Generate chord symbols from selection conundrum

[Janus]

Is it possible to use the Generate Chord Symbols from Selection function to show those symbols only on the Bass of a selection?
I have a four part quartet, but only want chord symbols above the bass line. It appears (unless I’m doing something wrong) that if I set every player (except the bass) to hide chord symbols for all instruments, when I generate the symbols they appear over every part and ignore the settings in Setup. (I know I can set symbols only to appear over the top system, but that is not what is needed).

What I want…

What I get…

Any ideas?

[Fes_Lehu]

I assume that you changed in SETUP/ Player setting “Showing cord symbols” the options.

[Janus]

That is exactly the setting which is ignored! I set every player to hide chord symbols for all instruments (except the bass part, where I want it to appear), but when I make a selection and generate chord symbols the chord symbols appear on all instruments in the selection!

[FredGUnn]

I completely agree this isn’t really desirable behavior, but Daniel has addressed it before.

Remove all chords from all players at the same time

This is working as expected. When you use Generate Chord Symbols from Selection, Dorico makes sure that every instrument in the selection ends up showing chord symbols (by adjusting the per-player settings you can access in Setup mode). You can of course select each player in turn after having created the chord symbols and set them not to show chord symbols again.

Remove all chords from all players at the same time

One possible approach would be to create a new piano instrument in your layout, then use Edit > Paste Special > Reduce to reduce the whole texture down onto the piano instrument, and select that instrument before running Generate Chord Symbols From Selection. This will show the chord symbols on the piano, of course, and you can then delete the piano instrument from the project: the chord symbols will remain, and you can then specify in Setup mode which players you want those chord symbols to app…

[Janus]

Thanks. My brain froze, having been part of that conversation, but completely failing to connect it to my current frustration!

I still think the generate chord symbol from selection routine should respect the player settings… even if that means no symbols are generated!

[FredGUnn]

I agree, and perhaps add a setting to have the chords added to either the top or bottom staff of the selection.

[Janus]

I wouldn’t mind the annoyance so much if I could bulk change player settings, rather than having to change each individually.

[YourMusic.Pro]

This.

[J_Woodtli]

@FredGUnn

I agree, and perhaps add a setting to have the chords added to either the top or bottom staff of the selection.

That could be one possible solution, but there are 2 others:

• a checkbox saying: only show chords on “visible” instruments
• or even better: a dropdown menu, where a selection of the instrument can be made. I still can remember the plugin in the app starting with an “S” and ending with “belius”

Right now the behaviour is frustrating as Janus stated above. Whenever I use this function I have to redo the original hide or show setup I made before I started my work. That’s why I don’t use this really handy function, aside from being stuck with really complex chords … Besides, I tried the two workarounds Daniel is proposing, but they are both slowing down the workflow way too much. So I really would like one of the three possible solutions. Thank you in advance for considering this …
My workflow at the moment is: make a manageable selection and then apply the function. Memorize the chords. Then press “command z” (undo) and then insert the memorized chords into the desired system … talking about a workaround …

[J_Woodtli]

@Remove all chords from all players at the same time

This is working as expected

It took a while, but now I understand what Daniel meant by this “expected behavior”, because it is not , what I expect. I first had to try and insert a chord into a system where the chords were actually set to invisible. Then Dorico overwrites the preset made in the setup and shows all chords in that instrument. This of course makes Daniel’s statement understandable, because it can be confusing if I insert a chord and then I can’t see it in this instrument at all, but only in the systems, where chords were actually made visible. I am of the opinion that it should not be like this, because I have made it really clear in the setup what “the expected behaviour” should be, meaning where I would like to see chords and where not, but I understand the approach, because especially for newcomers it could be confusing if something, that is inserted is not visible at all at this very input location but in an other stave/instrument. Nevertheless, the functionality described above:

@J_Woodtli

That could be one possible solution …

would be really desirable. Or at least I should be able to set in the layout options that Dorico should always keep the visibility of the chords I selected in the setup menu for the individual instruments, because this is what I and other users (?) expect. That means, that I would like to have Dorico respect my setup settings …