Help needed to understand the Flow-Layout-Player connection [SOLVED]

Dorico
#1

Until now I worked with only one flow per project, I had then no difficulty to select specific Players for a specific Layout.
Now that I try to work with multiple flow I realize that I simply do not grock how the connection really works.
I have found quite a lot of threads about this but none could help me.

What I do not understand is the order in which I have to select the three panels Player, Flow, Layout in order to make a choice for a specific Flow/Layout combination.

I have two Full Score layouts within a project: Orchestra and Small Orchestra and there are two Flows.
This gives 4 Flow/Layout combinations:
Flow 1/Orchestra
Flow 1/Small Orchestra
Flow 2/Orchestra
Flow 2/Small Orchestra
Each of these combination uses a different Players combination.

I am able to select the appropriate players for Flow 1/Orchestra and Flow 1/Small Orchestra but as soon as I try to make another Players selection for Flow 2 it also changes the selection already made for Flow 1.

One crazy thing is that at some point I could succesfully make the right selection of players for each Flow/Layout combination, it means then that it must work, but I am absolutely not able to reproduce it!
As I intend to add 22 Flows to this project I would of course prefer to fully understand what I have to do instead of randomly cliking and hoping!

I guess the problem is to find the right clicking order in this multidimensional matrix (as forum member lainhallam described it in another thread).

Could someone tell me what is the exact way (in the above described situation with 2 flows and 4 layout combinations) to assign specific Players to a specific Flow/Layout combination?

#2

I think I can only give you basics here, because I don’t quite understand that “2 flows and 4 layout combinations” you’re talking asking about. Specifically, I think I’d need more details on “Each of these combination uses a different Players combination.”

Each flow can have a different combination of players assigned to it.
Each player can have a different combination of flows assigned to it.
Each layout can have a different combination of flows assigned to it.

BUT

Each layout has the same combination of players assigned to it throughout the project (subject to Layout Options being set to hide empty staves, and thus empty players).

Does that help?

#3

OK
Here an example, let say there are 13 players:
Flute
Oboe
Clarinet
Trumpet
Trombone
Keyboard 1
Keyboard 2
Percussion
Drums
Violin 1
Violin 2
Violoncello
Contrabass

Flow 1 - Layout: Orchestra
Flute
Oboe
Clarinet
Keyboard 1
Percussion
Drums
Violin 1
Violin 2
Violoncello
Contrabass

Flow 1 - Layout Small Orchestra
Flute
Clarinet
Keyboard 2
Drums
Violin 1
Violoncello
Contrabass

Flow 2 - Layout Orchestra
Trumpet
Trombone
Keyboard 1
Percussion
Drums
Contrabass

Flow 2 - Layout Small Orchestra
Trumpet
Keyboard 2
Drums
Contrabass

#4

Are you sure?

Why then in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDH7Qp0abXg Anthony clearly shows how you can select or unselect Players for each Flow?
The thing in this video is that he does not talk about Layout at all, I assume that in this video this about one Full Score layout.

Until now I always thought that which Players are in a layout are the Players you select!

#5

Set up 13 players.
Create a Full Score Layout (which will include all 13 players automatically).
Create another score layout for your Small Orchestra, then de-select the players that don’t appear in your small orchestra.

Then when you set up your flows, make sure that you assign each player that you need in the Full Orchestra version. The players that you don’t want in the Small Orchestra layout won’t appear there, because they’re not assigned to that layout.

Alternatively, you could get away with assigning all players to all flows and then setting the Layout Option to hide empty staves (for both score layouts).

#6

You can unselect players from flows, but then those players will not appear in those flows in ANY layout.

#7

@pianoleo
I think I finally slowly begin to understand :slight_smile:
I still have a question:
you write: “… subject to Layout Options being set to hide empty staves, and thus empty players.”
Do you mean this option: “Layout Options / Vertical Spacing / Hide Empty Staves” ?
I ask because this option is set to “Never” and staves without music do not show though they are activated for the Layout.
It seems that Dorico automatically hide staff without music undependently from this setting.

Conclusion
I sum up what I believe to understand for two reasons: please correct me if I am wrong and if not it may be usefull for someone.
(It may be “evident” to most of Dorico users but until today I really did not get what a click on each of these panels was doing and this is why I falsely thought one could combine this clicking to achieve specific things like activate/deactivate a Player in a Layout for only one flow!
In fact what clicking on one of the three panels does is quite simple to see but … well I did not see it!)

  1. In Setup Mode clicking on a Layout in the Layouts panel on the right shows:
    . in the Players panel on the left which Players are included in this Layout
    . in the Flows panel at the bottom which Flows are included in this Layout[/list].
    From this point one can either activate or deactivate any Player and any Flow.
    But there is no need to deactivate a Player which does not play in a Flow because if there is no music Dorico will automatically hide the Player staff.
    (This is BTW the mistake I made, I thought I had to manually deactivate the Player!)

  2. Clicking on a Flow shows:
    . in the Players panel which Players are active for this Flow (independently of Layouts)
    . in the Layouts panel in which Layouts this Flow is used

  3. Clicking on a Player shows:
    . in the Flows panel in which Flows this Player is used
    . in the Layouts panel in which Layout this Player is used

There is no way to deactivate a Player (with music content) in a Layout for only one Flow.
If you deactivate the Player it will be also deactivated for all other Flows.
In case one needs this it is possible for this specific Flow to create a specific Layout.

#8

I do indeed mean Layout Options > Vertical Spacing > Hide Empty Staves.

If it’s set to “Never” then:
If a Player is active in a Flow and that Flow is active in a Layout, that Player’s staves show in that Flow in that Layout, even if those staves are empty
If a Player is not assigned to a Flow then they don’t have any staves at all, so that Layout > VS > Hide Empty Staves is irrelevant - there are no staves to hide!

#9

Thank you pianoleo, I finally got it!