I could be missing something, but I think this may be a bug. This is the rhythm I’m trying to enter:
With pitch after duration, rhythm dot before inputting note, it works fine: 7 F T . F T . F
When I change to rhythm dot after inputting note, it breaks down in the middle: 7 F T F . … and then instead of just adding a dot to the second half note, Dorico adds a dot, a tie, and another quarter note.
Why not just enter it as 9 and shrink it using shift-alt-left?
Or a double-dotted whole note.
You don’t have to build long notes that require ties. Dorico does it for you.
(I’ll admit I find it a faff engaging double dot…)
Why not just enter it as 9 and shrink it using shift-alt-left ?
Because I don’t want to do math while copying music. 
Those are the durations I see on the page; I don’t want to have to figure out what the next largest note value is. I can see where this might be different for composers who are working directly in Dorico, but I’m engraving an existing handwritten score.
Edit: Also, the fact that I can enter this some other way doesn’t mean that this isn’t a bug.
I too do a lot of copying. And I also prefer to save six keystrokes.
(EDIT: and for copying, why on earth would you use rhythm dot after note?)
Oh, I see what Dorico is doing. The dot is adding half the value of the tie chain, not half the value of the preceding note.
There’s a certain consistency here: If I enter the second half note and then add an articulation or accidental, it applies to the whole tie chain and appears over the first note. But I would argue that all of these are poor design. First, the relevant preference says “after inputting note”. And second, this behavior doesn’t let me input the correct sequence of notes.
Dorico already has a concept of throwing away input that doesn’t make sense: if I add a playing technique and type something in the box that Dorico doesn’t recognize, it just ignores my input. Similarly, I would say it makes more sense to treat “after note” literally. If I type an articulation or accidental after a tied note, Dorico should just ignore it, because it doesn’t make sense to add those to a note after a tie. But if I add a dot, Dorico should correctly add just half the duration of the previous note.
There was a discussion about this exact same thing last week.
The reason it isn’t a bug is that Dorico is behaving as designed. We do not get to call it a “bug” just because it doesn’t do what you wanted. Forgive me, but as a longtime software tester, I am very sensitive to that word.
@Janus Because the dot appears after the note.
@Mark_Johnson Thanks – I’m new to Dorico and have been good about searching before posting, but this one I didn’t search first.
As I’ve said, I understand now why Dorico is doing this, but I still think it’s poor design, and I would vote for a change.
This is the conflict: You still think of the tied notes as separate notes, and Dorico does not. Move the whole thing an eighth to the right or left and watch what happens.
You still think of the tied notes as separate notes, and Dorico does not.
Yes, I see that. I have read and experienced Dorico’s ability to take entered notes and figure out the best way to engrave the durations, and I understand the benefit. But in this case it’s what programmers call a “leaky abstraction” – letting an underlying concept dictate program operation. I would argue that to any musician, the sequence above is a half note tied to a dotted half tied to a half note, not one note of 7 beats duration; I should be able to enter it that way.
As I said before, I get that Dorico is consistent in how it interprets keystrokes after a tie chain; I just think it’s not the best design and would strongly argue that it should be changed. Otherwise, the help file and the preferences screen should both be updated to make it clear that dots/articulations/accidentals after a tie chain will apply to the whole tie chain, since they currently clearly say “note”.
Many (thousands?) would disagree. Arguing (strongly) from cursory experience is hardly going to engender support.
Again (as a musician), I disagree (strongly?)
The task is to enter the 7 beat note as quickly as possible and notate it correctly.
As a musician, I think of it as a note that starts on beat 3 of one bar and finishes on beat 1 a couple of bars later. But that would probably work awkwardly as a way to enter rhythms (except maybe on a piano roll?) The best you can say about having to notate tie chains from left to right is that it echoes what we used to have to do with a pencil. I remember sighing with frustration when I was copying music (maybe using an early version of Sibelius, or Encore?) and came across a long tie chain, or a heap of dotted rhythms. I’ll take the win on speed any day of the week.
I am disappointed in how this thread progressed. When I started by saying, “I could be missing something, but…”, all someone had to do was say, “That behavior is intentional – Dorico is adding half the value of the tie chain.”
They told you, and you kept coming at it with claiming it was a bug and how it should be changed…and they replied back.
@Sergei_Mozart Nobody told me that Dorico was adding half the tie chain – I figured that out myself in the 7th post in the thread. And I never said it was a bug – I said it “may be” a bug, although I also said up front that I could be missing something.
The fastest way to get a single rhythm dot is to press the note value twice fast enough. To get more rhythm dots hold the option key and press the dot key 2, 3 or even 4 times.
Ah! (How did that one pass me by?) Today’s learning moment. Thank you.