Is there a way to edit the color of an instrument in Play mode? I’m doing some orchestration and it would be very helpful for me to color instruments by range or by family, rather than by the order added to the project. If there’s no UI for it, perhaps there’s a way to edit the property through scripting?
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No, it’s not currently possible I’m afraid. Colors are assigned based on score order. And scripting is not yet fully functional IIRC.
How is this order determined, actually? Because my colors look like someone shook them in a cup and rolled them out:
I can’t wait until the colors are customizable.
The colours are assigned based on the order in which the instruments were originally created, not the score order. We know that users would like these colours to be customisable, and that’s planned for the future.
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We do intend to make colours across the application customisable in due course, yes.
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Can track colours be changed in the new Play Mode in Dorico 4? I’m finding the the very light lime green that is assigned to my piano part really difficult to work with.
They cannot as yet, Graham, no, but it’s definitely something we are thinking about.
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I was just thinking about the colors, with the write mode lower zone it’s become more obvious. The present cycling color gradient is good to help the eye differentiate track lanes in the Play mode, but is more obvious and less useful in the lower zone.
AFAIK there’s no kind of standard for colorizing DAW tracks, but the most common approach I’ve seen is that the choirs are all colored alike, I’ve not seen the approach Dorico takes used before. Winds green, Brass red, Percussion Yellow and Strings Blue is something like what I tend to do. Even if not customizable, using that approach would be more usable, as the color would tell you something about the lane without having to process text to figure it out.
Hello Daniel, is there a (non-documented?) trick to assign the colours in a custom-based way, e.g. by editing a setup file or xml file that contains these colours? I have an orchestra with 80 instruments, and it would be really helpful if we can choose the colours by instrument group. Any suggestion is welcome.
Hi. I don’t think there’s anything new on this front. Check the Version History for colours… You’ll get your answer!
Hi Marc, he who does not ask anything shall obtain nothing 
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We do plan to add the ability to choose the colour for a given instrument in future, but I’m afraid it’s not currently available.