Apologies if this has been answered before, but I couldn’t find anything with a search. Any ideas would be appreciated.
I’m doing some layout stuff and when multiple objects are attached to a single point, and maybe only when I’ve used “Ends Voice,” it becomes difficult to layout objects because moving any one object moves all of them unpredictably. Is there some sort of magnetic layout setting I should be turning off?
Here’s a 10 second video showing the behaviour: Dorico Jumpy - YouTube
Hi Liam, it’s not magnetic layout so much as Dorico taking a different approach to other software you might be familiar with.
Dorico knows semantically what things are and where they are “supposed” to “go”. Using Engrave mode to drag things far from their “home” location isn’t often going to be the best way to achieve what you want (as those attachment lines are indicating in your video). Luckily, you’ve come to the right place to receive some other suggestions 
For example, here’s an example project with other ways of getting what you want with no Engrave mode graphical adjustments at all.
Line with arrow leading to “slightly faster”: Dorico has a brilliant feature of grouped playing techniques, which shows lines between playing techniques (glyphs/symbols or text) and keeps them dynamically linked, ie if you move one playing technique around, the lines either side follow it and become angled etc if needed to the lines still attach to the technique.
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In the example project here, I’ve created a blank playing technique, which is grouped to a “slightly faster” technique; the default transition line works here perfectly, but you can change that by default in the Edit Playing Techniques dialog, and for individual instances.
For the horizontal line, there’s a property to place it in the middle of the staff, no dragging required. Using this ensures Dorico “knows” where it’s supposed to be and will no longer make accommodations for it above/below the staff.
There’s a layout option to hide bar rests in empty bars, in case that’s of use.
Finally, in case you’ve not quite got familiar with this yet, Dorico’s understanding of rhythmic position can be really powerful – notations aren’t really attached to notes, rather a particular position in time (*articulations excluded). If there’s nothing to select at a particular position, maybe in the middle of a bar containing a whole note, you can still input stuff there using the caret or by inputting them elsewhere and moving or lengthening/shortening them.
lines_in_dorico_demo.dorico (415.6 KB)
Thank you so much for such a detailed response Lillie! This is super helpful and will work perfectly. I’d missed the grouped playing techniques feature and tend to just work with the default text.
Dorico knows semantically what things are and where they are “supposed” to “go”. Using Engrave mode to drag things far from their “home” location isn’t often going to be the best way to achieve what you want
This makes sense. I’d understood the idea of Engrave–>Graphic Editing to be that it would allow users to position things freely without having to worry about home locations (in contrast to Sibelius where the connection could accidentally be moved while adjusting the layout) so I usually haven’t worried too much about where something is actually attached since I don’t need audio playback.
notations aren’t really attached to notes, rather a particular position in time (*articulations excluded). If there’s nothing to select at a particular position, maybe in the middle of a bar containing a whole note, you can still input stuff there using the caret
Thanks! I usually use just drag things to the right grid position when adjusting, but the keyboard shortcuts seem to work more reliably when working after a voice ends.