hide cautionary clefs, keys and time signature

Thanks, Daniel!

I would like to hide cautionary clefs on all instrument changes. Is that possible?
If I change from one flute to another I don’t need an additional clef…
I posted the same question in another thread with an attachment, the problem with my file is, that I used the xml hack in order to have a piched one line instrument.

No, you can’t hide cautionary clefs at instrument changes. The big question is why you’re seeing a cautionary clef in the first place, because if the two instruments have the same clef, Dorico won’t show a cautionary change.

Unfortunately it does show it. I attached the document.
Test_one_line.dorico.zip (517 KB)
I created a doc with 2 alto saxophones, exported it as xml, then added

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to the xml and imported it to dorico. Unfortunately the staff line change seem to force the clef on each change. Is there a way to avoid that?

I think not, unfortunately. We intend to have a feature to allow you to change the number of staff lines without requiring a change of instrument in future versions of the software, but that doesn’t help you a great deal today, I know.

Ok thanks! When might the update come? It is at least possible to hide the clef by using an invisible one and then draw the clef in when needed. A lot of work but doable.

Not that we all wouldn’t like to know, but the Dorico Team does not announce the arrival of new versions until they are “imminent” (if we are lucky) or have actually just been released.

I hope that this feature might make it into the next major version of the software, though we’ve not yet implemented it, and at the moment we don’t even know when in 2021 that next major version will appear.

Still beautiful news. Dorico 4 (or Dorico 3.75? :wink: ) will make my contemporary scores look even better!

I have read through about 6 pages of the impassioned comments to this issue. My specific issue today is actually about showing cautionary items between flows.

So, I’m hopping in here to see if there’s any updates to this feature in 3.5 and to provide another example.

A Beethoven string quartet has 4 movements - the sensible thing would be to have 4 flows for organizational and intuitive reasons. Mvmts 2-3 are notated by Beethoven as “attacca subito” and players are used to seeing a cautionary key and meter change at the end of mvmt 2 with a double bar (not final barline). I could put these 2 movements into the same flow and do manual indents, system breaks, etc. However, that’s not very intuitive to have 3 flows for a 4 movement work, and now I’m doing a fair bit of manual adjustments just to achieve a notation preference that musically makes sense.

I agree with some of the other users that having control on this preference would be helpful (a simple checkbox in the bottom panel when the final barline is selected would do the trick “show cautionary meter before next flow; show cautionary key for next flow” or something like that).

Thank you,
JV

JV, there’s no real change on this front, but I note that Daniel wrote the following merely hours ago, suggesting that attacca is a case of “when”, not “if”:

Dear Dorico Team
Out of sheer curiosity, I took a look at what was the most frequent request of the community (the most posts). In the pole position is the topic “stream deck” and just behind it are ex aequo “bring on that sweet figured bass” and “hide cautionary clefs, keys and time signature”. Obviously, it is a great wish of Dorico users, that these cautionary notations can also be hidden as required. But Daniel’s answer is like a prayer wheel, that we simply should use a new flow. Although many users have provided plausible examples of their needs for hiding, we obviously have to live with this incomprehensible inflexibility or use illogical work arounds (false codas). When I consider how many other topics this “hide cautionary” has appeared in, this is certainly the most frequently voiced request to the Dorico team. But obviously you have a blind spot there. Unfortunately …
Because otherwise you all make the impossible possible (for example that “sweet figured bass” mentioned above) and for that I thank you very much.

We all have blind spots. Did you read Daniel’s most recent reply in this thread?

Well, I have read all of Daniels’ posts, but apparently I did not understand them, and I still don’t understand them, even if I read them again. Was there a yes to the hiding of clefs and cautionary keys …? Maybe it is because English is not my mother tongue. I had the impression that it was about changing instruments and the clefs that go with it. But I’m also glad for clarification, especially if it means that the hiding function is coming. :wink:

No, it’s a desire, until people come to understand that a Flow has no musical meaning. It’s a structural engraving artifact, in that a Frame is a container for Systems, and thus a Flow is a container for Frames. Does the word Flow show up anywhere in the musical lexicon? Dorico is so forward thinking that they made this - good - decision for structuring the musical content, and once people understand this they have a more advanced understanding of how Dorico works, so in that case it won’t change. I’m rooting for them to stick to their guns, people are way to obsessed with this :smiley:

Except Flows do have a structural meaning when it comes to audio export. Audio export is either Flow-based or Player-based, but not score-based. If you want to export the audio for a score, but have had to use flows as a workaround to hide elements instead of using flows for logical structural divisions (movements, pieces in a collection, etc) then you are stuck splicing the audio together in an external DAW. Using Flows this way for a worksheet or series of exercises could end up being quite a bit of extra work. (Personally I’m a fan of the hiding a Coda method rather than Flows as it’s much faster, but this still seems like an unnecessary workaround.) Composers and copyists who are accustomed to working with notation instead of audio really don’t want to deal with this added step or expense in their workflow for something as basic as simply hiding an element.

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At the risk of getting bogged down in hair-splitting, which is not my intention, but I wouldn’t encourage thinking about “flows being a container for frames”, if only because it’s actually the other way round: frames display flows. Frames are fixed on pages, whereas flows “flow” fluidly between them.

It’s certainly possible to think too deeply or too technically about this! /end

No it’s good to know, thanks Lillie. To know how to use the software it helps to conceptually have it clear in your head. I’ve been mixed up on how frames work exactly, and yes right there in Engrave mode a frame as a filter for Flows.

OT, but I’ve looked at a bunch of things for Frame Chains including Anthony’s excellent video but I’m still not clear on it. I have one right now which has a list, “MA”, “MY”, “MAA”, are those arbitrary internally generated names?

I wouldn’t call it arbitrary, but to the extent that as long as all the frames that you want to be in the same frame chain are assigned to the same frame chain, it doesn’t necessarily matter what that frame chain is called. There’s some examples given here - if memory serves, the second letter indicates how many frame chains have been created in the project; MA is the first, LB might be the second, MC the third and so on. I’m ready for Daniel to correct me though as it’s been a while since I was last in this area in detail.

Wrong Daniel, but Can anybody explain me the name of frame chains - #2 by dan_kreider - Dorico - Steinberg Forums