When I “lock layout” some parts of the layout move. You’ll see in the video that the “a tempo” and rehearsal number before m. 27 jump to a different position.
This cannot be the intended behavior, no? I’m especially concerned because I’ve been using the lock layout function at the end of casting off each part in several projects but have not thought to go back and check afterward to make sure things are still where I want them!
I’d need to see the project itself and ask my colleague Andrew, who’s our spacing guru, to look into what’s happening on the second system there, but in general terms, when you lock format, what that means is setting a break at the start of each system and setting it to “wait for next break”, and that can have an impact on the way the system is spaced. I can’t tell you exactly what’s happening there that causes the system fullness to change (it’ll be something to do with the way the multi-bar rests are spaced) but as soon as the system fullness exceeds 100%, you end up with a different approach to justification, and that can result in widths changing.
Thanks @dspreadbury . I suppose I should just send you the whole file privately, since it’s probably too large to share here. I’ll note this, too: When I simply select the measures on the second system and “make into system” the same thing happens. And in several of the other parts I notice that there are big changes in the way Dorico seems to be calculating the spacing depending upon whether the systems are left unlocked or locked in place, even though the same exact amount of notation appears on those systems.
I was able to reproduce the problem(s) with a cutdown version of the project, attached. Perhaps someone else can see if they have the same experience when locking the layout of any of the parts.
Winter - large copy 2.dorico (1.6 MB)
Yes, I can, as I would expect, reproduce the behaviour you are seeing in your project. I will ask my colleague Andrew what exactly is going on with the spacing.
Andrew has been looking into this today, and we have identified the problem, which is a subtle thing to do with the way multi-bar rests are spaced. When a multi-bar rest won’t fit on the system if it is given its ideal width (as specified by the min/max values for multi-bar rests in Engraving Options), when Dorico is spacing the music, it will allow a multi-bar rest to be squashed onto the system, and it modifies the scaling values for the multi-bar rests found on the system as it does so to make it fit, which is why the system fullness percentage can end up less than 100%.
When Dorico knows up-front which bars should be on the system because the format of the system is locked, it doesn’t modify the scale factors for the multi-bar rests to “make them fit”, because it knows they will fit. However, because the system truly is overfull, this then triggers a different approach to justification, and that accounts for the differences in the final spacing, because we’re using the original, unmodified ideal widths for those multi-bar rests.
We will look into whether we can nevertheless apply the same scaling to the multi-bar rest ideal widths when the format of the system is locked, which will result in the same widths for the system whether or not it is locked.
Thank you for this. I have discontinued using Lock Layout for now, which is not ideal because I know that if I later make even a subtle change to the score it can throw off any of the part layouts. So I do hope it can be resolved. But meanwhile, now I know what to look for and therefore how I might go back and manually adjust if I do decide to lock.
Again, thanks to you and the team.