Here’s a “feature” that’s been driving me crazy a bit…
I want to add “poco a poco cresc”. I do this by clicking cresc, and then poco a poco from the dynamics menu on the right. It does just what I want…in the full score. In the instrumental part, it shows like a hairpin with the words poco a poco under then, which I decidedly don’t want (problem 1). If I then change it in the part, it looks fine, but now the full score shows hairpin+text (problem 2)… Is this a bug, or am I being a moron (both equally possible)…?
DeleteMe2.zip (462 KB)
You have to propagate properties. Select the cresc and then Edit > Propagate properties. This applies to any property you change in the full score if you want it to reflect in the parts. You may want to assign a shortcut to it.
Ok, thanks. I guess I need to read on how that works, will do that soon. I have to say I’m quite baffled that I have to anything at all to have the same in score and parts. Surely that should be the default, unless explicitly overruled? Hopefully my background reading will show that I don’t have to do this for every crescendo I’ll ever write…
Your background reading will show that you do have to do this for every crescendo you write, basically. You actually don’t, but you need to have a very good grasp on which dynamics constitute property overrides in which layouts, dependent on which layout options. It’s quicker and easier to Propagate Properties on every dynamic than to internalise this information.
It should also show that Propagate Properties was introduced as an interim measure until something better could be implemented, so there’s not much point in complaining about it. It very reliably copies and pastes properties from one layout to all other (non-custom) layouts, but that’s it - you have to remember to use it.
Thanks. Obviously I don’t (yet) understand half of what you said, but hopefully I will soon.
May I just offer the perspective of a conductor (which is what I am, more than an engraver): I want my parts to ALWAYS look the same as my score, in every single aspect. I want the hairpins to be the same, I want to see the same cue-notes, same transposition. Everything. Because I need to communicate with my players during rehearsal based on a shared understanding on what we both can see on the music. So any design that is based on them NOT being the same (as a default) is - in my humble opinion - flawed.
That’s the easy situation then. Once you have finished your score, select all, and Edit > Propagate Properties should give you what you need. You might need to change to Engrave mode after selecting all to make sure all the properties are propagated (there are different options for the properties in Write and Engrave mode).
With keyboard shortcuts, this should not take more than 10 s.
A lot of properties are layout-specific to give you flexibility over how things appear in the parts vs the score. This thread has prompted me to revisit this area in the manual, and although the differing appearances of gradual dynamics is the example I’ve given for why you might propagate properties, on reflection I think there could be more mention of this in the Dynamics chapter in the Notation reference. I’ve just been working on that now and it will be available when I next update the V3 manual 
Thanks Marc. That seems to be the best way to go about, though now I’m a bit weary if I say “propagate everything” that there’ll be heaps of other surprises.
It’s great to have the flexibility to have differences between lay-outs, but I’m saying it’s (in my view, and it’s fine to disagree on this) it’s flawed that they be different to begin with. It should be “layouts are the same unless you tell them to be different” rather than “they are different unless you tell them to be the same”. Telling to be different can be done by individual properties, or by options/preference, but it should not be the default either way.
I figured out (something you’ll already know) that it is related to engraving option of default dynyamics appearance. I would say that the moment you click on “cresc” on the dynamics menu (and possibly others), there could be a pop-up, stating “you are overriding the default setting. Please be aware you need to propogate this property to other lay-outs, otherwise the default property will be shown”, with a “don’t show this warning again”. This because it’s really, really counter-intuitive…
Incidentally I don’t think I’ve ever seen a score or part which doesn’t have both hairpins and cresc. markings, so the idea that there should be a ‘prefered way’ within a layout is a shaky premise. Maybe it would be a good idea not to consider them the same object with a display-toggle, but just as two different and unrelated ways to enter gradual dynamics.
Anyway, now that I know about it, I’m sure I’ll be fine.
I would rather propagate everything at the end of entering the full score than have a caution pop up every time there might be a difference.
Well, my proposal was to have a pop-up you can switch-off forever once you got the hang of things.
Interestingly, I just ran into the same problem with harp-diagrams. I had entered these as diagrams ,but in the part they showed up as note values. I tried at first to propagate this property, but it didn’t work. It only worked after I explicitly selected the diagram, and then made the diagram setting explicit from the bottom menu. In other words ,the “select all and propagate everything” method wouldn’t have worked here and I had to go through each harp diagram one by one.
The default harp pedalling for each layout is set in Layout Options. The defaults is that they appear in the part, not in the full score - which is OK, except if you use diagrams to show the notes played in a glissando.
The cut-off point between a (small) number of note names and a diagram is set in Engraving Options.
In Dorico, if you are doing the same manual editing operations over and over again, there is almost always a better way - set the default options to what you want and let the program do the work for you.
Thanks Tuley,
I was aware of the lay-out option setting, though I’d set it in my years of innocence when I didn’t know about the need for property-propagating, so I hadn’t also set it for the harp part itself. This difference triggered the difference between part and score. Needless to say, I want harp diagrams in my score, in spite of the default (just like Debussy
And that is possible too, if you set up the correct Layout Options.
When a new facet to the program is released, the accompanying Version History is worth reading.
Dear JustusR,
As it is often written in the forum, Propagate Properties is a stopgap measure, it does not reflect the philosophy underneath Dorico’s architecture. I found your reply quite interesting because this would be more Doricoish. Settings that you switch if you wish to propagate dynamics properties throughout all layouts (or the opposite), etc…
The team has promised they would come out with a better tool when they have the time and priority for it, and until now, they have proven how capable of this kind of improvement they are.
Thanks Marc,
When I started this thread I wasn’t aware it was a stopgap measure (I am now), and I’m OK with things not being exactly as I want, and am happy to wait for future releases. The idea of things not being the same in lay-outs really tripped me up, so it’s good to give it emphasis somehow to new users who are not necessarily au-fait with the whole evolution of Dociro since 1.0 and/or ongoing forum discussions (like me!).
Thanks for your comments!
Justus