Minor feature requests (but would make a big difference in my day to day workflow)

Dorico
1

Apologies if some of these have already been requested, but here goes. A little about what I do with Dorico - I am working on a very large series of method books and song books with many volumes. It’s for 4 string electric bass. Some of my Dorico files have around 10-12 flows, but others have somewhere around 100. Never really more than one staff. I’ve done a ridiculous amount of note input in the past 3-4 years, all with a computer keyboard. Many thousands of pages. Hours and hours of written music. A few small features would really improve my workflow with Dorico.

  1. I am extremely fast with the key combos of control+note to enter the note below the previous note, and shift+option+note to enter a note above the previous note. But having that not work for shift+option+B kills my buzz every time. I understand there is some conflict with the audio engine(?) Dorico uses, but if there’s any way of fixing this I would be so happy :wink:

  2. I share flows between files all the time. Works great, except when I want to import 1 flow from a file containing 100 flows. This dialog has no “select all/select none” option. Somehow ‘import XML’ has this option, but ‘import flow’ does not.

  3. If I create a new flow in the ‘Setup’ tab, and title the flow in the ‘flows’ pane, it shows up as the title of the flow in the ‘info’ dialog. But if I do the reverse and create a new flow in the ‘info’ dialog, it doesn’t show up as the title in the ‘flows’ pane in the ‘setup’ tab. (apologies if this is unclear, I’m not sure if I’m getting the terminology correct)

  4. I’m not sure if anyone would want a feature like this besides me, but I would love an option for Dorico to prevent entering notes if they are out of range for the instrument. In my case, when writing for 4-string electric bass, I would not want any notes to be entered below the low E on the bass clef. Obviously this would have to be an optional setting, ideally configurable to allow for alternate tunings.

If any of these features exist in the current version of Dorico, please let me know!

2
  1. Not a conflict, but a dead key. I’m not sure whether it’s an OS thing or a Qt framework thing. Edit: it’s a qt thing. The developers of Qt need to be persuaded to fix this.
  2. Yes, I’ve also requested this.
  3. This is intentional. There’s a “rename” button in the bottom left corner or Project Info. Once the link is broken between flow name and flow title, it’s broken. Useful if you want to e.g. include a version number in the name without it showing on the page.
  4. I like this idea, particularly for the bottom end of string instruments. Potentially complicated by scordatura tuning, so perhaps in conjunction with an instrument editor?
1 Like
3

Nice, thanks!
Regarding point 3, I didn’t know about that, very cool! I just tried it, and I certainly understand the logic of why it is done that way. I guess it doesn’t really help me too much though…I’d love to be able to create a bunch of new flows with the title in the Project Info window, and have them show up as the flow name in the ‘setup’ tab after hitting apply. Also having to click ‘rename’ with every created flow probably isn’t as convenient as just creating the new flow in the setup tab. Not really a big deal. In the end I’m glad both options are available.

4

+1 to #2. It is very tedious to uncheck 99 flows manually.

5

Maybe, as a suggestion, it would be nice to have an override switch just for the title, like in the properties panel.

6

I can see how point 3 would be annoying. Not sure how to fix it though - flows and titles are intentionally different entities

7

A great idea but it should go into the Project Info dialog. Have entries for both Flow Title and Flow Name with a switch to link/unlink them.

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8

That’s what I wanted to say :slight_smile:

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9

I see, I misread. I thought you meant IN the Properties Panel. :slight_smile: