Setting up my "User Library"

Dorico
1

First, let me say that the Library Manager is a wonderful tool, the kind of thing I would expect to ask for as an enhancement and never actually get!

I am be using it incorrectly, though, so I am looking at the “best practices” to setting up a house style. As I am not a professional engraver, I learn things as I go, so I tend to make changes to certain settings over time, but I would like all my scores to use whatever my latest settings are.

I realize this might require manually updating and reviewing any existing documents because some settings may affect music that has been carefully laid out.

My current process is this:

  • I start with a file whose settings I like.
  • I export my setting with Library > Export Library. These become my “master” settings.
  • When I start a new document, I compare the settings in the project to my master settings and then make the current project match everything in the master.

When I want to change my master settings, I would:

  • Load a project file.
  • Check that the settings in the project match the master settings.
  • Make whatever changes I want.
  • Use Library > Export Library to overwrite my master settings.
  • For any existing projects, when I get around to revising them, check them against the latest master.

I was trying to eliminate the need for exporting and importing libraries. In the Library Manager, a “User Library” is the factory library plus any custom items or options I have saved as default. The new process would be:

  • I start with a file whose settings I like.
  • I make sure that each of those settings is saved as a default. In theory, I only need to save as default those settings that are not factory.
  • When I start a new document, I shouldn’t have to do anything—it will have my latest master settings.

When I want to change my master settings, I would:

  • Load a project file.
  • Make the setting changes and make sure that they are saved as default.
  • For any existing projects, when I get around to revising them, check them against the User Library.

This seems a lot simpler. I was trying to switch to this model. I can load a project and make its settings match my saved library, which is my current master. I would like to make my User Library match the library I exported earlier, but there is no option for doing this that I can find.

Trying to do this manually is not working out either. For example, I have different Expression Maps in my exported library vs. the user library. In the Expression Maps dialog, I have options for resetting to library defaults, importing, and exporting, but no option for making my expression maps part of the user library. Is this not possible?

Next, I move on the Font Styles. I have a different in the Rehearsal Mark Font. When I bring up the Font Styles dialog, there is no Rehearsal Mark Font entry. Even allowing the user library setting to get applied doesn’t make it show up.

Next is Noteheads. I don’t even know how to fix these! There is no library for Noteheads that I see; just for Notehead Sets, which are OK.

For Paragraph Styles, I have differences in paragraph styles that don’t appear in the Paragraph Styles dialog. I have some that do appear and that I’ve marked as default, and yet the Library Manager claims that there are differences. For example, the Libary manager claims the Lyricist style is different. When I expand the difference, every item seems the same, although a number of these end with an asterisk whose meaning is unclear.

Any help would be appreciated, either on fixing the specific items noted, or on a better way of handling the various settings in a global manner.

1 Like
2

Expression maps cannot be saved to the user library via Library > Expression Maps because in general they are only required for particular VST instruments/sound libraries, so the preferred way of bringing them into a project is by way of their inclusion in playback templates. When you create a playback template, any expression maps (together with other library items that they depend on, including playing techniques and playback techniques) are all bundled up into the playback template for application to another project.

For font styles, Dorico now uses a paragraph style to draw rehearsal marks. Earlier versions used a font style, but you won’t see this in the Library > Font Styles dialog, because we now hide font styles that are deprecated and are only included for backwards compatibility with earlier versions.

For paragraph styles themselves, if you are seeing differences, I think it is indeed possible for there to be differences in settings between two paragraph styles that are not captured in the way they are shown in the Library Manager. I’d need to see your actual project and user library to tell you precisely what the differences are.

With noteheads, if you save a notehead set to the user library, all of the referenced notehead types in that set will be added to the user library.

3

Thanks so much for your time. Let me focus on expression maps in this response.

I find the Expression Maps/Playback Templates/etc. features confusing because I only use Dorico once in a while and even less frequently work with those specific features. I am constantly forgetting everything I’ve learned.

After playing around a bit, I see that a new project gets the one Playback Template I added, so I think I’m OK. The missing Expression Maps are probably not used.

There is one oddity:

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In the image below (comparing a new project to an exported Library Manager file I exported some time ago), the default is reported as different even though all its settings appear the same. While I’m sure there is a good reason for this, you can understand how it might be confusing.

For what it’s worth, NotePerformer has the same problem. What is particularly disturbing is that the version numbers are the same in both cases.

4

Ok, I see that my Rehearsal Mark Font (Font Style) uses Garamond instead of Academico. The User library retains this for backwards compatibility.

If I open a new project, there’s no problem. If I open an old project, I will see (in the Library Manager) that the Font Styles differ between the project and the User library, and my goal was to update existing projects to “standard settings” by eliminating all differences.

So I I accept the settings in the User library in an older project, the Rehearsal Mark Font will change to Academico. I have no way of telling older projects to use Garamond, because I can’t alter the Font Style in the library.

Of course, if when I update a project to the most recent Dorico version, it automatically changes rehearsal fonts to rehearsal paragrahs, it should be safe to accept all User library Font Styles. Is that what happens?

