Would it be possible for layout frames to be able to continue ‘order’ across pages, rather than beginning at ‘1’ on a new page? Then I could have, say, ‘1’ on page two and ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘4’ on page one.
This is not an urgent need, but I’d like to understand the thinking behind it.
Steve,
I think the ‘order’ is for multiple frames on the page, but if you have one layout frame per page and you want the music to flow from one to the other, you pick the same frame chain in the top left hand corner of the frame. When I create two layout frames they default to different chains (LA and LB), but when I change the second one to LB, the music flows through the first to the second. Does that help?
Thanks Vilnai,
I know how it works at the moment, but it begged the question as to why the ability to change flow order is not extended to all frames in a layout chain, rather than just a page.
We didn’t think there was a need for music to flow “backwards” from e.g. page 2 to page 1, simply put.
Hi Daniel! I’m aware of one situation where this type of flow has been used; where a Coda passage is placed “out of sequence” on an earlier page than the last to facilitate good page turns on a multi page part.
e.g. The body of the main piece fills the top half (frame) of a page going to the next page. The bottom half of that page is the Coda. At the DS or DC, player navigates back to page one or DS but then, can simply leave a page or spread open to play the Coda, without having to jump forward again across a number of pages.
I can probably dig up a sample or two if it would be helpful? The technique may not be strictly “legit”, but you’d see this in big band charts before Finale and Sibelius became popular, and it really was helpful to the players. Music librarians will still use this type of approach using old-school cut and tape to help the players navigate nasty page turns on repeats etc.
I have to say, even without this ability, I’m extremely impressed by the implementation of the frames / frame chain feature!
In that case, why not put the coda into a separate flow and place it where you want it?
Another (real life) example: I have a duo for violin and piano, in seven movements. In two of the movements the violinist, instead of playing violin, is supposed to play the Primo part of a piano four hands setting. There are two Layouts, the playing score and the part for the violinist. The playing score does contain all materials in the common order. The violin part, however, comes in two sections. First, there is a usual part for all the movements with participation of the violin. The movements where the violinist plays piano are left out since they are played from the playing score (at the piano). They are, however, still included in the violin part, in the additional second section. This is necessary so that the violinist can practice the Primo part.
I: violin and piano
II: violin solo
III: piano four hands
IV: piano four hands
V: violin and piano
VI: violin solo
VII: violin and piano
Playing score, order of movements:
I, ii*, III, IV, V, vi*, VII
Violin part, order of movements:
I, II, V, VI, VII | iii*, iv*
*movements given in small Roman numbers are not played from the Layout
I was able to achieve the violin part by using two unlinked frame chains and filtering out the unneeded Flows. Having the ability to set up very deliberately the order of frames that the music flows through would be a bit less hassle here (it may come with other complications, though), but this filtering approach sure is fair enough – and look at me talking as if having something like frames at last is just something to be taken for granted.
Currently though, this method comes with another problem that probably also applies to Robert’s example: it is not possible to only have unlinked frame chains in a Layout (which is what you need to divide the Flows assigned to one Layout into separate sets). The moment the last Master Page frame is turned into an unlinked frame, a new page will be added to the Layout with a new Master Page frame.
I don’t think this is strictly true, if your layout uses a master page set that doesn’t contain any master page frame chains at all.
Hmmm, this got my hopes up. But so far, in vain.
I made a copy of the “Default Part” Set, applied it to the violin Layout, and then I opened the Master Page Editor, where I unlinked all music frames in the “First” and “Default” page sets. However, all this seems to do is to create instead of the default “MA” chain another main chain with a new label (“MI”, “MJ” and so on). When I then go back to the actual Layout, the label has changed accordingly, but Dorico will still compensate for any deleted main chain frame (“main chain frame” – say this ten times fast) by adding a new frame (and page) at the end of the Layout.
No, what I meant, Alex, was that the master page should contain no music frames at all, and you would add all of the frames in the layout.
A nice little example file of what Daniel describes above was posted by fratveno in this thread:
https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=246&t=108179&p=594078#p594502
The example has one music frame on page 1 and then 2 frames on page 2. All three are chained together in sequence. There are no music frames in the master page.
Relative to my use case above, if you add a frame to fratveno’s example file at the bottom of its page one, the music in that frame will appear linked sequentially after the first frame on page one. As discussed above, it is not currently possible to reassign the ordering of these frame chains except on a single page basis so that they will appear 1, 4 on page one and 2, 3 on page two for instance.