mixer disappears

Dorico
1

and a last one for today

whenever I insert a new plug-in: my mixer window disappears and I have to click on Dorico’s ‘main window’ to see it again

whenever I want to open a plug-in which is loaded in a track to change some parameters: my mixer window disappears and I have to click on Dorico’s ‘main window’ to see it again

This is not a very ‘fluid’ work-flow. Maybe this could be changed in one of the following versions?
Sorry for nagging :laughing:

2

The Mixer surely doesn’t disappear, but the new plug-in’s window will be shown, and those plug-in windows are owned by a different process, which means that Dorico itself loses focus, and when Dorico loses focus, any tool windows it has open will no longer be shown. However, as soon as you return the focus to Dorico, its tool windows should reappear again.

3

Thanx for all your answers today Daniel.
Yes, I recognized the ‘focus-thing’. It’s fine. I just proposed a solution which might provide an easier workflow.
Like in Sibelius -which most probably you guys still implemented - : the mixer is integrated in the main work-space (in Dorico it could be at the place where the properties panel normally opens) - then there would be no ‘focus-question’. But you could also seperate the mixer window from the main working space.
I think that’s a cool solution.
But hey, everything is fine. I love Dorico. That’s just a little proposition.

4

I’d echo Jazzisfaction’s confusion. On a Mac, this behavior feels abnormal, and it took me reading this thread to understand what was actually going on. As is, since the main Dorico window has already lost focus when the mixer is opened (shown by a dimmed window title bar), there is no additional visual indication of focus loss when a plug-in window is opened. Then, when a plug-in window is closed, focus doesn’t automatically return to Dorico like I’d expect it to.

Also, if the user returns focus to Dorico while the plug-in window is still open, it’s hard to tell where the plug-in window “lives”. The only way that I can figure out to return to it is to either 1) close it via the mixer, then open it again, or 2) manually move the Dorico main window out of the way to reveal it. I might be missing something, though :thinking:

While we’re here: Since the plug-in windows appear to be “real” macOS windows, I’d love to be able to close them with command-W.

Lastly, I’d also echo Jazzifaction’s sentiment that DORICO RULES :metal:

5

Unfortunately, as explained in my original reply, there’s little we can do about the focus issues with plug-in windows as long as the audio engine (which owns the plug-in windows) is a separate process, which is something that I do not foresee changing. With the Mixer itself, it’s a tool window and hence it disappears when Dorico isn’t in focus, which is completely Mac-like.

6

Thanks for the additional insight, Daniel! Totally get the constraints of the separate audio engine process.

If command-W was able to close a plug-in window, and then focus automatically returned to Dorico’s main window after closing said plug-in window, I think most of the awkwardness would be gone (at least for me). Not sure if this is possible from a technical level?

7

I’m still getting confused by un-Mac-like behavior with the mixer and VST windows in Dorico 4.

  • Both the mixer and VST windows have full-size window close buttons (the red X), but neither can be closed with command-W
  • A VST window can be closed with the escape key, but the mixer window cannot (I’m not 100% up on the Mac HUI guidelines, but closing a window with a full-size window close button with the escape key is unexpected)
  • When I close a VST window that I’ve opened in Play, Dorico’s main window is not automatically made active; it takes an additional click on the window to be able to interact with it. (I’m constantly closing VST windows in Play, then trying to go back to Write with command-2 but nothing happens. Fools me on a daily basis)
  • When I close the mixer window, however, either with the mouse or with F3, focus does automatically do to the Dorico window

I’d love to see more consistent window interactions in Dorico. At minimum, if the active window has a full-size close button, command-W should close that window, then focus should return to the window the user has last interacted with (usually the main window, but sometimes the mixer etc.) I believe this can be done even with the audio engine as a separate process?