Selection and view issues while navigating between score and parts with [w]

Dorico
1

I’m wondering if the developers would consider improving the UX when navigating between score and parts using the [w] key. This is one of my current big frustrations with Dorico: the selection and view getting lost while navigating around the music. I have some suggestions below:

  • Making multibar rests work with [w]: As of now, selecting a part’s multibar rest and hitting [w] will take you to an unrelated location in the score with nothing highlighted. Ideally, the corresponding whole rests in the score would be highlighted, and pressing [w] again would return you to the part. On the other hand, in the full score, selecting a bar rest and pressing [w] will do nothing if it corresponds to a multibar rest in a part. I would prefer that [w] take you to the corresponding multirest and select it.

  • Making chord symbols work more consistently with [w]: Currently, selecting a (non-local) chord symbol in the score and pressing [w] does nothing, rather than taking you to the relevant part.

  • Changing the behavior of [w] such that pressing it in the full score, with nothing selected OR with a system object selected, would return you to the last-viewed part (with the selection maintained). Currently, nothing happens.

  • Fixing the zoom/page-jumping bug, which has been brought up by other users. (Select an item, hit [w], then zoom. Page often jumps to a completely wrong location.) This bug, while quite frustrating on its own, has an unfortunate combination with the behavior discussed above, where the act of pressing [w] (say, while a multibar rest is selected) will cause the selection to be lost. In such cases, the usual suggested fix—running “View center selection”—does not work.

  • Creating a small, optional animation that would draw the user’s eye to the current selection. This could be set to fire every time “View center selection” is triggered, and/or when pressing [w]. As of now, it’s often hard to quickly spot the selection even after running this command, for instance on a crowded page, or the item is thin/small, or the selection ends up on the edge of the screen rather than the center.

Thanks for your consideration, and a huge thank you to the incredible Dorico team for the obvious love and care that went into making this software. It is so often a joy to use.

Sincerely,

A beleaguered copyist trying to meet a deadline

1 Like
2

Thank you for this post, I agree wholeheartedly with all your points!

The frequent jumping (often when opening the bottom panel, when switching modes, when zooming after switching layouts) is indeed very jarring and also happens in smaller projects.

I’d also very much appreciate if the view would not jump when using undo/redo commands (to A-B-test engraving or layout settings, where there is no selection or musical change).

Might I add to this topic that the view mode (page/galley/fill) is not always correctly retained when switching between write/engrave mode and different layouts.