rest input doesn't display values

When you enter rests, the value of the rest isn’t displayed until after you then enter notes.

So, for example (narrating through the attached screen shot):

I want to enter a quarter rest followed by a quarter note. I enter the quarter rest, but the display shows two half rests. (I assume I’ve made an entry mistake.) But then I enter the quarter note and get the desired result.
rest-input.PNG

If you want exactly the rest values that you input you need to turn on force duration before you input them.
But most of the time you can just input the notes and Dorico will pad them with implicit rests as needed according to your settings in Notation Options. You see, that is kind of the beauty of it: in Dorico there are notes and there’s empty space between them. Rests as explicit objects don’t exist – unless you force them to exist with force duration.

The key thing is to simply advance the caret and input the note where you want it to appear: you don’t need to input rests, because Dorico will create the rests you need automatically.

Doh! Of course!!! Thanks for your patience. I’m obviously in a habit from other notation software where you have to break up a rest to enter notes.

I’ve had Dorico since Dorico 1, but Dorico 2 convinced me to commit to it with two small choral pieces this summer. It’s a big paradigm shift for those of us with habits (I’ve been using music notation since Personal Composer and SCORE in the '80’s). That’s my excuse for not noticing elegant things like this, but this is why I’m switching. So, again, thanks for your patience!

Dear pshpshpsh,
We’ve all been there! If you want to know more about some of these key concepts, I recommend investing some time looking through these wonderful videos. They are concise and clear, and you’ll definitely learn something new!

You might like this wonderful anecdote: Is Dorico intuitive? - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
:slight_smile:
No old habits — no difficulties with Dorico… Isn’t it a fantastic piece of software? I bet F.M. Alexander would have liked it too.