Hairpins are my usual method of entering crescendos - easy-peasy.
But when I have a crescendo over more than 4-6 beats, I prefer the written word ‘crescendo’ (often adding ‘poco a poco’) with a dashed line.
I know how to turn the hairpin into the written version. But I’m looking for a way to enter either without having to go to the lower zone and click the 3 or 4 buttons to make the change.
Is there something I can enter in the dynamic pop-up to create a written “cresc. poco a poco” with a dashed line following it? Then I could automate that in Keyboard Maestro.
I know I could make a line - but would that be read by NotePerformer as a crescendo? I don’t think so.
Or is there a way to duplicate the hairpin ‘item’ and save it under a different name with different settings and then apply a new keystroke to it? (I don’t even know what kind of item that might be - it was a smart shape in Finale and a line in Sibelius.)
I’m looking for a way to do both hairpins AND text crescendos with single keystrokes since both are standard notations and it’s not unusual to have both present in the same score. Changing the engraving option on the fly is no better than changing the settings in the lower zone.
I might try doing a Dorico script to apply the lower zone settings after creating a hairpin - I’ll try that.
I did successfully create single stroke macros to explode 3 notes to two staves either favoring the top or bottom on the fly. This required Dorico scripts AND Keyboard Maestro:
And YES!! I can record the changes to the hairpin with Dorico Script and then apply the hairpin AND the changes with a single Keyboard Maestro keystroke!
I’m finding Dorico script to be a very useful tool for changing settings on the fly! Thank you for making it so easy to get under the hood to automate!
I think your strategy is both unreasonable and inefficient.
Just enter dynamics using your most common requirement (set the best case engraving options), then change those that need to be changed as you fine tune the engraving.
I seriously doubt the amount of effort you spend developing macros will be worth it.
I have spent 20 years developing my macros since starting with Finale in 2005 and using the original macro program for Mac, QuicKeys. I carried them over to Sibelius and now to Dorico. Whenever possible I use a program’s original keystroke. But since a working musician in commercial music finds himself using all three apps still, it becomes important to make as many of the keystrokes as possible to be the same. Hence the reassignments from the originals.
But many of the keystrokes you see in my list are simply Dorico commands which I assigned to both F1 AND to the Dorico keystroke. As part of my learning process I was able to simply type F1 and have every important keystroke listed for me by Keyboard Maestro. At that point I could a) read the keystroke I didn’t remember and then type it or b) click on the list and apply the keystroke. This facilitates my learning the keystrokes to the point where I don’t need to type F1 to see the list and go directly to the correct keystroke. But the list is still there for ones I use only occasionally - like the ones for changing voices in a drum part. If I’m away from writing a drum part for three or four projects, that list gets me to the keystroke quickly.
As for macros saving time - I am constantly writing on one line for three trumpets or four horns, or the top three string lines, applying slurs, dynamics and articulations and then exploding onto different lines. That is a huge time saver. The ability to say ‘explode one note on the top staff and two on the bottom’ (or vice versa) on the fly (without going into engraving options) makes my creative process much faster.
And while I assign keystrokes to many filters (using the same keystrokes I used in Finale for 20 years) the most useful one is the incomplete macro keystroke that opens the filter menu and leaves it open for me to mouse down to the unusual one I need only rarely:
Perhaps Dorico could present that filter list as a dialog list for me to choose from. When using a display in portrait mode for a large orchestral score, it’s a LOT of mousing to get up to that filter list and click it open. (Yes, I’m forgetting the Jump menu again, Daniel.)
