Question: arrow keys assignment in Engrave Mode

Dorico
,
1

Despite being raked over the coals in a feature request suggestion for being a Finale to Dorico user who is trackpad (mouse) entry oriented, I am working through the process of becoming keyboard proficient (@Tristis). What doesn’t really make sense to me is why ALT/OPT-arrow key is the choice for movement of anything be it notes, clefs, dynamics or whatever.

Never-the-less, I was able to switch that around in Note Editing preferences but I find no way to do that for moving things in Engrave Mode. Am I just missing something here? The ALT/OPT key is just not logical to my brain although I’m sure there was good reason for setting it up that way. Can I change this in Engrave Mode?

System Info: Macbook Pro M1 Pro macOS Sequoia 15.0; laptop plus 1 external screen, external Magic keyboard and external Magic trackpad.

2

Alt prevents accidental movement. It’s intentional, and easy to adapt to over time.

What you can do is modify your JSON key commands file to map Alt-arrows to other keys. I’ve done this with Q, W, E, and R in Engrave mode. I’m doing a lot of small manual adjustments to lyrics, so this is faster for me.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the followup, @dan_kreider. JSON key commands for Dorico are modified using what process please?

4

Here’s a video: Adding key commands to Dorico using JSON (youtube.com)

And here are the pertinent commands:

{
						"EventEdit.Nudge?Direction=Left&Amount=kALot" : [ "Q", "Num+7" ]
					},
					
					{
						"EventEdit.Nudge?Direction=Left&Amount=kALittle" : [ "W", "Num+8" ]
					},
					
					{
						"EventEdit.Nudge?Direction=Right&Amount=kALittle" : [ "E", "Num+9" ]
					},
					
					{
						"EventEdit.Nudge?Direction=Right&Amount=kALot" : [ "R", "Num++" ]
					},
					
					{
						"EventEdit.Nudge?Direction=Up&Amount=kALittle" : [ "D" ]
					},
					
					{
						"EventEdit.Nudge?Direction=Down&Amount=kALittle" : [ "C" ]
					}

Make sure to put this in the ENGRAVE section.

5

Thanks!