Lyric properties (syllable type) bug

Dorico
#1

Just came across this the other day; don’t think I’ve seen anyone else mention or notice.

When inputting multi-syllable lyrics, if you go back and re-edit the “end” syllable and then press space (not enter), the syllable type property will be set to “whole word.” Here’s a short clip to demonstrate: https://youtu.be/AB4yqx6YBfY (note: for some reason, OBS didn’t capture the pulldown menus in the properties panel; don’t worry, I’m not magic and I don’t have a streamdeck or anything).

It makes sense that editing an element resets certain properties, but upon recalculating the new property value, the wrong one seems to be selected in this case; presumably, the recalculation should know that it’s an “end,” and in all other circumstances I thought to try, it seems to, just not here.

Obviously, not a huge problem in-program, because graphically, it all seems to work out correctly, but when exporting xmls and piping those along into other programs where the data is as or more important than the graphics, it can cause some problems.

2 Likes
#2

When you edit a lyric, Dorico actually deletes and recreates it, and Dorico determines the lyric syllable type by how you confirm the popover, so if you press Space, it doesn’t surprise me that it ends up as a whole word. Try to leave either by hitting Return or by using the arrow keys to move to the next or previous syllable.

#3

Thanks Daniel, I appreciate the insight. Though, in the course of the past week, I couldn’t help but to notice that it may be slightly more complicated than you’ve described. It seems as if editing a lyric produces very different results from manually deleting and recreating, so it’s hard to imagine that’s what’s going on under the hood.

Manually deleting a syllable and reinputting it anew will result in Dorico correctly assigning the syllable type based on context (and from what I can tell, this holds true in all contexts; every arrangement of syllable types and hyphen situations I threw at it were handled correctly; the proper syllable type was always assigned). This is true when pressing space to end a word or pressing hyphen to continue from either the start of a word or the middle of a one.

On the other hand, merely editing a syllable in the popover and pressing space or hyphen produces results which, best I can tell, are never based on context, but rather a fixed set of rules, which are as follows:

If pressing space: Start becomes End; Middle becomes End; End becomes Whole Word; Whole word remains Whole Word.
If pressing hyphen: Start remains Start; Middle remains Middle; End becomes Middle; Whole Word becomes Start.

Sometimes, these rules will produce the correct result, but just as often or more they won’t (particularly when trying to correct one’s own typos or edit a lyric where the corresponding musical material has changed, and then it further compounds). In any case, I merely mention it to bring it to your attention. Do with this as you will :wink: