Is there some way to create straight lines that align to rhythmic positions and will adjust themselves when those are moved horizontally, no matter the way the latter is realized? I want to create meter triangles and forks that are precisely aligned to rhythmic postions.
Below is an image of what I want to achieve. Note that the corners of the triangles as well as the tines of the forks are meticulously aligned to the positions of the main eighth notes within the meter, and if there is no dedicated notehead or rest, they are placed where one would be. (The triangles are only meant to be isosceles on a blank sheet or over “empty” beats, i.e. which do not contain any offbeat elements.)
Right now I achieve this by printing the music to SVG and adding the forks and triangles in InkScape. This is of course rather fiddly, and when I want to alter the rhythm even just a tiny little bit, I need to print it out anew and have to adjust the forks and triangles all over again.
Are there any native functions within Dorico at the moment that might serve to accelerate achieving such a result? This example is from a rhythm dictation, but I might one day make use of such indications in larger scores, and that’s where adjustments in the music might have a much more serious impact on the invested amount of time.
Have you investigated the line tool. It probably would not do everything (at least without some customizing), but it might be a start at least for your duples.
Here, try installing this font (with Dorico closed). B and C give you those glyphs. The text object is left-aligned to the rhythmic position at which it was added.
It’s a proof-of-concept. This sort of thing is not difficult to do, just a suggestion. It took about 5 minutes to create the glyphs. PlayTech-Regular.zip (3.3 KB)
After creating the first two hairpins in write mode, I switched to engrave mode, changed the angles of the hairpins so the bottom lines were horizontal, moved the second one upward until the bottom lines were at the same vertical position, and moved them toward each other until the outside ends were over the centers of the desired notes. I then switched back to write mode, selected this pair of hairpins, and alt-clicked on the sixteenth rest to create the second pair.
I have now re-created the entire example shown in the original post. Other than adjusting the right ends of the forks over the triplets, I only had to create one fork and one triangle and then copy them to the desired rhythmic positions:
