Shift+Alt+Arrow Up/Down on notes: accidentals behavior

Hi guys,
can someone please explain me how Dorico selects if a note gets a flat or sharp lowering or rising it by Shift+Arrows? I don’t get the logic. E.g. with a C Major key signature, i get a C-Sharp and an F-Sharp, but an E-Flat, A-Flat and B-Flat, regardless if i raise a lower note or lower a higher note. At least for me it would be easier to use/predict this shortcuts, if i get always the flat note using Shift+Arrow Down and always the sharp using Shift+Arrow Up. Don’t know if i was able to explain clearly what i mean :slight_smile:

Dorico spells the accidentals using an algorithm, not based on what you pressed. It tries to be smart and usually does pretty well, but you can change the enharmonic using Alt-minus and Alt-plus.

Thanks Dan, that explains a lot. Unfortunately, it is not always smart enough, especially in quite complex harmonic situations.
@ Dorico Team: Would be a nice time-saver, if it would be possible in the future to choose between the actual behavior and the one i described above, so i can be 100% sure to get the desired accidental.
Regards

So if you’re on a G and you use Shift-Alt-down, you’d never want an F-sharp? I wouldn’t want that sort of behavior, sorry.

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Fact is, that if i use Shift-Alt-Down in say bar 5, i get a F-Sharp, but in bar 9, i get a G-flat (tested in this second). And i definitely don’t want this behavior.

I want to raise a half step and get a sharp, or lower a half step and get a flat, I’ll simply just add a sharp or flat with a shortcut rather than see what Dorico guesses based on context with Alt+Shift+Arrow. If it does guess wrong I’ll simply use a shortcut to quickly Respell it. These are all pretty easy to program. That said, I would like to see a setting like Finale’s Preferences/Enharmonic Spelling/Favor Sharps or Favor Flats to make things more predictable when inputting with a MIDI keyboard.

CTRL+ALT+Down Arrow transposes down an octave for me.
ALT+plus and ALT+minus do the enharmonic shifts, and just pressing the minus key changes a G# (or G-natural) to a G flat.

Perhaps I misunderstand the conversation, or perhaps my U.S. keyboard works differently from frave’s.

My mistake: CTRL+ALT+Arrows moves by an octave…

I’ll correct above.

I really like all of the “arrow” shortcuts (changing the length, the starting position or the pitch of a note) because you can leave your fingers on the same keys and edit very fast a whole passage of already inserted notes (e.g. a sequence of chords, tweaking a melody line, and so on… but never mind, it seems i’m the only one working this way :wink:

I also use the arrow shortcuts a lot, but in conjunction with the other respell shortcuts. I find Dorico does a pretty good job at guessing the harmonic context, but yes, it does often get it wrong in polytonal passages or if there are frequent modulations. I usually make two passes - the first to get the pitch right, the second to rationalise the spelling if necessary.