Notational Improvements in Dorico 6 - Wishes

[Janus]

@Robrecht_Paternoster

I am aware of the trick, and I used something in that style for Tchaikovsky Piano concerto No. 1, but it is really not practical.

Why is it not practical?

[drewnichols]

These are all my development requests from mine and others’ previous posts, compiled:

Properties currently can’t be set globally and then individually altered locally, without reversing the global properties for all the layouts

"Set local properties: globally" and then change the property locally

I think I understand the way Dorico approaches this—when you set a local property as global, it moves to the global settings and that item can no longer be changed locally, without undo-ing the global property. My current approach to dialogue in theatre score, where it needs to appear on the Score, the Piano/Vocal, and the Piano/Conductor, is using staff-attached text on the top vocal line, when available, or staff-attached text on both the rehearsal piano staff (Piano/Vocal) and the Piano/Cond…

Syncopation grouping is one feature away from being complete, I think

Note Grouping (Syncopation) Options

Copied and pasted from a FB post on the topic… I know this has been discussed many times in this group, but let me add my plea about fixing the syncopation options in the Notation Options. A is wrong. B is wrong. C is correct. (At least for MANY traditions of writing easy-to-read rhythms) But currently, with the options provided, you can only get A or B. Yes, I know you can get C by using Force Duration… it’s how I created sample C in the first place. But, honestly, C is so much more cor…

Staff spacing on non-justified pages is typically too tight in comparison to the justified ones around them, with no setting to help with this

Make staff spacing on last page match justified staves?

I have a good handle on vertical justification, and I generally set it around 70% to space systems to fill the frame. It’s beautiful. The problem is that, if the last page has only a couple systems, I don’t want it to justify to fill the frame (since it’s nowhere near the percentage threshold, and the staves would be ridiculously far apart). But that means the staves usually look a little squished compared to the previous page. I try to monkey with Ideal Gaps and such, but it never quite works …

Selecting chord symbols isn’t ideal

Shift-Select ONLY chord symbols

Been thinking about chord selection again, while working on a project that has me drafting tons of different chord progressions and copying, altering, transposing, etc. Every time I do it, it feels like one or two extra clicks than necessary even with a shortcut for filter chords, and it requires me to have system track enabled (which I normally prefer to disable). I would also ultimately prefer click (leftmost chord symbol), shift click (rightmost chord symbol), but I know that chord selection…

Can’t undo while in chord or lyric entry

FR: "Undo" in Chord Symbol entry

+1 on chord/lyric entry undo while popover is active

Text blocks don’t move with the score and system text doesn’t affect score spacing, which makes theatre work much more difficult

Free text blocks in (automatic) flow with music (feature request)

The use case is for theatrical works, when you have dialogues that is underscored, and you want it to be in flow with the music, because the same performers need to read both the dialogue and the music. Here’s a quick example: [image] This is the most common at the beginning of the flow, but could also be mid-flow. Another similar use case is writing dialogue “cues” for the musicians, so they know when to start. This is not possible without overrides either. Here’s an example: [image] Cur…

Rearranging flows also requires moving around page overrides. For larger works, especially theatre scores where overrides may be more common, this is very messy.

Reordering Flows problem

I want to reorder flows in a file of 20 flows. When I do so, text frames don’t move, and music is often reformatted. Is there a way to move around flows keeping everything in each flow intact? THANKS!

[bmoriak]

I developed a work around with keyboard maestro for this. when I hold down Tilda- dorico switches to engrave mode, and when i release it - dorico returns to write mode

[Santiago_Galan]

Hi Brendan,

That sounds interesting, can you explain this a little bit? What do you mean with “hold down Tilda”?
Does it means that you must hold one key all the time while working with the other hand, and when finished you release the key?

Thanks!!

[Romanos]

Like Santiago, I’d be curious to know how this is configured. (Heck, I’d like it if you shared the kbm recipe)

[Joshua_Stamper]

Hear hear to all of the above.

I would love an added feature of more than one ossia staff. I know that you can do one ossia above and below (for two total), but the ability to add several ossia staves above would be a great help.

[Romanos]

I’m not challenging the request in any way, but I am curious in what way multiple ossias would be used.

[Joshua_Stamper]

Thanks for the question. Multiple ossias could be helpful for providing different ornamentation options of a passage, or as a teaching tool to outline different fingering options for a figure.

For my particular purposes, it’s a little involved, but it’s relevant to the score and parts layouts for a project I’m working on, where ossias act as choice portals to different parts of the master score. A prototype is here, for those that have time and interest: a thing that can ignite can go — Joshua Stamper

[bmoriak]

here is the macro - it basically for moving little things like text. I can select it in write - hold tilda - move the item - release tilda and continue on

[Richard_Einhorn]

Very clever macro. Thanks!

[Alexander_Ploetz]

In piano literature, when alternatives of whole passages are given, it is much more common to have them presented as a single grand-staff ossia, instead of two opposite ossia staves.

On the strictly personal level, I would welcome such an expansion of the ossia feature because I use ossias to keep a record of changes and improvements when doing counterpoint exercises, and having multiple ossias would allow me to keep track of multiple iterations.

[wing]

Amazing, works great! Even as a frequent KM user it never would’ve occured to me that you’d be able to hold down a key while mousing around (without some sort of conflict or the windows going crazy, which is what I would’ve figured). But nope, it works like a charm. I’ve been often suggesting having a temporary modifier key override the "sticky"ness of elements in write mode, to just move text quickly and precisely without leaving, but this is the next best thing. Thanks for sharing!

[Santiago_Galan]

Thanks Bredan!! I will try this out.
Toggling between modes is quite an annoyance for me.

[ObiwanKenobi]

@Alexander_Ploetz

In piano literature, when alternatives of whole passages are given, it is much more common to have them presented as a single grand-staff ossia, instead of two opposite ossia staves.

Absolutely true. I agree with you; a single ossia staff is quite limiting.

[Vaughan_Schlepp]

Speaking of Keyboard Maestro, I’ve made two macros for system and frame breaks while in Write mode. They simply simulate the keypress for Engrave mode, then Shift-S or F and then the keypress for Write mode. I don’t even need a pause between the actions. Theoretically one could do this for many of the Engrave mode functions.

[kaposi.g]

It there something similar to Keyboard Maestro in Windows?

[arco]

Some use AutoHotKey
(Now I remember, I have used it, my scripts are still there but not needed to use it with Dorico)

[arco]

Slightly related MS Power automate I have not needed to look at it for anything.

[LR603]

TG Tools “Create Handbells Needed Chart”!

[Estigy]

@drewnichols

Staff spacing on non-justified pages is typically too tight in comparison to the justified ones around them, with no setting to help with this

Those “too tight” staff spacings are done using your configured staff spacing values. If they are too tight compared to other pages, increase them