How to make a chord diagram available for all roots?

[teacue]

I created the following chord diagram:

The option “Chord may be moved along the neck” is checked.
Unfortunately this diagram is not available for other roots.

What shall one do in order to make this diagram available for each root?

Edit:
I would like to add that on sept 2019 Daniel wrote:
“… if you set the shape you create to be moveable up and down the neck, it will be offered up for Dmaj9 as well as Cmaj9.”
What could be then the reason why the diagram I created is not available for other roots?
BTW in this voicing all notes of the chord are there: 1, 3, 5 and major 7

[dspreadbury]

I’ll check with my more guitar-literate colleagues and come back to you.

[teacue]

OK, thanks for your answer.

[dspreadbury]

My colleague Bill confirms that there’s a small bug here: Dorico should be permitting this chord to be moved up and down the neck, but it’s not at the moment. Thanks for reporting the problem. It will be fixed in a future version of the software.

[teacue]

Thank you for your answer.
BTW there are other diagrams showing the same behaviour.
Would it help if I communicate them?

[dspreadbury]

No, hopefully we have isolated the problem now, but thank you for the offer.

[teacue]

You’re welcome.
OK

[simmonslr]

This apparently has not been fixed yet. I am having the same problem and have the Feb 2021 release:

Can you confirm, please? This is a show stopper for me.

[dspreadbury]

Unfortunately this fix wasn’t suitable for inclusion in Dorico 3.5.12, so it was not included in that update. But it will definitely be included in the forthcoming Dorico 4 update, which is expected early next year.

[simmonslr]

Was this fixed in Dorico 4? It seems to still be a problem. If a fix was included in version 4, I will document what I’m seeing in detail.

[dspreadbury]

Yes, we did indeed include this fix, so if you’re still having problems, please do let me know what you’re seeing and we will be happy to look into it further.

[simmonslr]

Here is one version of the problem. I’ll document another when I have a few moments.

There is an additional entry here - with a barre that I did not enter.

My chord is not available from the list, only the barre version that I did not enter.
Also note that the flat sign is missing in the Bbm7 chord symbol.

As an aside - the newly entered chord is not delete-able from the engrave Edit Chord Diagrams menu.

I have a similar but different problem when entering chords using the Engrave Edit Chord Diagrams menu that I will document separately.

Thanks for your help.

[simmonslr]

Added new chord via Edit Chord Diagrams:

There is a chord with a barre that I did not enter.

And my chord is not available for the Bbm7.

I am able to delete this chord using Edit Chord Diagrams.

Thanks.

[dspreadbury]

Thanks for taking the time to provide screenshots showing what you’re doing. Unfortunately I still can’t follow exactly what you’re doing. After you enter the Am7 chord symbol and Dorico chooses the voicing at the nut, you then type Shift+Alt+Q to show the Show All Variants of Chord Diagram dialog. Then what are you doing? Are you selecting the first chord diagram and clicking Edit, then changing it to be positioned at the fifth fret, or are you selecting the chord diagram shown on the second row of the dialog that has a very similar fingering to the one you show in your third picture and edit it to match this one, or something else?

If you could spell out the steps in words as well as pictures, I’d find that really helpful. Sorry for being slow on the uptake!

[simmonslr]

Let me see if I can spell out these issues one a time so it is clearer. I really cannot use the chord diagrams because a diagram entered for one chord (Cm7 say) does not show up as available for another (e.g. Am7).

Here is an example of not being able to delete a chord that was entered using the Alt-Shift-Q option with the Library → Chord Diagrams screen:

Choose a chord in Write mode and hit Alt-Shift-Q

I choose the 1st chord in the 3rd row and press edit and create a new chord that looks like this and press save:

I go to Library → Chord Diagrams and I am not able to delete the chord I just created:

Note that the garbage can is greyed out.

Further – when I try and now add an Am7, the chord diagram I just created is not available using Alt-Shift-Q:

[simmonslr]

Here is an example of entering a Cm7 using the Library → Chord Diagrams option that does not show up in the Alt-Shift-Q option when entering an Am7.

Create a new chord using Library → Chord Diagrams:

And press OK.

As you can see, the chord is created (and can be deleted):

But, as you can also see, when I enter an Am7 chord, the variation of the movable chord I just entered is not available using Alt-Shift-Q:

If there is a known working process for entering movable chords that I am not using, please let me know. I’d be more than happy to use a workaround until this is fixed.

Thanks.

[dspreadbury]

Hi Larry, I asked my colleague Bill, who worked on the chord diagram features, to take a look at these issues so that I could be sure I didn’t miss anything. Here’s some information for you:

We should allow you to delete user-defined chord shapes that are not used by any chord symbols in the project, so we think there is a small change we could make here to allow them to be deleted in more circumstances.

But the more significant issue is why you cannot use the same chord shape at different positions along the neck. The reason your edited chord diagram doesn’t show up for other chords is because you have edited it to remove the root (you specify Cm7 with Bb, Eb, G - 7th, 3rd, 5th, no C), and you presumably have the Root of chord option on the Chord Diagrams page of Note Input Options set to Include root of chord. If you set this instead to Omit root from chord, your shape will show up for other chords, including Am7.

[simmonslr]

Thanks, Dan. I did indeed have the Include root of chord turned on. I turned it off and I can now see the Cm7 created form in the Am7 Alt-Shift-Q option, though the chord that shows up has a barre rather than the non-barre version I created:

Here’s what that looks like using the Alt-Shift-Q option for the Cm7 chord - both the barre version is shown (which I did not enter by the way) and the non-barre version is shown (which I did enter).

Thanks, again, for your help with this. I am seeing other issues that I will continue to document.

Larry

[simmonslr]

Can you please tell me if this is expected behavior?

I have created 4 custom chord diagrams for a C chord using Engrave → Chord Diagrams.

When I enter a C7 chord and use Alt-Shift-Q the custom chord diagrams for the standard C (no 7) show up as a selection option:

Here are my settings in Note Input Options:

Thanks.

[billum]

Hi Larry, yes this is in fact the intended behaviour, but I agree it’s not necessarily what one might expect to see.
Tl;dir - The matching rules are relaxed for user-defined chords. For factory chords all the chord tones for the chosen chord must be included in the diagram, subject to the settings in the Note Input Options. However for user-defined chords, all the chord tones in the user-defined chord diagram must be part of the chord for which you are choosing a diagram.

The reason for this is that when we introduced user-defined chord diagrams, some users perfectly reasonably created chords that omitted various chord tones of their choosing to produce their chosen voicing. This could then lead to these chord diagrams not appearing in the selection of diagrams offered for some chords because they didn’t fulfil the requirements of the current Note Input settings, despite the user creating the diagrams specifically for that chord.
So for user-defined chords we relax the matching rules, and say that if all the tones defined within the user chord diagram are valid for the chord being entered / edited, the chord diagram will appear. Hence your C major shapes appear for C7 because all the tones in C major appear in C7 (but of course the flat 7 is not included). They will also appear for C6, C13, C11, Am7 etc.
Should this prove to be to noise-some for some users, I imagine it could become an option that could be switched off at some point.