If you bothered to do the Dorico First Steps exercise, you would not need to ask.
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A useful word to narrow down search results to pages that explain how to add something to the music, is “input”.
If you search only “crescendo”, you’ll get a wide variety of results - including how to change the appearance of crescendo marks, etc.
Here are instructions for how to add dynamics using the popover:
And a comprehensive list of the things you can write in the dynamics popover:
And here’s the page from First Steps that outlines how to add some specific dynamics, with pictures and explanations:
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This ^^^. It’s literally called First Steps. It’s the minimum that new users should do and it certainly explains how to “put a hairpin on your music.”
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Lillie:
Thanks for the help. I found most of that stuff by accident.
Seems odd to have to switch to Engrave mode to change the appearance of a hairpin (if I’m using that unfamiliar term correctly). I did click and hold (in Write mode) on the handle on the end of a hairpin to lengthen or shorten it. That worked intermittently, which seemed quite odd.
You or some other respondent suggested (with a barb) that I might have learned all this stuff if I had used Dorico’s “First Steps” publications. I might have learned that they exist earlier if the presenter in the rambling introduction of Dorico to Finale users hadn’t bored and baffled me so completely in his Youtube performance. I started the “First Steps” video and watched just long enough to learn about the PDF.
Dorico does offer a number of short videos on specific short subjects that seem to be quite helpful. But the hour-long live-action presentations are seriously awful and are doing Dorico and Steinberg no favors.
Will
Will
That shouldn’t be necessary: I believe properties for the anppearance of dynamics are also available in Write mode.
Adjusting the graphical position of anything in Dorico, including hairpins, needs to be done in Engrave mode. Write mode is all about the rhythmic position and duration of items.
There are also key commands for lengthening/shortening hairpins and other items too. Gradual dynamics snap to noteheads when you drag them.
It’s perfectly fine that you weren’t aware of the First Steps guide before, and I’m sorry about any barbed comments other posters have sent your way: everyone learns something for the first time, some time. Hopefully now you know about it, and are picking up some tips for getting more precise help from searching the manual, you’ll be moving a bit more easily on your own.
There are a variety of styles of videos provided by my colleagues: if the longer-form live videos (which often involve a certain amount of direction from live commenters) aren’t for you, then you’re totally welcome to skip those and focus your attention on other styles or mediums that better suit your learning.
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No ma’am I did not know you guys read all the messages. I knew you all monitored the forum but not aware that all was read.
“I also spent a decent amount of time conversing with you privately…” Yes you did and I have commented here and other places that the Dorico Support Team is exemplary at a level all companies should aim for.
But Ms. Harris, how is one to effect change unless they lobby for it? Look in the coming months as Finale slowly fades away, more folks are going to try Dorico. It seems to me about half stop because they claim it is not intuitive, too complicated or frustrating.
What are people going to choose if MuseScore is easier to use is free while Dorico is more difficult to use and is $?00 dollars? Never underestimate MuseScore.
“We’re proud that this forum remains on the whole a constructive and polite place…” You mean post like this, “This has been suggested to the OP before, on other forums as well. He persists.” If you bothered to do the Dorico First Steps exercise you would not need to ask.
Polite, you decide.
Whenever I see threads/topics/discussions getting overly heated or “spiky” I like to take a breath, stand back, and think about good forum etiquette for everyone’s sake.
Since we all work here (this space being en extension of and important resource for our work efforts, professional or otherwise), the forum retains an appropriate tone only if everyone feels respected and if all contributions are informed by genuine efforts on everyone’s part to learn, polite, constructive, and solution-oriented, even when (appropriately) critical of the current state of things in terms of software features/design.
I appeal to my fellow members to keep the good will flowing here.
Here’s a nice discussion from the Washington State Dept. of Labor and Industries:
Forum Etiquette
Etiquette
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It’s a good idea to read through the information on the site and the other participant’s comments before posting a comment.
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Always respect the views of other participants even if you don’t agree with them.
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Be constructive. It’s okay to disagree with other forum participants, just keep the comments positive.
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Always keep things civil. It is important to keep the comments focused on the issues rather than letting it deteriorate into personal insults.
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Once you’ve left your comment keep an eye on the forum to see what other people have to say.
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If you feel that someone has insulted you, report their comment to the moderator. Don’t perpetuate the dispute. The moderator will take a look at the comment in question and decide whether it should be removed.
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Stay on topic. These forums have been created for a specific purpose.
