Some suggestions / input from Dorico 3 user!

Dorico
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I have some input as a Dorico 3 user, that the team might appreciate. Maybe some of these already exist and I just don’t know it yet, so feel free to correct me ( I run Windows 10, a healthy updated PC)

  1. Can’t copy graphic assets and drag them easily. I use complementary custom graphic symbols together with normal notation for children music classes. I need to create a new graphic box in engrave mode every time, upload an asset again and resize it hoping it would be consistent with the previous ones. At one point I just gave up on the cumbersome interface and uploaded the score to Canva which made it a breeze! The team could surely use Canva as a base … it’s tedious to use 2 softwares rather would do everything in Dorico ofc.

  2. Still no support for non English languages. This is a HUGE issue. I remember posting about it a long time ago but I couldn’t get the solutions to work… I have to be on English in order for function keys to work (e.g Ctrl + C, Shift +B , Alt + arrow up etc.) … constantly switching language just for the sake of work environment is extremely time consuming

  3. Is there a way to upload fonts? There are enough English fonts for me but for other language I’m stuck on a few fonts that all look the same. In addition, there HAS to be an option to test how the font would look on a certain text just by hovering over the font from the list… Like I have to commit, see that it looks bad and open the list again etc. I mean WORD has this since ages ago it’s nothing ground braking but a pretty BIG time saver. Could do this with musical (note fonts) but that’s nit picking and not an issue really.

  4. I don’t think this has been fixed yet, but I still use the metrico font to write down tempo equations (e.g swing, dotted / tuplet rhythm etc.) Even Sibelius had a much easier way of doing this (You have to remember what’s what in Metrico)… Should just be able to create custom tempo equations or have common preset list and literally drag/resize as needed to score.

thanks again to Daniel and the team. I have to congratz Dorico support on being extremely professional, thoughtful and open to user feedback/suggestions… throughout the years!
and happy new YEAR!! :slight_smile:

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  1. This is indeed one of the weaknesses of Dorico; that said, perhaps you’re pushing the idea to its limit anyway. There’s nothing wrong with taking a score out of dorico to another program for further tweaking. Many of us do this all the time.

  2. There is support for multiple languages. Check your preferences. Assuming it’s one of the major ones, you’re probably covered. (Just to be clear: are you on v3 as you said, or 3.5, which is substantially updated from 3.0?)

  3. You can install any font you want on your computer and it should be accessible from any program. This isn’t a dorico issue; I think this problem stems from a misunderstanding of how fonts work on your machine. Also, fonts, writ large, are language agnostic. Most fonts don’t give a rip about what language you use them for as long as the characters you need are supported.

You can also install alternate “smufl” music fonts to change the notational aesthetic of the scores too.

  1. Metrico is still the way to go. I’ll be curious to see if this changes with 4.0, expected soon.

As for previewing changes before committing a font, this is indeed something that I hope gets addressed sooner than later. Even changing the font menu to add an “apply” button that doesn’t close the dialogue would be an improvement.

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@Chummy, what language are you running? As you know, Dorico has built-in support for the languages into which we provided localised versions of its GUI, but even if you are running your computer – and, crucially, have a keyboard – in another language not covered by our localisations, there should be nothing to stop you from customising the key commands you use to suit your keyboard. Very, very few key commands are not customisable via the Key Commands page of Preferences, but please do let me know if you are finding particular obstacles in that area.

Oh, and one more thing to say: if you are considering updating to Dorico 4 when it appears, you’ll actually save money if you buy the Dorico 3.5 update now, since you’ll get the update to Dorico 4 free of charge, and the update from Dorico 3.0 to Dorico 4.0 will be quite a bit more expensive than the update from Dorico 3.0 to Dorico 3.5.

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Perhaps you could create these as custom playing techniques if you use the same image more than once? You can set their size in the Edit Playing Technique dialog, and then input them in the same ways as other playing techniques.

Or if not, you can use the Properties panel to set consistent dimensions for frames.

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Thanks for the Answers, Romanos Daniel and Lillie

I use Hebrew and English text in Dorico, and my mechanical keyboard has 3 characters on each key - English Hebrew and Arabic (and of course Windows have 3 installed which I use alt+shift to switch between)

So Shift + B DID in fact work no matter the language selected… copy/paste didn’t, so I followed Daniel’s advice and it worked , now I can use ctrl C / V even if the language is not set to English! that’s huge… now, does it save the settings even if I start a new project? I’d hate to set up all the key commands I’d need every single project…

Lillie I tried your suggestion but it doesn’t work for me :frowning: I went to Engraving options, + new technique in unpitched percussion category ( I have a graphic for each percussion instrument). So most of my assets are transparent 512x512 size icons, some are smaller… I choose the file, clock add graphic, it is seen in the preview (but I can’t zoom out far enough it’s huge on the window). Click okay to confirm… and I get back to the custom playing technique window in Engraving options in which I still see the “new musical symbol” text (I have the Glyph option on). Not sure what’s going on? do I really need to resize beforehand…? or what’s wrong… Does Dorico allow for resizing playing technique symbols in engrave or write mode? and… do custom playing technique carry over to other projects?

