Actually it is - both are just layouts. Part layouts just work from a different template that is already set up to “look like” a playing part. A solo piano work is much more likely to use a template similar to a “full score” layout. Distinguishing between that and a playing part is meaningless in this case, hence redundancy.
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I see it as arrogance to assume you know what their priorities are, and how long this would take to implement. If your insinuation is that it would be further down your list then good for you. I think it’s a good idea, and the rest of this is just (even more) redundant mud slinging.
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I took it, in the hope that it will save some precious typing time, thank you 
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Ed, you made your suggestion 22 hours ago, and I am sure the Development Team will read it, and if they can do so within their road map, will implement it as an option. And I am fine with that.
At the same time, I cannot help thinking how long it has taken you to respond to every reaction to your suggestion and how many layouts with three clicks you could have deleted in that time.
Your case was made or not made with the Development Team in your first post.
I do, sometimes, when I need an instrument to double the voice.
(edit:) And yes, I think the instrument needs to see the lyrics as well.
This is a good point. As far as dorico being ‘smart’ about things, not auto generating individual voice parts would make sense.
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Sounds like you actually need to use the cueing function.
I have often made parts that way actually, but it’s quite a specific and unusual thing - usually for early music or to create equali for trombones (in which case we need a trombone part)
I’m not sure where such an option would be. There doesn’t seem to be a good opportunity to set this option in a specific project at the time you create it, and by the time you’ve started the project itself and started adding parts it’s presumably already creating part layouts that you don’t want. So it seems like this would have to be a setting in the Preferences dialog, but it would surely be one that you would need to change relatively often?
Personally speaking, I would set it only once (in the preferences ideally) - You already have the option to create a default part set, so if I ever did need to automatically generate parts then that’s what I’d do. To be honest though - the majority of the time I need custom layouts and parts for my typesetting, and usually have to create a new layout regardless.
Edit: or even in the template screen, a check box…
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Not if the instrumental part is simply identical to the vocal part. The main reason is that for an instrumentalist it’s often impractical to play from an unwieldy vocal score. Of course, on occasion, I will make extra parts if, say, an accompanying viol or viola prefers to have a part in alto clef instead of G8. Dorico handles this beautifully.
The only thing I miss is the option to duplicate a layout right away, including all options and formatting. Then you’d need to change only the clef. This request has been made before on the forum.
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Well sure, I’m which case it’s also as easy as selecting the whole vocal part and c&p’ing to the desired instrument. Yes, in this case you could also just rename the soprano, or whatever, but this (I would guess, anyway,) is the exception rather than the rule.
I’ve also wondered whether there shouldn’t be an option to not create parts (I rarely need them) but as others have suggested, it’s so easy to get rid of them that I haven’t wondered about it that much. I’ve also created my own templates - the majority don’t have part layouts.
To be honest, I don’t particularly mind if they’re there or not, but part of the reason why I’ve been deleting them is that I just assumed it was less work for the program to do and so it would help to speed things along a bit. I have no idea whether that’s right or wrong.
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Indeed if there’s any calculation made by Dorico because of the parts and it’s slowing things up, I would love to have an option to be able to create them only when it seems convenient.
If the parts aren’t open, then they don’t entail any performance penalty at all.
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@dspreadbury
Just checking if I’m understanding correctly:
If I have a part for each instrument (maybe 30?) and they’re all open (or active or whatever) then there may be some performance drop? Whereas if I have the parts but have them closed then I can avoid this?
Interested to know if not generating them would speed up initial file/instrument creation?
Interested to know if not generating them would speed up initial file/instrument creation?
No, it wouldn’t.
Yes, exactly. If you have all 30 parts open in separate tabs or windows, then every time you make an edit, not only the layout you’re actually working on will need to be updated, but so too will every other affected layout. If you’re doing something like adding a note to one staff, then of course not all layouts are affected: only the layout you’re working on, and any other layouts in which that staff appears. But if you do something like add or change a time signature, that will affect all layouts, and Dorico will go and perform that edit in all of the open layouts.
It’s OK to keep, say, both the full score and one part open in separate tabs, but I would strongly advise against keeping the full score and all part layouts open at the same time. You’ll be paying a performance penalty updating all of those layouts you can’t see. It’s a much better use of your time to pay that penalty all at once, when you next open the layout you want to look at: at that point, Dorico can generate that layout afresh, so all of the edits you’ve made since you last looked at it are done in one go. You spend a couple of seconds waiting then, rather than a fraction of a second per-layout, per-edit otherwise. That adds up.
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Thanks for that explanation Daniel - very helpful.
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