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Remember to turn off the “CAPS LOCK”. Writing in ALL CAPS is the equivalent of SHOUTING and may be offensive.
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Choose one topic under which you would like to post each of your unique comments, and do not cut and paste the same comment into lots of different rule topics. These will be considered duplicates and may be removed.
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Don’t be a “troll.” Trolls intentionally incite annoyance or offense. They do not participate constructively and do not add any value to the forum.
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Don’t bully, harass or threaten other participants. If another participant proffers an opinion that you don’t agree with, you have no right to demand that they support their position with a detailed reply. They do not have to respond to your questions. It is up to each individual to participate in the forum as much or as little as they wish.
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Please respect the moderators. Their job is to keep the forum safe and constructive so that everybody gets an opportunity to have his or her say.
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Try to avoid using acronyms or text talk. By sticking to plain English more people will understand the points you are trying to make.
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What are they gonna do? Throw me out of the club? Force me to use Sibelius?
I don’t mean the criticism cruelly. They should welcome it; the fractured approach to training and introduction (especially when they’ve worked hard on some excellent training materials) is only hurting them. And first impressions last.
For the record, he rambles long before he gets to any questions, which he reserves for the end of his presentation, which I shall never see.
Will
I don’t think anyone of us if ever going to do that, don’t worry.
I also do feel the confusion and frustration of many refugees/converts/transitioners(…) and I do agree that there are quite some aspects of Dorico which could be made a little more beginner/convert-friendly with comparatively little effort and still keeping the underlying concept intact - at least from an outside, non-developer perspective (key underlines for every drop down menu item in every submenu layer for example). And I too am that kind of person that absolutely despises watching videos and having to speculate when the information looked after will be dropped, when at the same time there could be a written guide that is a little more straightforward and goal oriented than the current manual* (which is super comprehensive and fine in itself, but just not that accessible as someone new to the software would wish for).
*P.S. I am not counting First Steps here, as I am thinking about a guide for users beyond that stage who want to do specific engraving or composing tasks. Yes, those are addressed by the videos, but I would welcome written guides in that manner.
Nothing of that sort, @willforrestercorbin: they will give you, for example, advices on where the available learning resources are (that you are free not to follow).
I made a list of such resources (that you are free not to look at), in case it could be helpful.
I learned most of what I know in Dorico from the Discover Dorico sessions. I hope you will too. But I suggest first, to work through the First Steps Guides (Part 1 and Part 2, available as video and as PDF).
Here my list:
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A few months ago OP was going on about how something is impossible, and how Dorico is so horrible for such and such reason. I took half an hour out of my day to show the steps to produce the result they are after, with screen grabs and video, and alternative suggestions.
They responded by picking apart one small thing I said as proof Dorico is awful and the forum is unhelpful (I’m seeing a pattern here…). No acknowledgement for the solution I volunteered or gratitude otherwise. I have witnessed this trend on OP’s various other threads.
At this point I’m frankly surprised to see them around, still complaining in a vague kind of way. It’s giving troll energy, so I give up.
But I will say having been on many software forums in my life, this is one of the most helpful forums out there. I’ve never gotten the impression that anyone here thinks Dorico is perfect, we all have ideas for how it could improve– but people here are generally passionate to find solutions for others– on a volunteer basis. That said, I’ll admit it doesn’t seem worth the time and energy to help someone if the other party consistently “punches a gift horse in the mouth” (for lack of a better phrase) and rather than spending the time to learn, goes on another rant.
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I’ve seen it too.
I think they are just grieving.
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First, the forum has been very helpful for me as a “Finale Refugee” in learning Dorico. But, I will say that the learning curve has been steep. It takes far longer to do everything (from entering notes, to formating, to even printing) in Dorico compared to Finale. Part of it is having used Finale since V1.0, being a beta tester for years, and teaching students from middle school through undergrad how to use the program. It’s a program I can operate without thinking. I can visualize the program and troubleshoot people’s issues without having to open the program. But, a big part of it is that a lot of the operations in Dorico are not intuitive. They don’t make sense. The libraries (notation, layout, and engrave) have things that honestly belong in other libraries (IMHO) making it hard to find what I’m looking for. But the biggest issue for me is playback setup. This is where I feel Dorico is seriously lacking in user friendliness, especially in the area of percussion maps, compared to Finale. I know it’s not a DAW, but when composing you should have to rely on a DAW to get a fairly accurate playback. Finale did this well. This is one place Dorico is lacking.