Something I’d wish would also change are “setting presets” (similar to Cubase “studio” settings) that is, I could just select a template that would automatically remember all settings - in notation options as well as engraving options so I don’t have to re-tweak every single project… I have a slew of pieces e.g in a certain format that I’d want for it to be consistent through out… so I need to change all the bar line, layout options , accidentals, beaming etc. options for every single file which is again time consuming

About fonts, 10-15 or so fonts support Hebrew characters for Dorico, although WORD has so many more! and obviously all these are already on my computer since WORD has them. 90% of the fonts look exactly the same, and a few others just look bad to the point of being unusable. Not sure why Dorico doesn’t support the fonts I already have. I (think) I know how fonts work. I suspect Dorico reads them from the font folder somewhere in Windows (maybe system32 or one of these places) same way it would read plugins from the VST folder. Which is the reason I’m perplexed as to why only about ~ 15 fonts are supported since I assume WORD does it the same way as Dorico should…

Thanks for the tip about saving money on Dorico 4 if I buy 3.5 now. The thing is, how would I know if the core issues will be solved? I’m not talking about additional NEW content (more VSTs, playing techniques, whatever etc.) rather basic quality of life changes that should have been priority for sure (such as… well… tempo equations? copy/paste and be able to easily drag graphics? super basic!). Sibelius have all those ready for selection and implementation.

Sry for the long post anyway, where can I find the change list for v3.5?

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You can find the Dorico 3.5 Version History here. I’m afraid we can’t say right now exactly what changes Dorico 4 will bring.

The changes you’ve made to key commands are application-global and will apple to all projects you work on.

Regarding fonts, I can’t think of a particular reason why fonts might not appear in Dorico, except perhaps that they might require right-to-left support? Can you let me know the names of one or two of the families that don’t appear for you, and I can do a bit of research into it.

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Applications can have special licenses to use particular fonts that are not available system wide. There are a few fonts that I like that are missing from specific programs too. Odds are they are available in a particular app as a part of that application’s program files, and are not installed at a system level.

Sometimes you can find fonts for free and install them at the system level which will then make them available everywhere. Others have to be purchased, of course. In either case it often solves the problem.

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Well I have a huge list of fonts … 95% don’t work - they have absolutely no effect on the text
Among the few fonts that do work are Courier New , Frank Ruehl and Gisha
The font system is very problematic. Not only that most don’t work, but I have no way to test which fonts DO work, and even if I need to use English test I have no way of knowing how each font looks like unless I commit to it (then having to reopen the menu, and just choose the next)
It’s hard to scroll through that list anyway… how about “favoriting” certain fonts… just having an easier selection … creating a list of the few fonts I do use a lot… and just hovering on the font name while highlighting the text should change the text to the desired font. Then when I find something I like I can commit to it and close the menu. Those 2 features combined would solve the problem…

@romanos I guess that could help as well

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Honestly, it sounds like something very odd is going on with your windows 10 setup. Not having 95% of fonts is unusual to say the least, and, after reading the forum every single day for at least 3 years, I can’t think of a single other case where someone couldn’t make 95% of their fonts work.

Are you running your computer with administrator privileges? (Is Dorico running with admin privileges even if you’re not logged into the main account?) Have you tried running dorico on a different computer? (this assumes you have a dongle) or do you know someone else who uses the same language localization settings as you who exhibits the same issues? There are just a lot of questions and your experience is not normal, to say the least. (I am very sorry it’s happening to you!)

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@Chummy, are you running any third-party font management software?

These days in Windows 10 and 11, fonts are no longer simply installed in the C:\Windows\Fonts folder and can be in all sorts of odd places, but in general this shouldn’t prevent them from working in apps like Dorico: if they are listed in the application’s font menus, that means Dorico can “see” them and it should be able to likewise display them.

Can you provide a list of a few of the fonts that definitely don’t work? What happens when you choose a font that doesn’t work, exactly?

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If you’re trying to change Hebrew text to another font, most Latin fonts do not support Hebrew, so you will see a fallback font instead. This would explain why they all “look the same”. I can type עברית here but the text font on this forum (Bitter) does not have those characters, so for me it displays in Lucida Grande.

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Mark Johnson this is exactly what I’m experiencing! would you say installing new fonts inside my font system will be able to solve this? (as I understood correct me if I’m wrong Dorico scans all installed fonts automatically?)

BTW I just bought V3.5 update (from 3.0) yesterday ! hurray :slight_smile:

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Only if the fonts you’re installing have support for Hebrew characters, and the code points are the same between fonts.