Thanks, Christian!
At this point, I am just discovering that these things (such as your example) can be done, and each discovery prompts me to try to understand the architecture behind the technique. For example, once I discovered that the MA frame could be filtered to a specific flow, I started wondering about the consequences of changing that filter, and whether one would normally use a custom page template (or page template set) to avoid affecting other pages.
Normally you decide which flow you want in a layout, using the Setup mode, and checking unchecking them from the layout. As I said editing the filter in the music frame is an advanced workflow that you need only in very specific cases…
But hey: I learned all this looking at the video, reading the manual and experimenting a lot on simple projects. So feel free to experiment too: soon you will have a feeling of what you can do, and learn when you need a method or the other. And please keep asking specific questions (possibly with a Dorico project example) and we are happy to clarify any doubt.
Many thanks, again – you’ve been very kind and generous!
Hello again, Christian;
Is the main difference between an “L” music frame and an “M” music frame that the “M” frame is created within the actual page template (or “Master Page”), and therefore applies to all pages that use that page template, but the “L” music frame is applied only to the local page in which it is created?
If so, it would seem to make sense to use an “L” music frame for a “one-off” appearance of a particular flow – as in your own example – and an “M” music frame where one wants the same thing to occur on every page. Do I understand that correctly?
Thanks yet again!
Yes. That is correct.
thanks!
Forgive me, but here’s yet another question:
I wanted to create a page containing multiple independent student exercises, and tried to base it on your “footnote” example.
I created a separate flow for each exercise, restricted MA to Flow 1 only, and then added three Layout Music Frames (LB, LC, LD), each filtered to display a different flow.
This appears to work.
My question is this: the default MA chain seems to require at least one flow. In other words, one of my exercises must live in MA and the others live in layout music frames.
Is this the normal Dorico approach for creating a page of independent exercises/examples, or is there a more idiomatic way to do this?
Thanks!
Exercises page.dorico (467.4 KB)
Many folks seem to use one flow and use Codas to create the separate exercises.
It may be more common to create the additional music frames in the page template as M frames, rather than directly in the page as L frames. It’s generally a good idea to avoid making layout changes on the page as much as possible, at least until late in the process; these changes produce a page override on the page, and then that page will no longer respond to changes to its underlying template.
Actually you don’t need to add multiple music frames: the created flows will be displayed one after the other in the MA music frame chain, also on the same page if desired (Layout options>Page Setup>Flows>New flows: Allow on existing page):
For the spacings between exercises, you can then use Flow Headings overrides, with customised top and bottom margins (to help the spacing in case the text doesn’t produce the desired spacing)
(Another disadvantage of using L frames is that you don’t have Flow headings).
Here with top margin override:
Here with bottom margin override:
(Or you can use the coda method suggested by @Derrek )
Possibly the best way to give advices, would be if you could provide a page, sketched by hand, of what the final result should be.
As an armchair, casual onlooker and user of Dorico I do enjoy glancing through some of the threads/conversations here, helping grow my scant knowledge of all things notation-wise…
This particular thread is a delight. The generosity, time and sheer amount of willingness shown by all, to help work someone through their exact situation/needs, is heart-warming. @Christian_R - you sir, absolutely rock.!
Excuse the interruption. That’s all from me. Now, please carry on… 
Wow! Thanks for taking the time to illustrate this!
In fact, I have been using this technique (each exercise having its own flow, and allowing flows on same page) for a number of years. The main problems I have had with it have had to do with spacing. You have kindly addressed the use of custom top/bottom flow title margins, which may help: I have usually used the engrave mode’s vertical placement tool, only to find that when I create a subsequent flow, it puts itself directly behind the (now vertically moved) previous flow. Similarly, I believe that Derrek and/or FredGUun long ago advised the use of frame breaks as a way of moving overly-crowded systems to a next page, which I try to use where necessary.
