When editing Staff Spacing in Engrave Mode, I can Alt-Drag a system, and this will appropriately scale any other systems that are in the direction the cursor is moving towards; in effect, I can proportionately squeeze staves together.
But is there a way of having such scaling also on the other side of the virtual cursor line, so that the remaining staves will be stretched out at the same time?
No, there are no secret modifier keys or other hidden functions in staff spacing: there’s unmodified dragging or nudging, which moves only the selected staff or system without moving anything else, and Alt+dragging/nudging, which compresses the distances between all of the staves and/or systems below the staff or system being dragged or nudged.
This feature would make all the difference to me too. The default output from Dorico is really impressive, but is not sufficient commercially, and I think it’s probably what Margret was hinting at in a previous thread.
Two things would help working with dorico:
- Staff spacing: it would be very fine, if one could define the distance between staves from bottom to top: define the bottom staff with say 0,00 mm and then define the distance to the next staff above by typing say 13,00 mm and so on. The bottom staves should remain in their place and the next staff above should be nudged upwards.
So the layout of the two pages side by side could look fine with both bottom staves at the same height and easy defining equal distances between the above staves.
I work from the bottom up too when working on a layout. Having worked out issues such as page turns and system breaks, I like to set the bottom margin first, set a common staff spacing for all staves (so would also like the option to be able to set all the staff spacing’s in one operation) and then drag the top stave upwards and have the other staves adjust proportionally.
So although the current Alt+drag(downwards) is great, we need an Alt+drag(upwards) to proportionally space staves after setting a fixed bottom margin.
I hope that makes sense. I did wonder whether a separate thread to discuss Engraving workflows might be beneficial, so that professional engravers can tell us how they work, what their objectives are and how they achieve them in Dorico.
I am very aware that most of us have experience of a notation program in the past, and in learning to use Dorico, we will naturally try to make Dorico do what our previous program did!
Although I outlined a request for a feature in my post above, the reason for discussing engraving workflows, is that someone might have a better way of achieving what I what to do, or there may be a new feature which fitted in better with Dorico concepts.
You could achieve what I want above with a new feature - ‘Trim frame’, where I could lay my staves out as I wish within my music frame, leaving an excess of frame around the music, and then trim the frame to the margin set in layout options. That frame could then be resized, and achieve the same result.
What we don’t know, is which way of working fits better with Dorico concepts and the constraints of programming!
I mentioned this elsewhere, but it’s worth saying again: I, too, wish there was a way that if dragging upward, say, the 4th staff from the bottom (or dragging downward the 4th staff from the top), the staves FOLLOWING the cursor would be adjusted in the same way the staves AHEAD of the cursor are adjusted.
When /if they do implement this, I sure hope it is via the use of modifier keys, because I like being able to move one stave without the others moving. I am hoping there will be a way in the future to LOCK the spacing. Sometimes you add a hairpin or text object and it destroys spacing because it adds room when visually none was needed.
They don’t need to change the modifier - it’s an Alt-drag now, and that’s fine. I just hope they’ll change the behavior of the following staves.
My point is, if they DO change it, I hope they do so with a modifier. I do like being able to move one and not have the others move.