In another thread quite a time ago I made a comparison with Scrooge from Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol. This character is so grumpy that he doesn’t even begin to realise the beautiful gift he receives through christmas.
In some way this reminds me of Dorico and how some people do approach it.
[Edit] “lol” and I just realised it was the same person triggering my brain:
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It took me a little while to get used to this at well – but they actually are well thought out. Take a look at this post of mine from earlier today, and the post from Daniel that it links to; maybe those will help.
Remember too that for most (all?) settings, you can start typing the name of the setting in the jump bar, and the jump bar will tell you which Options dialog the setting is in, and also take you there.
And welcome to the forum, @Maestro_Jones !
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The OP is well known to some of us from his rants on the two still extant Finale forums (the official one, for which MakeMusic generally never provides input or insight, and a user-maintained one that is more useful). He has claimed Finale has no bugs in his experience, and that the myriad of plug-ins that are largely necessary to do a lot of meaningful tasks in Finale are just different tools to do what is already possible with Finale. Those of us who have appropriately recounted our own experiences migrating from Finale to Dorico have been heavily criticized by the OP and referred to as Dorico “fanboy(s).” Anyway, like you, I’m not understanding what his point is in continually posting his complaints here without any seeming interest in actually learning something or understanding Dorico better. My suggestion: don’t respond further. I largely gave up participating in Finale forums online due to his constant attacks on any of us who pointed out some longstanding shortcomings of Finale.
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You may not have found John’s presentations to be helpful (particularly if you weren’t following the comments during the live session [which he addresses questions as they come in], but I (for one) have found that investing an hour of time watching has often uncovered tips and tricks about things that I never even thought to ask… and those tips have saved me countless hours since. Even if I don’t remember exactly how something was done, I [usually] remember that it’s possible somehow. Then it’s just a matter of searching for the terms that will get me the answers (“Google is your friend” – not AI).
The time I invest in LEARNING a totally new software (which, BTW is not even CLOSE to Finale), is paid off hugely in time savings as I do future projects. In the beginning, everything is slower than [previous scoring software]. Because you KNOW that software: the menus, the tools, where things are found, how to do workarounds, how your workflow has developed around that software.
Now you have a new tool. It does what your old tool did, but has different nomenclature, different menus, different architecture, and things you’re looking for are to be found in different places. Instead of whining that “it’s not like XXX”), perhaps ask “why did the developers do it this way?” After all, they are very well acquainted with how Finale does everything, and EXTREMELY well-versed in how Sibelius does things [having written much of the code before Avid “dismissed” that team].
As Dorico matures, there are issues in many areas that will be revised or expanded. The team is aware of all the requests/needs, and will address them as time and resources permit. However, when solutions to various issues are [ultimately] addressed, I’ve found that the solutions are generally elegant and comprehensive, with options I’ve never even imagined. YMMV.
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The “I word” is thrown around a lot, and it largely means that you can guess how something works with the information you already know. Dorico is hugely consistent: Option Arrows always move things; Shift plus a mnemonically memorable letter adds notation; many of the dialogs behave in identical ways.
Many people have said that they have experienced an epiphany where they suddenly ‘get’ the logic and sense behind the way things are organized in Dorico, and from then on, it’s no longer an uphill struggle.
I’d say the key to it is understanding their scope. Engraving Options cover the whole project, so they are “house style” matters affecting everything, and largely cosmetic. Notation Options are more substantive in terms of the notation, and affect each flow. Layout Options are things that affect … you guessed it. So Large Time Sigs are set up in Layout Options, because you’re unlikely to put them in a part.
(I presume there’s a ‘not’ missing?)
I’d say there are many more people producing compelling audio demos from Dorico than there ever were from Finale. I’d even argue that I can better results using Garritan instruments in Dorico.
Finale worked reasonably well with Garritan using Robert Piechaud’s Human Playback, but the MIDI editor was a disaster. Changing which of the manifold GPO5 instruments you were using, each with its own set of key switches, was hugely complex. Apart from one soundmap for VSL, there weren’t any other third-party libraries that you could use easily.
I’m sure that future versions will fix lacunae like playback for ornaments, but features like pitch contour emphasis, and polyphonic balancing are first class.
What is it that you feel is inaccurate in Dorico’s playback? Does Noteperformer solve it?
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With due respect, could you explain me what OP means? Or who he is? Sorry for being so uninformed but can’t figure out…
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