However, I eventually gave up on using Dorico for formatting pedagogical material/exercises, instead creating the musical excerpts/exercises in Dorico, but then exporting them as .png Slices, and incorporating them, with text, in Word documents, that I then save as PDFs. I have uploaded a screen shot of a typical exercise page (within a PDF), along with a screen shot of the Dorico project in which I had notated the actual music:
I realize there are simpler ways to create exercise sheets, and in fact I have used the multiple-flow approach for years. At this point my interest is mostly in understanding the mechanics of your footnote technique itself.
Using the footnote technique, I can create a page of exercises. However, I seem to be forced to use MA for the first exercise, while the remaining exercises use L-frames. Is that really the intended architecture? And if so, how does one subsequently begin a normal flowing composition without that first exercise remaining part of the MA chain?
In other words, the footnotes themselves seem straightforward enough. What I still don’t understand is how Dorico expects one to hand control back to a normal flowing MA chain. If MA contains Exercise 1, then Exercise 1 appears at the start of the score. If I assign some later flow to MA, that flow simply moves to the start of the score instead. So the part I still haven’t grasped is how the footnote technique is intended to coexist with, or transition back into, a conventional multi-page flowing score.
Again, many thanks to you, and to everyone!
Thanks, Derrek – I will try this. Possible concerns: making coda signs invisible; precise control of spacing.
Are you in Engrave mode? I guess you are, bummer. Time to update?
Jesper
You can have multiple M chains – MA, MB, etc.
Is this what you mean? On the Default master page (using its editor), I created a new M chain and “unlinked” it. It then automatically renamed the new frame as “MJ”. I then applied this change to the Default Master Page’s Right hand page, as well:
I then created a Flow 5, and used the MJ’s flow filter to allow only Flow 5.
This worked: all of Flow 5 then displayed on my page 2 (which is the first Default Master page), and continued on to the same MJ (flow 5) music page frame on my page 3.
Is creating a new, unlinked M music frame chain the usual way of starting a subsequent flowing score that is independent of the original MA chain?"
And, apropos of my earlier question, does this mean that my First Page’s MA1, Flow 1, must continue to be used as my “exercise 1”?
Many thanks for your help!
I don’t see much of a difference between the pdf and the original Dorico file. So not sure how to help. If you would like, upload different examples of things that you are not able to produce inside Dorico. (That said, using the Graphic Slice export and editing the text, page numbers, titles etc in a separate application is probably a very good way to write a complex music text book)
I struggle to understand fully what you need: when you say independent what do you need it to be independent from? Each flow is an independent chunk if music by itself. You can set the frame breaks as desired, so that the subsequent flow is placed at the beginning of the next page (if your layout options are set to “Allow [subsequent flows] on existing page”.
If you want to create a page which displays only a specific flow, you can create a custom Page Template in Engrave mode (based on None and Custom), edit it and insert a Music Frame, Dorico will create it as a new M"x" frame chain. Set its filter for the desired flow, then you need to apply this newly created page template to the desired page, choosing for the Range"Current page only". Then you can use the little arrow icons to swap the position of the page template change wherever you want. (Of course you will also need to deselect that flow from the MA music frame chain that you find in one of the other existing page templates: First and Default: no matter which one you edit, since they use the same MA chain).
I made a 5 minutes video to show this workflow, in case it could be helpful:
And here the Dorico file example:
custom page template for a specific flow.dorico (1.3 MB)
Thanks, again, for your generous help, Christian!
Your advice about using the Flow heading margin adjustments was itself a big help! Apart from that, I think I’m okay with the process that I’ve been using (exporting flows as graphic slices, formatting them in Word, and exporting them as PDFs). But I’m still very interested in the mechanisms involved in your “footnote” technique.
Sorry, I was not referring to the flow being independent. I meant independent of the original MA music frame chain that, in my attempt to use (and extend) your “footnote” technique, I was using as my “Exercise 1”.
In my experiment, I did not want the First Page’s MA1 (Flow 1) to continue onto the next page. I found that if I unlinked the MA1 music frame (using the Default Page in the Page Template Editor), Dorico created a new M chain (MJ) that appeared to be independent of MA.
I then filtered MJ to display only a new Flow 5, and observed that it could continue across subsequent pages.
I was wondering whether creating a second M chain in this way is the intended method when one wishes to resume a normal flowing score after a page containing separate examples.
