or simply change the global space size (in Layout options, setup category).
You can drag staves vertically in Engrave mode, enabling the button in the left panel. But this should be a tool you use at the very end of the project, if something does not please you. That is the power of Dorico, so it is interesting to exploit it.
I made the attached file in Dorico. I can email the Dorico file - I don’t think I can attach it here.
The spaced bars are not placed well at the moment, because the music doesn’t move when you drag the frame.
This kind of thing is an aesthetic balance, so requires precise back and forth dragging.
The frames (blue rectangles) are as small as I can make them without losing music, but the ‘engrave’ mode page is a mess.
The bars should also be different lengths which I can’t find any way to achieve.
I also can’t make the final line take up the entire width - the frame is the whole width.
As you can see, there are a number of other engraving issues which I’m unable to solve.
Waouh, that is an interesting problem !
Actually, you can post your Dorico project if you want us to open it and try things on it. Just zip it before uploading.
The final line should take the entire width with the Justify last system option in Note spacing (Layout options).
Attached Dorico. Ignore the 20 spare pages… Every time I try to delete one I get two more! Pure incompetence…
Five Waltzes (Waltz Five).dorico.zip (316 KB)
Thank you Steve !
I am trying to understand how this piece of music works.
Here is my rendition of your work (I have been using copy-paste from your file), I hope you’ll like it.
Parker’s trombone.dorico.zip (312 KB)
Great! My first question is how did you get the blue frames to hug the staves like that? I couldn’t resize them that small without the music going. Can you think of any way to achieve different lengthed bars, as in waltz five of the original attached score?
Five Waltzes for Trombone.pdf.zip (861 KB)
Cool ! Happy to help.
In layout options, page setup, there is a very interesting setting : music frame margins. You can check that I put 10pts for top and bottom, this made my life easier.
You’ll notice that all the music frames are linked with MA, and I made sure the order of the frames was corresponding to what I read in your score (you can check that by widening the frames)
I used the option I told you about, in Layout options, note spacing, unchecking “justify…”
This caused a problem at first, for the last bars of the first music frame, because then the music was running over the text. This is why I had to create what is now the frame n°2, (bars 26-29), shorter, in order to let the text appear without music.
Since waltz five is the most complicated in a design point of view, I really think it is easy to re-write it all with Dorico. If you right-click on the bars, you should be able to add the bar numbers (I did not know if you wanted them).
And honestly, I think it would be better to have the titles as headers, rather than footers, but that’s just my point of view 
Doing this job was really interesting to me, as I could “play around” with frames…
This is for Dorico’s team : please add a copy feature (alt-click ?) that would create a copy of the frame selected (in Engrave mode, frame mode on). This way the job would have been so easy ! I also had to click outside the frame each time I changed a parameter (frame number or MA/LB which I still do not really know what it is…) to validate it. Could a key stroke do that (enter or tab) ? Is it even useful to validate it ? I think these procedures just waste users time, it could be simpler — maybe I’m omitting something, some problems I don’t see…
Is there somewhere that explains MA, LA etc? I can see that they go LB, LC, LD etc. and I can sort of see what they do.
Do you understand the reason why ‘unlink’ hides the music?
Oddly, I can lengthen the bars in the one you sent back but not mine…?!
Thanks so much for help!
I think there is something about it in the operation manual, pages 115-123.
I should take some time to study it !
I don’t know what you did with that stuff. I decided to go a simple way. Create different flows, and ask Dorico to display them in the right order, because that is the way I was reading your music. Since it works, it might be a good procedure, but it may not be the only one.
Time to go to sleep here,
Glad to know this was useful.
If you right-click on the bars, you should be able to add the bar numbers (I did not know if you wanted them).
And honestly, I think it would be better to have the titles as headers, rather than footers, but that’s just my point of view >
It was written a long while ago. I’m going to restart bar numbers for each waltz now. I agree with you about titles now as well!
There is an operations manual?? I downloaded the help which is 500 pages long but not really helpful. Other than that I’ve been trawling the forum. Where can I get the manual?
And many thanks!
Good night !
Actually, thinking about what I have done, I think I should not have created flows, only include frame breaks would have been enough. Then the bar numbering would have been perfect with no tweak. I’ll know that for next time !