I noticed a strange/unwanted behaviour of staff-attached text.
I have understood that staff-attached text is attached to rhythmic position instead of notes. But when I move the note from it’s position (alt+right arrow), and then move it back (alt+left arrow), the text that was in the original rhythmic position as the note, disappears (as if the text and the notes are somehow connected, and the moving notes can “eat” the text). Does anyone knows if this is the intended behaviour, and why? I searched the forum and google but didn’t found an answer. What I am missing? Thank you for any advice. (this does not happens with system-attached text)
text eaten by notes.dorico (465.3 KB)
When chord mode is not activated, pasting or moving content replaces whatever was at the destination.
It doesn’t seem quite logical to me … When moving one object type (notes) with no objects of another type (text) in the selection, Dorico still replaces the latter type at the destination with that nothing. But at least the behavior is consistent, and I know to expect it.
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Thank you @Mark_Johnson : ah yes the chord mode!! Didn’t thought about that. 
But nevertheless I find also no reason why the text should disappears (as you so nicely describe) …
It would be desirable to have an option than anchors/locks it in some way, and make the text persistent and not “eatable” by rhythmically moving notes. But maybe there is a more intrinsic reason (beside the replacement that you mentioned).
(let’s see if some statement from the Staff comes, before I mark this as solved…)
I don’t have much to add, really. When you use Alt+left/right, Dorico is doing many of the same things it does when you copy and paste, and in general when you paste, the whole region is overwritten (unless you have chord mode enabled). I think we have some special exceptions for things that won’t be removed when you copy and paste, but text isn’t one of them.
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Dorico frequently destroys my System Texts without appeals granted (except to undo), i.e. yes, Dorico does eat Text. So, System Texts do not ‘merge’ into new material (which, I believe they should, but, they don’t). The solution is to be always aware this might happen, and move the Text before it gets eaten, or to place the Texts on a stave(s) created especially for Texts (such as, I always have Sketch staves, to hold these) so therefore, new musical items in the musical staves don’t affect them.
If you read this thread, you will see that if you activate the chord tool (as a merging tool) the text will not be eaten, as suggested above by @Mark_Johnson.
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That is true, but, operating in chords has other limitations, such as not being able to overwrite the notes either (which of course is why the Texts are not eaten).
Another option might be to use system-attached text (shift-alt-X) but that also might be different than what you want.
My preference would probably be an additional text lane outside of both of these texts, which could be called Expression Text, which would not get eaten, and could be used for these purposes, but that is a wishlist item.
this topic is about text being eaten by moving notes in their rhythmical (horizontal) position, and then back, (and the eating can be avoided using the chord mode). You can anytime move (without text being eaten) notes/chords in their vertical positions (with the shortcuts and independently of chord mode status) or overwrite them with the caret and midi input and chord mode off (or chord mode on and just input the missing notes).