I like very much to work in Dorico, and I am happy that I bought it. But certain speed issues are driving me crazy. I am posting here to describe my problems, to see if there are any solutions.
Entering lyrics. Whenever I type a hyphen or a space, I have to wait like half a second before I can type the next syllable. Can’t stand it.
Creating a new flow takes forever. Especially if there are many players involved. Each unchecking of a player that does not play in the flow also takes long time.
Changing the order of players in the score. Moving a player into or out from a group. Both these things take too long time.
Switching between documents.
I could go on, but these are the ones that come to mind right now. In my opinion, the slowness of certain operations are major drawback. When I once upon a time started with computerized music notation, I was using Igor Engraver. I liked it, but eventually I could stand the slowness and had to ditch it, and I went with Finale instead. Working long hours with a project, the small waits add up to something which really in the long run will make you give up and do something else instead.
My computer is a Lenovo Thinkpad T440 with i7 processor and 12GB ram. Is that enough?
I realize that the projects I have made sofar in Dorico have turned out to be quite efficient anyway due to the time saved in the layout process, but it is psychologically hard to not be able to get a decent flow while working.
Unfortunately in general there’s nothing you can do to speed things up at the moment. Creating and deleting flows will definitely be much faster in the next update. Switching between documents is slow because we have not yet implemented the ability to designate only one project as the active one for playback, which means that switching between projects requires all of the sounds to be unloaded and reloaded for each project when it is activated. Lyrics input is faster in 1.0.30 because the performance of the application is improved in general, but it is definitely still possible for the odd character to go missing between the popover closing in one position and opening again in the next.
I’m sorry for the frustration that the slowness is causing you. We are aware of the problems and do take the performance of the software very seriously, but we have to balance working on performance improvements with adding other needed functionality, so I cannot promise that we will be able to address them all in a specific timeframe.
Thanks Daniel for the answer, good to know.
Actually, when I continued working today, the lyrics entry speed was much better. Sometimes a restart can do miracles (or maybe a well rested brain…). Could it also depend on whether I was working in page or galley view?
I finished the music entry part of the job today, and I must say then in all fairness that the remaining layout work really was a breeze. That is IMHO where Dorico really shines, and that’s worth a lot if you ask me.