Rhythmic cue dotted note error

I created a hidden djembe line for rhythmic cues on a lead sheet. When I add the cues, the dots are wrong.

In the first example, the rhythmic cue is set to the default distance, 2 spaces. You can see the second dotted half note has its dot offset to the right, which requires me to manually move it in Engrave mode (-7/8 spaces seemed to look about right).

In the second example, I tried moving the rhythmic cue distance above the staff to 3 spaces. This messes up the dots even more, adding a vertical mis-alignment.

It’s not a difficult fix, but it seems like the wrong behavior. Not sure why the first dotted half is fine and the second is not.

PS: Using slash noteheads for the rhythmic cue caused the dot to be placed correctly.

As an aside, slash notes show the dot correctly for a dotted half, but incorrectly positioned for a dotted eighth:


dot offset.png

The problem is that Dorico is trying to avoid the stems/flags/beams of the notes in the other voice column. When there are multiple voices with the same stem direction, Dorico considers all of those voices when they are paired up and interlocking when trying to determine the position of the rhythm dot. For the time being there’s not a lot you can do about this, unfortunately. You’d probably need to make the note undotted and provide an ersatz dot via Shift+X text in the meantime.