Requesting the ability to add notes and accidentals directly in text frames and pop-overs

Dorico
1

I was surprised to discover today that I can’t just add accidentals to a text pop-over (for writing harp pedal annotations).

I can think of many uses for such a feature, and Sibelius has been able to do this for at least a decade.

Copying from the char map (in Windows) or memorising the unicode values does not seem like a user-friendly alternative.

2

You would likely save time by creating the Harp indications as Playing Techniques and assigning them from there. The initial effort would save time recreating them later.

3

You absolutely can – it’s just that the characters in the font are mapped a different way. Check out the SMuFL specification here and search around for other threads explaining the issue.

4

FWIW, the unicode values do work as expected… U266D, E or F… Ok, not as user friendly as other things, but some things are more complicated than that :wink:

5

Thanks for the replies. The Smufl documentation looks just like the unicode symbols, which doesn’t really help since only certain symbols have an alt number you can type directly (i.e., none of the musical symbols).

Should I make the “playing techniques” as individual naturals, sharps and flats for every note letter, so 7x3=21 techniques?

6

I made a macro using AHK.
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-F is a flat
-S is a sharp
-N is a natural.

Easy peasey.

I like to input them as lyrics, at least for musica ficta. Shift-up arrow puts the lyric above the staff as you type.