I’ve set the following key commands:
Ctrl+Opt±: Filter All Flat Notes
Ctrl+Opt+=: Filter All Sharp Notes
Ctrl+Opt+Num+: Select Only
Ctrl+Opt+Num-: Deselect Only
The key commands window was able to correctly set these, or at least it displays as such. However when I try to invoke the commands, I get the following:
Ctrl+Opt±: Deselect Only
Ctrl+Opt+=: Respell Using Note Name Above
Ctrl+Opt+Num+: Select Only
Ctrl+Opt+Num-: Respell Using Note Name Below
I’m at a loss as to how this could be happening or how to fix it. Any ideas?
I’m not a Mac user, but on Windows Alt+ and Alt- are the default shortcuts for Respell Using Note Name Above/Below.
You can assign the same short cut to several functions, which makes sense when they are in different “input modes” - e.g. A-G create notes in note entry mode, but you can assign them to do something else when not in note entry.
That seems like part of the explanation why Ctrl+Opt+ and Ctrl+Opt- are doing what they are doing, but I thought Opt on Mac corresponded to Alt on Windows, not Ctrl+Opt. Maybe there are enough clues there for you to work it out, while waiting for somebody who does know about Macs.
Ctrl+Opt± filters Flat Notes perfectly for me on a Mac but I couldn’t even enter Ctrl+Opt+= for filtering all sharp notes. Dorico didn’t register the keystroke combination.
I suspect there’s an issue with Numbers entered from the numeric keyboard on the right side of an of an extended keyboard. I’ve been working with Metagrid for a while and some of the keystrokes that involve the numeric keyboard can’t be enacted by Metagrid. I’d assumed the fault was with Metagrid but maybe not.
Jackson: I’m using a Logitech crown keyboard. What keyboard are you using?
David - I’m using a Logitech K780, but I can at least replicate the Ctrl+Opt± and Ctrl+Opt+= results on the built-in MacBook Pro keyboard.
I was also having a lot of trouble trying to assign Ctrl+Opt+N to “Filter Notes and Chords”. It was just showing up in the key command editor as Ctrl+N. But then at some point, just before I was about to make a forum post about it, it magically decided to recognize the full key command and is now working as intended.
Batteries are definitely fine, I’ve installed KeyCastr to see a heads up display of what the computer is registering and it’s picking up everything. But good thought though!
When developing the Notation Stream Deck profile for Dorico, Philip determined that Dorico basically can’t use the Mac Control/Option key, and nor can it reliably differentiate between the regular number keys and the number keypad. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
I find that sometimes it works - for example, I can have the numbers on the numeric pad assigned to different functions compared to those above the letters . However, while that works when I’m using a keyboard with Dorico, it doesn’t work if I use Metagrid with Dorico. Similarly, the Ctrl / Option key also works for me if I’m using a keyboard within Dorico. I can use existing and assign new keystrokes that use the Ctrl key. I haven’t yet tested that aspect in Metagrid but from what you’re saying I suspect it won’t work.
…which seems to suggest that Dorico has difficulty parsing keystroke information that involve these keys from devices other than keyboards? (a guess)
As an aside, while I was trying to get Metagrid to work with Dorico, I put together a spreadsheet of all the existing assigned and unassigned keystrokes - a very useful exercise as it taught me a lot about Dorico and I also found a bunch of keystrokes that I now use regularly. The objective was to find where safe space for keystrokes existed. I’m attaching it now if anyone would like to see the results. Apologies that it’s only in numbers format, the excel export rejected a number of the formulas. Dorico Keystrokes.zip (968 KB)
It’s not the case that you cannot use the Control key on Mac in general. But what you will find is that key combinations that are “dead”, e.g. that don’t produce an actual character but rather set a particular state in advance of the next character to be input, such as combining diacritics, cannot be used, because the Qt application framework’s system for key commands works on the produced character and not on the key codes of the keys that were pressed. This is a compromise that allows the key commands to be cross-platform, which is an important design goal for the developers of Qt. There are also some subtle bugs in this area, a number of which we have reported to Qt ourselves and some of which we have fixed ourselves. These issues are further compounded by the differences in keyboards in different locales, which mean that the same combinations of physical keys can produce very different results.
None of this is ideal, and in practical terms all you can really do for the time being is employ a bit of trial and error to find which combinations can be assigned reliably. I hope that over time the bugs in Qt will be ironed out, though we are somewhat resistant to spending a great deal of our own limited development time working on these issues ourselves because the point of using an application framework like Qt is to allow you to focus on delivering more valuable functionality to your end users, so we are pinning our hopes (for now) on some of these issues being addressed by their developers.