Shortcut for slur start/stop positions over tied notes

[Mike_Philcox]

Setting the behaviour of slurs on tied notes in Engraving Options doesn’t always give the desired result and I want to set up a keyboard or Streamdeck shortcut for changing the start and stop positions. I don’t see a related keyboard shortcut in either Dorico Preferences or Notation Express for Streamdeck XL. Am I missing something? Are there useful workarounds?

[asherber]

Sorry for being dense – what’s a rest on a tied note?

[Mike_Philcox]

Your dense-ness is nothing compared to mine! I am interested in slurs starting or ending on tied notes and will edit my post. Thanks for letting me know!

[asherber]

In that case – in what situations do the engraving options not give the desired result?

Edit: To answer your actual question, you can edit your keycommands file and add shortcuts for:

UI.InvokePropertyChangeValue?Type=X&Value=Y

Where X is either kSlurEndTieChainPosition or kSlurStartTieChainPosition and Y is either kTieChainEnd or kTieChainStart

But I’m still interested in what’s not working for you.

[Mike_Philcox]

I am inputting Debussy’s Prélude à l’áprès-midi d’un faun where slurs sometimes start at the ends of tied notes and sometimes at the beginning. I would prefer to mirror the printed copy and can’t do this via a simple setting in the Engraving Options.

I will try your recipe for editing the key commands file later. It will be unusual for me to do this kind of thing but will keep my fingers crossed.

[Janus]

@Mike_Philcox

…slurs sometimes start at the ends of tied notes and sometimes at the beginning. I would prefer to mirror the printed copy and can’t do this via a simple setting in the Engraving Options.

If the position varies, no option could possibly guess correctly which it should be in any particular situation.

One approach to these would be not to worry during input, but then select all those you need to change (ctrl-click each) and change the property just once for all.

[Mike_Philcox]

Good point @Janus. That may well be the easiest and best method for me to choose. I’ll think on it but know myself well enough to realize I place (perhaps too much) emphasis on having things appear the way I want right from the start. Perhaps I need a better way of dealing with my own idiosyncrasies!

[asherber]

@Janus

If the position varies, no option could possibly guess correctly which it should be in any particular situation.

This is true, but I wonder if you could get closer if there were an option that was dependent on the length of the tie chain. While I generally prefer slurs to start at the first note of a tie chain and end at the last note, I find that I’m more likely to make a different choice when the tie chain is long, because the long slur doesn’t look good. It would be interesting to be able to say “Start at the first note of a tie chain unless the tie chain is longer than 2 bars”, or something like that.

[Janus]

@asherber

“Start at the first note of a tie chain unless the tie chain is longer than 2 bars”, or something like that.

Perhaps. Though I would still be reviewing these on a case-by-case basis, so I don’t think additional ‘automation’ would speed things up and it would add yet more options to the system.

[Mike_Philcox]

@asherber

you can edit your keycommands file and add shortcuts for

@asherber I located the Dorico key commands file but don’t understand the syntax or see where to add new information and unlike you, online searches have not been helpful. I hope the Dorico team will consider adding to Preferences the ability to assign shortcuts for changing the endpoints of slurs that start or stop on tied notes.

[Vadian]

An alternative is to record a macro. Select Start Recording Macro in menu Script, change the property once and select Stop Recording Macro. Then specify a file name in the dialog. Those Lua scripts can be run from the Script menu.

Although you cannot assign a shortcut to run a specific script you can assign a shortcut to the Run Script… menu item, or run the script from the Jump Bar, or use a third party macro application (like Keyboard Maestro on Mac) to assign a shortcut to trigger the script.

[asherber]

Here’s how you can add shortcuts for these actions. What we’re going to do is use Dorico to add a shortcut for something else, and then change the command that shortcut refers to; that way, you only have to change text in the key commands file, not add something new. The only trick here is picking an initial shortcut that works in the same Dorico context as the command you really want to use.

1. Find your keycommands_en.json file and make a copy, in case there are problems

2. In Dorico, go to Preferences > Key Commands

3. Search for “Duplicate to Staff Above”

4. Add a key command for this action, using the key combo that you want to use for one of the slur ending actions

5. Click Apply, and close Dorico

6. Open your keycommands_en.json file in a text editor

7. Search for “CopyToStaveAbove”; you’ll see something like this:

   

8. Replace EventEdit.CopyToStaveAbove with the command that you want to map, e.g., UI.InvokePropertyChangeValue?Type=kSlurEndTieChainPosition&Value=kTieChainEnd

To map additional slur commands, copy everything from the { above the line to the }, after it (note: include the comma). Start a new line after the comma, and paste what you copied, then change the command name and key combo as needed. So you might wind up with:

Repeat as needed, save the file and restart Dorico. If there are any problems, you can always restore the backup of the file you made at the beginning.

[Mike_Philcox]

Well, I have successfully got the first shortcut working and will come back to this when holiday celebrations allow. Many thanks @asherber and best seasonal wishes!