Holds popovers: a suggestion?

Dorico
1

(Repeated from the Facebook group)

I love popovers as if they were kissed into my hands by cute little cherubs, but I will say I find some of the nomenclature counter-productive and needlessly long, especially when it comes to holds! In the time it takes to type in “breathmarksalzedo” I could have just clicked an icon in the notations panel. Might I suggest a re-tooling along these lines (caps used only to clarify letter choice here, should be case-independent):
Fermata: F OR (
Very long fermata: FVL or [[
Long fermata: FL or [
Short fermata: FS or <
Very short fermata: FVS or <<
Henze short fermata: HS
Henze long fermata: HL
Caesura: C or //
Thick caesura: CT or //T or ]]
Curved caesura: CC or //C or "
Short caesura: CS or //S or ||
Tick breathmark: BT or ’
Comma breathmark: BC or ,
Salzedo breathmark: BS or .
Curlew: CUR (or “that thing Britten invented”)
If commands were this brief I’d have my holds in place in a snap.

2

I think support for these kind of shortcuts is inevitable, but probably delayed by the team wanting clarity and meaning at this stage.

3

Another possibility would be to open the popover, then control-click to display a menu of fermata choices. This could be easier than remembering a bunch of text abbreviations. Of course, maybe then it would just be easier to use the built-in panel!