I don’t want the rehearsal font to change as the change might not be obvious.

5

How would I get you a copy of the relevant files?

I created a new project (not from a template) and immediately opened the Paragraph Styles dialog. I did nothing else.

I have two “Title Page Author”, two “Title Page Subtitle”, two “Title Page Title” styles. If I click on each in turn, the second “Title Page Subtitle” acquires an asterisk (its settings are very different from the other one with the same name). The one with the asterisk is not marked as a default. For the two other pairs, the entries with the same name are all marked as default.

This looks like a bug.

6

This one turned out to be solvable: I didn’t realize that notehead sets were by category.

7

Yes, it is. We should probably ensure that the Library Manager doesn’t show font styles that are now deprecated and only remain in the project file for purposes of backwards compatibility.

You could attach them here, or you could send them to me in a private message. The easiest way to provide your user library file is to create a diagnostic report from the Help menu, which bundles up all of your settings into the zip file along with some helpful logs, crash reports, etc.

I guess what will have happened here is that you have either created styles with the same visible name, or at different times imported these styles into your project. When you import styles, their internal identifiers can be changed to avoid overwriting any existing styles in the destination project.

8

Dan,

Thank you for being willing to look at my issues. I’ve been continuing to move my preferred defaults into the User Library.

I start Dorico, create a New file (not from a template), and bring up the Library Manager. Currently, it comes up by comparing the project settings to the User Library.

Given that this is a new file, I would expect that, no matter what I’ve done, all options would match, but they don’t. All the differences seem to be a “Not in this project” problem. The project also doesn’t match the factory defaults, but I would expect that. I guess I still don’t understand how the User Library is supposed to work.

In case it helps. I am attaching a userlibrary.xml file I found in …\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg\Dorico 5 as well as the new project I created and saved without making any changes.

userlibrary.xml (546.8 KB)
Untitled Project.dorico (406.4 KB)

9

I think I see part of the problem.

I defined a style called Copyright Heading which the Library Manager shows as missing from the project. If I bring up the Paragraph Styles, the style appears. If I apply the style, the Library Manager stops showing it as a difference.

So there’s some optimization going on that doesn’t quite integrate in with what the Library Manager is doing. I mean, it makes sense at the programming level, but not at the user level.

There may also be (or not be) a bug with Page Templates. I’ve used some instructions from an old post about how to create default full score and part page sets. This is super important for me—I actually bought Dorico to try to create consistent scores, including things like title pages and other page layouts.

So I created my own default page templates, put them in the DefaultLibraryAdditions folder and edited the paragraph styles to match what is in my userlibrary.xml file. So the paragraph styles are referenced, but not recognized as actually being part of the project. The Library Manager says they are missing from what is in the User Library.

The simplest fix would seem to be to just make any new file the same as the User Library. It doesn’t seem that this should logically be necessary, but it does seem to fix the problems with the default template sets.

The main problem left with the page templates is that I use graphics, which are not retained, so I get to add them back in for every new file I create. I understand this is on the to-fix-someday list.

10

One more follow up in case anyone finds this topic with a search.

The process I’m planning to use is as follows:

  • Where I can, make my settings default.
  • When I create a file from a template, I shouldn’t have to do anything as long as the template has been updated after any User Library changes.
  • When I create a new file that is not from a template, the first step is to bring up the Library Manager and make all the settings match the User Library.
  • When I open an existing file after making a change to the User Library defaults, bring up the Library Manager and make all settings match the User Library.
  • To avoid the problem where graphic frames don’t remember their associated graphics in saved Page Templates, try to start most projects from a project template.
  • To have the default full score and part page templates include a master set of page templates, I had to mess around with putting my definitions in the DefaultLibraryAdditions folder and doing a lot of editing.

It’s taken a lot of work to get default page templates. In addition to having no built-in support for creating personal default page templates (other than editing XML files), the features available in designing page templates are rather crude and there appear to be a number of bugs. For example, it was often impossible to select an item without selecting other items. And it would be lovely to have a snap-to grid. But I got what I needed done.

1 Like
11

Does this also include percussion maps, percussion kits and instrument definitions?

12

Have experimented to see for yourself?

13

Have you?

14

It certainly includes percussion maps and percussion kits. I’m not 100% sure about instrument definitions, since it has only really been possible for them to be customised since Dorico 5, and I don’t recall whether we explicitly added them, or whether the existing checks we have to try to walk the tree of dependencies to find all the required library items will be picking them up already.

15

Thanks :slight_smile:
I’ll be merging a lot of Playback Templates in the next week so this helps me plan out that operation.

16

Instrument definitions are not included.
This also means that Percussion Instrument Playing Techniques are not saved with the Playback Template.

Now I just tried twice to create a New Instrument Definition for a percussion instrument. I gave it the “white star”.
Currently, the new instruments I defined can only be seen from within the project it was created.

When I open another project I cannot access those instrument definitions by either creating a new player or by changing an existing instrument,
so for the time being it looks like I have to recreate any of the notehead playback assignments manually.

Dorico 5.1.40.2138
Windows 10