Splitting selected notes in 2022 impossible

Dorico
62

Ou, klafkid, this is exactly what you don’t understand: dividing notes on paper (in case a bar has different notes, not of the same length) is quicker than in software. This is what I’m trying to push in mind of audience here.

I don’t even worry about your understanding of this subject as well as you understand this post isn’t for you.

I present here my view on single feature that Dorico doesn’t have and that’s all. You can like it or dislike, but the statement stays the same - dividing selected notes in 2023 is impossible even @Asacius gave a script to work around this problem. It could be very appreciable if Dorico team could make a script library segment in Library menu and every added script could be assigned to key command.

Only @Asacius understood what I meant - the selection of notes has different length (thus rhythm) and user needs to divide each note, halve them all. Simple task and I showed it on paper. That’s all.

If some of you don’t need this feature, please keep calm and comment on another threads.

I’m electronic + orchestra (hybrid) composer and I really don’t like that some arrogant users think they (and only they) are stars in this world of scoring and don’t see a little bit wider range of Dorico possibilities.

I’d like @dspreadbury to say something about Dorico’s conceptual purpose (I don’t think it’s just for the symphonic score). I’m sure it’s already good for jazz, pop, and other genres. So the workflow in many genres could be different. If symphonic composer cannot see the good of dividing selected notes in half, other composer can stuck on this.

So, Daniel (@dspreadbury), did you try @Asacius script? It’s genius. It is doing very different thing - copy, reverse, halve, move, reverse back, halve original, merge clipboard. That’s all. Easy peasy, right?! Alt-U divides selected notes according to selected note length (left bottom selection). My simple example of code do the same what I did on paper. Please connect you brain to this :wink:

If I have half note + 2 quarter notes and selected note length is 8th notes, by pressing Alt-U it makes whole bar full of 8th notes, but I need 2 quarter notes and 4 8th notes.

For round year I don’t understand what you all (except one) don’t understand. Do you all play a game “he isn’t English speaking, we can play with his nerves”? I have good and strong nerves. And I paid huge money to Steinberg and have one little inconvenience. Bet here I see many commented here even if they cannot help. Just for fun? It seems that forum don’t have moderators. I can offer me as candidate for this work. After a month no one will comment if cannot help.

If some of you cannot understand my poor English, I can switch to my native language and it will be very easy to use Google translator to translate to your language of choice.

63

I was curious about this so I did a test. I duplicated your example and used the technique described by pianoleo and SampoKasurinen above. In your example it takes you roughly 13 seconds to half and repeat your notes (starting at 0:23 → 0:39). I’m attaching a little gif where I replicated your example - and it took me 11 -12 seconds (starting at 0:02 ->0:13)

So for one measure? At the worst it is same amount of time for paper vs. Dorico. I suspect that for multiple measures Dorico will be even quicker than paper.

Your mileage may vary - and I am not the fastest person in front of a computer. But your statement that dividing notes on paper is quicker than software is not correct - the evidence shows otherwise.

This is NOT to say that your feature request is a bad idea.
Splitting Notes

64

Please think for 21st century - we should do this with one click. One command, not clicking on each shortened note and repeating it. Did I make myself clear? Or you think we buy today megacomputers to do the job we did in 90ies?

65

Again. - This statement is incorrect - it is faster in Dorico than on paper. Not to mention that it would likely look terrible on paper - while Dorico automatically re-adjusts the note spacing.

Again - this is not a bad idea - it has some merit. But AFAICT you seem to be the only person on the forum who thinks this is significant deficit in Dorico. There are scores (no pun intended) of missing features that are far more critical for many users. I suggest (if you haven’t already done so) that you take a look at the Dorico 5 Most Wanted thread to see what other users feel are important.

Couldn’t agree more.

66

Why do you think I should worry about things that are important to others?
I just pointed that this isn’t possible to do as easy as I did on paper.
We can achieve this by doing many different commands - halve selected notes and then duplicate one by one. I knew this long before I wrote all this **** here :slight_smile:

We call Dorico the best scoring program, but we still have to do a lot of things as if we were still living in the 80s. So, is it “old-school” or “vintage” :smiley:

67

Perhaps you already knew it, but you can add scripts to the script-plugins folder and assign key commands to them by adding them to the keycommands_en -file.

Here is how I have been creating some custom scripts:

  1. click ”start recording script” from the top menu
  2. do the thing you would like to automate
  3. click ”end recording script”
  4. give a new name to the usermacro -file located in script-plugins -folder
  5. you can access the new script via top menu
  6. optionally assing a key command to the script by editing keycommands_en.json -file
2 Likes
68

Thank you, @SampoKasurinen!

So, what may I write in parameter pairs in “kMusicEditable” context?
For example my own defined keys in Dorico looks this way:

"EventEdit.DynamicIntensityDecrease" : [ "Shift+Num+-" ]

I suppose it could be similar like this:

"Scripts.(how to point to script file?)" : [ "Alt+Shift+Q" ]

So tell me how to point to script?

69

You can install scripts in a folder called Script Plug-ins inside your user-level Dorico 4 application data folder. Those scripts will then appear at the top of the Script menu in Dorico itself. When you run one of those scripts, that will issue a command that you could graft into your JSON file. To find the command that was run, open the application.log file from your user-level Dorico 4 folder, and have a look at the command that appears there. It will look something like:

Script.RunScript?ScriptPath=/Users/username/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico 5/Script Plug-ins/script.lua

2 Likes
70

Brilliant! Thank you, Daniel!
I marked Asacius script as a Solution because only one reply can be solution, but also your answer is helpful.

I think it will be very nice in near future have all scripts in key commands preferences and a possibility to rename scripts or at least offer name input window after user hit “stop recording”.

72

This is something you can perfectly do since recording macros are available! Your last recorded macro is called usermacro (iirc), and is available in the folder described by Daniel. Change that file name to whatever you want and you’ll find it in your Scripts menu. In all your Dorico files.

73

And again we talk about techniques from the 80’s - go to the folder, open the .ini file, make changes, save and run the program.

@MarcLarcher, I want to remind you - it’s the 21st century out there. And offering a simple window to write a name should be DEFAULT FEATURE that should be included in any user interface where something is done on files created by the user. Keep in mind this and don’t write any additional jokes here! :smiley:

74

How about you meet me halfway and stop providing so many tempting setups? [emoji of your choice here]

75

Here we are talking about serious problems in Dorico UI.