Apols is this has been logged: if I use the arrow keys to play through (move note-by-note rightwards) each of three notes marked as slurred, the highlight (orange editability) misses the middle/second note and instead highlights the slur itself. So the order is first note - slur - third note.
When moving right to left (again with the arrow keys) the highlight falls - in turn - on the third, second and finally the first note, as expected.
Maybe this is intentional?
See this thread: Arrow-Key-Navigating Bug - Dorico 1.0.10 - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
I don’t know if any of this has been or ever will be addressed, but it doesn’t make any sense to me how it is supposed to work.
Thanks, dbudde 
!
It seems as though that thread is about more general navigating issues. I must say, (as a(n ex) Sibelius user), I’m getting used to Dorico’s logic and am beginning to prefer it.
But I’d have said that this slur issue seems specific and less a matter of design - and a genuine bug.
Happy to be proved wrong and learn the rationale behind it.
I think it’s the same thing. It’s following whatever the navigation rules dictate. Maybe someone will explain those rules one day.
I see. Thanks. Yes. For the way I work they’re for the most part logical. Just this slur - it seems odd to omit a note.
As I’ve explained elsewhere, when navigating in Dorico, the method employed does not place any greater emphasis on trying to select notes versus any other type of item that could be selected: it simply selects the next item in the direction that you ask it to navigate. When you have a slur selected, you have the whole rectangle encompassing the slur selected, so if you go right from there, you will always select something to the right of the entire slur, even if you had previously not selected each of the notes under the slur.
The goal, again, as I’ve explained elsewhere, is to make it possible to select every item in Write mode simply by moving towards it with the arrow keys.
Thanks, Daniel!
Perhaps I wasn’t clear: I am thinking of those situations where there are, say, four objects involved… three adjacent notes and the slur applying to all/each of them.
And I’m using the arrow to cycle through them each in turn - e.g. to quickly change the middle/second note’s pitch.
So In that case, only way to select that middle/second note is with the mouse pointer… the arrow navigation omits it entirely moving rightwards.
I suppose I think it would be useful to have arrow-based selection work from right to left as well as it does from left to right.
The problem with how this navigation works is that is is not possible to predict at a glance what gets selected next. When wanting to traverse a staff to select a note a couple beats away, one has to tap the keys slowly to see where it is. You can’t just assume it’s three taps away because it may divert to a lyric or a slur or another note. So it’s really slow and unpredictable. And going in the reverse direction is not the same as the forward direction so that is even more confusing. So if you try to go fast and overshoot your objective then you have to reverse and then it takes a different path. This is maddening.
What would be useful to stay on the same type of object as you traverse the staff. For example, if you select a note then the next thing that gets traversed is always the next note (in the same voice), and not some other object or other voice. This would at lease be predictable and one could get around the score much faster. Ask it is, the navigation using the arrow keys is cumbersome and slow at best.
dbudde,
I suppose navigation in general is somewhat a question of personal preference. I think of the way in which a program like Apple’s FileMaker (through whose fields you navigate with TAB) has come up with an elegant solution… you can number each field in turn (from 1 to as many fields as are on a Layout) so that the ‘Tab Order’ is at the user’s control and neither random, nor corresponds to the order in which the fields were thought of or entered in the first place.
This would be a huge task in Dorico - even on one staff.
I feel confident that Daniel and his designers have got it right for most users. My point is that if I enter notes 1, 2, 3 and then slur them, it’d be useful to have all four objects selectable with arrow navigation sooner or later; they are when moving leftwards.
But it’s a minor point and one which will surely be addressed in due course. Dorico is such a great piece of software that it’s easy to overlook this