merging of flows already possible?

Dorico
1

Is there already a way of merging flows without using copy/paste?

1 Like
2

What do you mean by merging flows?

3

Maybe it is not what you are looking for, but you can import and export flows, midi or xml and when possible they are assinged to existing players.

4

I have a project with two flows, f.e. a song. Flow 1 bar 1-16, flow 2 bar 17-32. I would like to merge both flows to get one flow containig bars 1-32.

5

Click something on flow 2. Then Ctrl/Cmd-A for select all. Then Ctrl/Cmd-X for cut. Then add a spare bar at the end of Flow 1. Then select it and type Ctrl/Cmd-V for paste.

Obviously if you have different instrumentation in the two flows you’ll have to fiddle with that for Flow 1, but you haven’t given that information.

6

pianoleo, yes this is basic copy/paste. I was wondering, wether one could just somehow erase the barrier between the two flows.

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7

There isn’t, but it sure would be lovely if there would.

2 Likes
8

Is there any news on a possible “merge flows” function? I find myself using flows in a fragmentary way shuffling different ideas around to see what works best, but would love to avoid the copying and pasting involved in creating the final score.

1 Like
9

Not yet.

10

I see. It does seem like a reasonable function to expect, so I will cross my fingers and wait for future updates :wink:

11

Sure, but it’s not anywhere near as simple as producing a “Split Flow” button: the two source flows may have different Notation Options, or different instrumentation.

12

That’s true, and I understand that it needs some thinking from the team with all the implications it brings. I couldn’t find anyone from the team explicitly stating that they might support merging flows in the future so I just wanted to check if there was plans to do so.

For me, the idea of ‘flows’ seems to suggest a lot of freedom in how you can structure your file according to the type of project you are working on. It might be an educational project, where each flow is a different assignment, a symphony, or a suite with movements. But also I feel it could simply be a convenient way of having multiple ideas that you are developing alongside each other within the same file.

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13

You’re right but just as it asks you what do when You import xml it could ask you the same way when merging flows :wink:

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14

100% agree!

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15

That’s true, but… maybe ONLY if the flows are 100% consistent (instrumentation, notation, etc) the “merge” button appears as available? Just as a first step? That seems feasible and would meet our needs, IMO.

Thanks in advance!

16

It might meet your needs, but it might also create a lot of questions from other people about why it doesn’t work for them. For example if I was writing something for string orchestra, it wouldn’t make any sense to me if I couldn’t merge two flows where the divisis were different.

The Dorico development team usually follow the strategy that when they add something to the program, they do it properly, rather than adding a quick fix that only solves half the problem.

17

Agree with Rob, I don’t see the angst. The system track makes it ridiculously easy to select everything in a flow, or a section of a flow. Or you can do Leo’s approach, or lesser options are exporting MIDI or XML. All of that can easily be incorporated into another flow as you wish, what’s the problem (rhetorical, we don’t need an answer )

I’ve been guilty of it too when I first came to Dorico, but on this board we all should quiet down about telling the team what they should be doing. Take a cue from the elders (as I figured out) - the Steinberg team know what they’re doing and there’s other higher priority features to be added. Enjoy what we have, which is a lot! :smiley:

18

Every personal request to “do something with one click/button” takes time away from further development of features that affect lots of people and make major improvements to the program.

1 Like
19

Besides which take a look at the scripting. It’s alpha but you can do plenty of sophisticated things in there, looks like they hooked into a key dispatch mechanism, which AFAIK captures most or all of the actions that can be taken in the GUI. For example as an experiment, I created a Lua script to set volume across a Play track. This was done via normal GUI operations with the pencil tool, but at some point that translates into a volume change on all the selected notes so it caught the command, which is impressive.

This would should be easy to script if you want a one click operation.

20

Not as simple as a button but I might have found a way to get a complete midi file combining several Dorico flows with variable instrumentations/divisi, while retaining a coherent tempo track/total duration and annotations all through the score, enabling easier post processing of the whole piece in favourite daw

  1. In Setup Page
    Select each flow in turn and check box of any not highlighted Player track to get rid of evtl optimization and restore staves integrity through the whole piece and select last flow

  2. select anything in its first bar, Ctrl All + Ctrl C copies everything, select End Bar line of previous flow and Ctrl V to append content to it.

Repeat for all evtl. other earlier flows.

Provided Endpoint Setup and Expression Maps were set, my Synchron Players open, fully loaded with correct instruments

Tested it with Beethoven’s Op68 Symphony, all tempi are preserved as well as meters/annotations etc,