As a Finale refugee, I’m digging how Dorico doesn’t interpret note durations literally. For example, a half-note duration will be notated differently depending on the caret location (among other things). Given that, I would expect that one should be able to specify any duration of a note, not just the common ones! Can I do that? How would I do that? For example, I would like to specify a duration that is 4 counts and a half (which Dorico might notate as a whole note tied to an 8th). Or do I have to enter a whole note and then extend it?
You can enter a whole note, then press T, 5 and the pitch, to enter a tied 8th. Alternatively, you can extend the whole note, if the grid is set to eighths or smaller.
First thing to do is look through Notation Options, to check the default note groupings. Then, if you need to do something else, use Force Duration (the G-clamp icon, or press letter O).
(In Dorico, always work down from the global ‘default’ to the particular instance.)
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For my workflow - also coming from Finale – after trying out many things the fastest / most efficient way is
- Make the global grouping settings in Notation Options to match your needs before starting to write the music.
- Set the rhythmic grid to the half of the current time signature “denominator”.
- Extend notes with a duration of the rhythmic grid with the SHIFT-ALT-Arrow key shortcuts, for shorter values tie them.
- As I’m working with a MIDI keyboard and the numeric keypad for the durations I mapped the shortcuts to reduce and extend the durations to F16 and F17 and the tie (T key) to the = key to have the most frequently used keys nearby.
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As long as you didn’t use Force Duration yet, this will also work on existing music. Dorico’s rhythmic notation is dynamic in principle.
Based on the replies, I’ll imply that the answer is no, you cannot specify any duration on note input, only the limited durations provided by the panel. The solution is to enter one of the given durations, then extend or reduce the duration after inputting the note. And you can manually tie notes.
You can directly enter 14 different basic durations from Maxima down to 1/1024 (each with up to quadruple dot). So 70 different note lengths. And that’s not including tuplets…
How many more do you want?
That should be enough!.. but I can’t figure out how to do it. How do I select a duration of 4 and 1/2 beats? (a whole note + 8th note in 4/4 time).
You don’t select a notational value of 4-1/2 quarters (since such a value doesn’t exist as a single entity on any palette (in any software)), you enter it (as @benwiggy described above) by starting with the whole note then either (1) T to add a tie, then 5 + (letter name of pitch); or (2) set the Rhythmic Grid to an eighth and opt/alt + shift + →* to extend the whole note the extra eighth.
*I originally mis-typed opt/alt + cmd + →, which moves the entire selected note by the current rhythmic grid value
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OK, so you pick a non-standard one 
Set your grid to quavers (1/2). Enter a semibreve (whole) and extend it shift-alt-right arrow.
(this is all very quick if you set shortcuts to change the grid spacing)
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I change the rhythmic grid so often (and use 64th notes so rarely) that I’ve assigned shortcuts so that 1 increases grid resolution, and 2 decreases it. Using it to make notes shorter or longer is one of the things I like most about composing in Dorico.
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