Improvement suggestions

Dorico
#1

Dear Dorico Team,

after further work with Dorico the following possible improvements come to my mind:

  • In Galley View, highlight the instrument name of the line where currently the input focus is. (I have a huge score where it often happens to me that I enter the notes to the wrong instrument)
  • It would be great when there would be a way to jump to an individual flow. I have currently 15 flows and some kind of navigation would be helpful, e.g. in Write mode, add the name of the flow as overlay (like the instruments) on top of the page.
  • In understand that drum (sets) are not fully supported. I don’t care much about the audio output, but it would be very helpful if it would be possible to enter at least the notes on the individual lines. If someone has a workaround in patching the instruments.xml, it would be great to know about
  • It would be helpful if the sensitivity of the manual zoom would take into account that in a large score (80 system), where the system size is already very small, so that small changes in the manual zoom does not have a too huge effect in the display. Currently it happens on my MacBookPro that during zoom with the two fingers, when nothing is selected, the changes are too extreme and easily the area, where I am currently working on moves out of the display, even I move my fingers very slowly. This is much better when something is selected. I would expect that the point, where currently the mouse is, stays in the center of the screen.
  • Adding to the Fermata section a G.P. (General Pause)
  • Add inside the tooltips for all addons from the right panel the possible short notation during input. An alternative would be, to offer a webpage similar to the key commands.
  • During note input it would be great if the algorithm of finding the right octave where to place the next note would take into account the supported note range of an instrument, if possible. E.g. The last input note was the lowest note on a Cello ©, when I enter as a next note a Bb, then this cannot be Bb below the C, but only the Bb an octave up. I know that sometimes strings in have a special tuning, and that this could hardly be reflected in the algorithm. But this happens very seldom from my point of view.
  • It would be nice, if one could place any kind of dynamic specifier at a certain measure position during input in a bar and not only attached to a note. I know that it is possible to move them around later on. But that is cumbersome from my point of view. E.g. when I know that a crescendo should just starts on the last quarter of a 4 quarter note, then I would like to place it there from the beginning. Doing this kind of rework later on in engraving mode is from my point of view extra work.
  • In engraving mode it would be nice if one could fix the vertical or horizontal position by pressing a button while moving the end or beginning of a (de-)crescendo.

If anything of this is already possible, then please forgive me, I did not find so far this feature.

In case that I did not explain my proposals clear enough, please let me know.

Beside this :wink: the latest patch 1.0.30 is really a great improvement, especially in respect to the editing performance!

Many thanks and regards,
Felix

#2

Dear Felix,
I think these are very clever suggestions !
This quick reply just to let you know that, when using the caret in Write mode, you can input dynamics anywhere, placing the caret at the right position (arrows and grid help) :wink:

#3

Hi Marc,

thanks for the hint. I will try it.

Best regards,
Felix

#4

:slight_smile:
DorDynamics.png

#5

Hi Felix,
Like Marc, I also like your suggestions. I also had some issues getting the zoom right because the key commands (e.g. “command +”) jumps from 200% to 400% and I always want something in between. I’ve discovered that holding the command key and using the mouse wheel, I can get very nuanced zooming and that it is better for me than the key commands. Of course if you are working without a mouse and doing this with only the track pad, and working with large forces… that sounds like a challenge.
Best,
Kevin

#6

We do show the current flow in the window title (it says e.g. “Flow 3 in Project 1” or whatever), but I agree it would be useful to be able to navigate to the next or previous flow easily, and I’m sure we’ll be able to add a feature to do that relatively soon. The next update will certainly include a little dialog to allow you to quickly go to any zoom level you like: you’ll be able to hit Alt+Z to show the dialog, type the desired zoom level, and hit Return.

For drum set notation, what I would suggest you do for now if only the notation matters, is create a regular pitched instrument, change its clef to the unpitched percussion clef, and then write the notes as you normally would. Obviously playback will be useless, but you can at least approximate the notation that way.

#7
  • During note input it would be great if the algorithm of finding the right octave where to place the next note would take into account the supported note range of an instrument, if possible. E.g. The last input note was the lowest note on a Cello ©, when I enter as a next note a Bb, then this cannot be Bb below the C, but only the Bb an octave up. I know that sometimes strings in have a special tuning, and that this could hardly be reflected in the algorithm. But this happens very seldom from my point of view.

Yes please. Alternative tunings would just require octave shift after input, but this would be entirely predictable.

I would actually love an option that all notes are input in the middle range with up/down modifiers to alter.

#8
  • During note input it would be great if the algorithm of finding the right octave where to place the next note would take into account the supported note range of an instrument, if possible. E.g. The last input note was the lowest note on a Cello ©, when I enter as a next note a Bb, then this cannot be Bb below the C, but only the Bb an octave up. I know that sometimes strings in have a special tuning, and that this could hardly be reflected in the algorithm. But this happens very seldom from my point of view.

Yes please. Alternative tunings would just require octave shift after input, but this would be entirely predictable.

I would actually love an option that all notes are input in the middle range with up/down modifiers to alter.

#9

I would second this. Adding a G.P. to the Fermata section would be incredibly useful to me. Any word on whether this would be added to a future version?

#10

I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t add this in due course.

#11

I would dearly love that when clicking on a flow box that Dorico moves to the beginning of the particularly flow. I have a work containing 25 flows and navigation is a problem without that sort of essential connection. A bit like bookmarks in Acrobat, please.

#12

In 1.1 you will be able to just press Ctrl-G/Cmd-G to open the Go To… dialog and then choose a Flow and Bar from there. Also there are commands to go to the next or previous flow that you can bind to your own preferred shortcut. This should make navigation in large scores much easier.

#13

Quite an old thread, but I just ran into the same situation. I need a G.P. centered over a bar rest. I couldn’t find a way to center system text over a bar. I can adjust the position of G.P. manually, but than I have to do it in the score and all parts individually. Does anybody have a good workaround for this?

#14

Just take a style of fermata that you aren’t using and edit the Music Symbol. I’ve never used the Long Fermata (Henze) so I just hacked it to be G.P.

#15

Thanks FredGUnn. Works perfect. I was just thinking in text styles …

#16

The only problem with this solution is that you need to put the G.P. on each staff, which looks quite cluttered to me. Preferably the marking should be on the same staves as tempo markings (so for a full score above the top staff and the Violin 1 staff). I suppose for the remaining instruments you could drag them off the page in the score.

My solution is to use alt-shift-X text, justifying it to the center. You have to eyeball the placement, unfortunately, but it seems to keep its position in the parts pretty well.

#17

The Strauss waltz I’m currently re-engraving has two consecutive empty bars before the final chord. The fermata trick therefore won’t work. It would be cool, if G.P.‘s would be added “natively”, that multiple bars’ worth could also be considered. :slight_smile:
Schermafbeelding 2019-10-11 om 16.10.41.png

#18

Just a little reminder that general pause G.P. would be handy in the Holds Section. :slight_smile:

Right now I use System Text but maybe one wants to define a paragraph style that looks like the tempo text and then it gets a little bit complicated.

#19

If you define a Paragraph Style for the GP, then save it as a default, you can then apply a key shortcut to it.

If you look at the Write > Create Text menu, “Shift X” is just the shortcut for adding text in the Default paragraph Style, and there’s no reason you can’t add shortcuts for any other. (Must be saved as a default for all projects, though.)

#20

I added G.P. as a playing technique (with no associated Playback Technique).
Playing Techniques seem to be a good repository for custom notation items I expect to use repeatedly.