How can elements be aligned at the same height?

[Pepinello]

Hi!

I am struggling with engraving (like always, when I am writing a post )

So, the questions are as follows:

FIRST:
What is this command for?

It should align rehearsal marks and tempo marks at a given height. My results are like this (without any alingments in properties):

What am I doing wrong?

SECOND:
Is there any possibility to align text elements on the same hight aside the rule of thumb basis? Have a look:

This is the result Dorico offers.

As far as I understood the concept of Dorico, it calculates with minimum gaps relatively to something around. I never can see the absolute distance eg. to the staff etc. So I didn’t find out how to align elements exactly to each other. Does anybody has some hints? I would be glad. Thanks!!

[Pepinello]

Another example:

lead is a staff text (shift-x), leg is a playing technique text (shift-p). Both text styles have a given minimum gap of »1« in engraving options, no adjustment in the properties panel, same font, same font size. And it doesn’t matter, where I anchor the texts (rest or note), the difference of the gap height remains. I simply cannot find out, how to align these different text styles on the same height.

[dspreadbury]

The option to align rehearsal marks and tempos at the same vertical position will only take effect if the rehearsal mark is set to appear in its usual place to the right of the fixed preamble at the start of the staff; if you have the rehearsal mark aligned with the systemic barline, the option doesn’t apply.

Aligning those disparate items – which happen to look like text but only one of which is actually genuinely a text item – is not simple to do, because the way that Dorico draws them is so different, and the information available concerning things like the actual baseline of the text is not necessarily consistent for all of them. This is something that might change in the future, but it’s hard to say when that would be.

Playing techniques and Shift+X text are also two such items that are drawn using two different methods and so the measurement relative to the staff is relative to a different point in the text (to the baseline for the Shift+X text, and to the bottom of the actual bounding rect for the playing technique). In this case, you might find it preferable to combine these two markings into a single item, by overriding the text shown in the playing technique via Properties.

[Pepinello]

Thanks a lot for your answer, Daniel.

Its interesting, but changing the settings according to the usual position doesn’t have any effect. Look here:

(Comment to your last paragraph: The two text styles are close in order to show the problem. I know, that I could override the text, but that would be a workaround for hundreds of similar situation in this symphony. So I thought its worth to ask before )

I have realized, that in Dorico there are no magnetic auxiliary lines or absolute rulers in order to have an indication to align objects precisely. But I have a suggestion (I hope, my english is good enough to explain my suggestion)

Let say there is an object anchored at a given grid point in a staff, e.g. a staff text. So this object is placed with a defined gap between staff and/or notes above the staff. Normally the alignment in properties panel is shown as X:0, Y:0, no matter which position Dorico has calculated for this object (according to engraving options, minimum distances, distances to other objects, avoid collisions and so on). I think it would be helpful to know the absolute distance from the staff, too. Or the view option to switch from »relative« to »absolute« alignment.

Example:

Objects 1 and 2: some text, minimum distance to staff: 1, distance to other objects 1/2

Object 1 is placed above an empty bar. Its placed 1 above the staff. Dorico shows its calculated position: e. g. X=0, Y=1 (instead of 0/0 like now)
Object 2 is placed above a busy bar, lots of high notes, leger lines etc.: the object placed 1/2 above the highest note. Dorico shows the calculated position: X=0, Y=3 3/4 (instead of 0/0) – (»3 3/4« is just a phantasy number.)
So, if you want to align objects 1 and 2 you easily know what to do, because Y=1 and Y=3 3/4 are both absolute distances from the same coordinate axis. In this example I can set Y of object 1 to 3 3/4 to reach the same position like object 2 instead of finding out that object 2 should have X=0, Y=2 3/4 to have the same hight like object 1 which still has X=0, Y=0.
Do you understand me?

[dspreadbury]

Yes, I understand where you’re coming from, and I agree it would be useful to be able to see the absolute distance from the staff somehow. It’s difficult because, as I explained above, the measurement is not relative to the same position on two items that look to you as a user to be the same, e.g. two things that look like text items in the same font at the same size may in fact be completely different internally, and one may be measured from its baseline (i.e. ignoring any descenders) while the other by its bounding box (i.e. including any descenders).

[Pepinello]

I understand, what you are talking about. I am not a software developer, just a user. And I guess that companies like Adobe or Serif have discussed similar problems for years. So I am sure, that your team will find good solutions, too. Looking forward to it.

[asavagecomposer]

@dspreadbury

The option to align rehearsal marks and tempos at the same vertical position will only take effect if the rehearsal mark is set to appear in its usual place to the right of the fixed preamble at the start of the staff; if you have the rehearsal mark aligned with the systemic barline, the option doesn’t apply.

I have a situation here that doesn’t seem to be respecting the engraving settings I have as well, but it’s not a problem with the rhythmic position of the elements, nor is it on a systemic barline. Posting a few screenshots below:

The alignment in question:

Rehearsal Marks Engraving Options Related to Positioning:

Tempo Engraving Options Related to Positioning:

Am I doing something wrong here? I will say that these elements are currently both at 150% custom scale for the score, but this issue still occurs at normal scale, in the score as well as the parts.

Hope you can help, Daniel. Thanks!

[dspreadbury]

I’ve not been able to reproduce this problem in a trivial project I’ve cooked up from scratch. Are you able to cut the project down to the smallest number of bars and instruments that still exhibits the problem and then attach it here so I can take a look?

[asavagecomposer]

Thanks for offering to help. Here’s a 4 bar slice with 2 of the five instrument groups: Rehearsal Mark - Tempo Alignment Issue.dorico (574.1 KB)
I’ve also changed the page size to better hold the smaller amount of instruments, but I’m using the same space size (though changing it doesn’t seem to affect anything). I also got rid of the first master page template for the score but haven’t touched the parts.

Condensing on/off also doesn’t seem to affect the issue. For what it’s worth, the problem appears to still be present in the parts. And while cropping this project down, none of the removals of bars or instruments seemed to get rid of the problem, either.

Let me know if you need anything else! Hope this can be diagnosed.

[asavagecomposer]

In formatting the parts, it seems that this issue is only present with some of the groups. I believe you should have parts that demonstrate the issue, and the other group should have parts that don’t. Let me know if that’s not the case.

[dspreadbury]

Right, thanks, I can now see the issue. The problem is that when there are notes or other items protruding above the staff and Dorico has to move the items vertically to avoid collisions, it moves them by different amounts, thus breaking their alignment. This is as intended, for what it’s worth, but I agree that it’s not ideal behaviour!

[asavagecomposer]

Is there a way it can be considered “one element” in the future, similar to how grouped dynamics are currently handled so that they stay aligned despite any protrusions?

[dspreadbury]

There’s no way at present, no, but as I said in my previous reply, I agree that it’s not ideal behaviour.

[Grainger2001]

I know there are a few posts about the alignment of Rehearsal marks and Tempo marks particularly, but I just wanted to add my voice for this feature request. I recently embarked on an 80 piece orchestral recording session and had to create around 200 separate parts. I would say that once I got a lot of the spacing options figured out, Dorico produced wonderfully clear and beautiful parts - What I probably spent the most time manually tweaking was Rehearsal marks, which very commonly were followed by new Tempo markings. As asavagecomposer suggests, it would be very useful if these two elements could be considered or grouped as one item. Here’s a simple example of the problem - screenshot one is from the full score, screenshot two is from a part where the multi-bar rest forces the tempo marking up, but the rehearsal mark stays at the same height. Thanks for reconsidering this behaviour.