I find that newly-created layouts do not reflect changes to properties that were propagated previously.
I’d like to request that “Propagate Properties” applies to all layouts - even those created after a property is propagated.
I routinely add layouts as my arrangements develop, and as I add instrumentation. It’s difficult to keep track of what has been propagated and what has not, as I typically propagate immediately upon modifying a property.
Thanks!
I can understand that need, but I suspect it doesn’t work that way under the hood. It’s one thing to, well, propagate properties to all instances of the same object. To be able to do what you request, I guess you would need a “meta” property, defining whether the property is set to be propagated. When most users voiced their concerns about the independence between layouts, this was in fact what was suggested, but the team went in a different way for a reason. (And then again, what do I know; this is somewhat educated speculation on my part).
What you can do, and very quickly, for that matter, is Select All, switch to Engrave mode and Propagate Properties. Everything should be totally synced.
Except that some properties were changed in Write mode and some were changed in Engrave mode. And sometimes I propagate properties from different score layouts, not just from the full score. And most important of all, I don’t always want to propagate all properties, just selected ones. I can certainly do it with a bit of thought, but it would still be nice to apply a propagation to all future occurrences.
It may very well be prohibitively complex to program. I’m hoping that’s not the case.
I strongly add my vote to this request, because I had the same issues. I had a finished piece and just wanted to add some instruments in other clefs and transpositions, and had to redo all the property changes. That was unexpected.
Dorico already has a very powerful “override settings from base values” mechanism in the bottom panel. Why can’t the same mechanism be used to override settings in one layout from base values in another layout?
This whole “propagate once and forget that it has happened” approach that is currently in place feels to me like a workaround instead of a solid future-proof solution.
Propagate Properties was introduced as an interim measure. It’s not supposed to be solid or future-proof!
Thinking about it, I wonder if starting with a Duplicate Layout might fix DanK’s problem, whilst still giving the option to create new layouts that don’t inherit previously-propagated properties?
It’s not an existing feature, but nor is it a new feature request: Layouts section feature request: Duplicate Layout - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
You are being bitten by the old computer software development proverb, “Premature optimization is the root of all evil”.
If you can restrain yourself to leave the parts alone till the score is finished, most of the problem goes away.
Of course if you need to “publish” the parts of an interim version of the arrangement, that doesn’t help the situation.
It would be impractical for us to make it such that doing Propagate Properties would be able to apply to layouts that don’t yet exist.
However, in the future we anticipate making it possible to determine the scope of a property change at the moment you make it, and if you could specify up-front that a property change you’re about to make should be global, it would apply not only to all existing layouts but also to any new layouts that are subsequently created. We’re some way off this state of affairs, but the challenge is mostly one of user interface: the underlying properties system is designed to accommodate it.
Thanks Daniel.