staff spacing problem

In my orchestral score I have one (upper) staff much bigger than others. Dorico is doing automatic staff spacing, but in strange way. There is big gap under the upper staff, then very short gaps beetwen woodwind section (collisions are not avoided), and the gaps are getting bigger in string section (collisions are avoided).
See the example:


How can I tell Dorico, that I want to have proper „avoid collisions” in every staff, and I want, that Dorico will take into acount this big gap under the first staff?

More thoughts about it.
The bigger gap between upper staff and rest could be caused by Dorico logic. And I would be grateful, if someone could tell me, if it is the way to force Dorico to take into acount this big, empty gap during the automatic staff spacing.

But, I think, the problem with woodwind spacing is caused by Dorico bugs. Currently I am engraving big orchestral score and everything went perfect, axcept the few moments, when Dorico started to behave strange. E.g. I am moving the object (collision avoidance is switched off) in „engrave mode” by arrows and the staff spacing is changing. There should be no connection between this actions.
And now I am working with last part of the piece, less traditional, with one big staff and Dorico is doing this kind of strange things increasingly. And it noticeably slowed down.
See the attached example
spacing01.zip (994 KB)

Sorry for writing post after post, but Dorico is starting behave more and more strange.
When I am moving objects in engrave mode, staff spacing is changing, but in my opinion without any logic. It seems to be connected with dynamics, which are moving in strange directions.
See example:
arpeggio5.zip (1.68 MB)

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Del Gesu, I believe spacing is based upon staff size. That’s probably the reason for the large gap between the large staff and the others. What is your setting for vertical distance for “Staff to Staff Group”?

Also, although the string staves appear more widely spaced, they have a lot of extending elements that Dorico is trying to avoid. In short, it seems you are not providing enough vertical page size for Dorico to space the staves satisfactorily. Just a hunch.

Thank you, dankreider. You are probably right about this big staff.
But there is also another thing, and in my oppinion it’s not connected with it. I think, I fugured out, what’s happening. There is a problem in Engrave mode. Sometimes, when I am trying to manually move any object (it could be shift-X text, ornament, etc.), Dorico somehow is connecting this action with a random dynamic and move it also. It’s obviously changes staff spacing. The solution is very simple: I am looking for this dynamic, click on it, move right or left and comeback to previous position. And everything goes back to normal.
In my oppinion it’s a bug.
See my previous attachement and look for dynamics in one before last bar. It should be like in previous bars, but it’s not. If I move it and comeback, everything looks good again.

I agree, that sounds like an entirely different problem.

Piotr, I agree that the problems you’re seeing with apparently unrelated items in Engrave mode causing dynamics to move is indeed a bug, and it’s one that is on our radar. If you have a minimal case that reproduces the problem, e.g. if you can cut it down to just a single page in your larger project, then it would be helpful if you could either send it to me or attach it here so that we can check that it is fixed.

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Hi Daniel,
Just wanted to check in on this bug since it’s been a few years from your last reply. I seem to be having a similar issue when moving a text item horizontally both in Write and Engrave mode. The staves continuously get crunched together with each move, eventually until the staves invert, even when just toggling off the position offset.


At least in your recent sample it appears you’re forcing wayyyy too much into each frame. The bottom image shows a frame fullness of 184%. At that point, the algorithm can’t help you. Try forcing fewer staves into the frame and I suspect it will sort itself out.

Isaac, if you could attach your project here, together with the steps required to reproduce the problem, we’ll take a look and see if we can figure out what’s going on.

I also wonder if all your text boxes are partly to blame. Perhaps defaulting to collision avoidance off would help.

Thank you both for the quick responses.

To address Romanos401’s questions:
The frame is originally 95.3% full before the bug begins spreading out the staves.
I tried the collision avoidance toggle, and it causes the staves to be spread out even further every time I toggle it. Same with the text border toggle, offset toggle, color toggle, scale toggle, etc. Strange bug…

For Daniel:
Just to add some extra information that might help, I believe the issue was also happening with timecode markers in this document. I ended up switching them to text boxes, but it seems like the bugs are related. Maybe the staff spacing algorithm isn’t updating properly, since once I delete then undo a system break, the strange spacing resets (this has been my workaround in the meantime). Perhaps it is triggered by the text element protruding from the music frame.

I attached the Dorico file. I colored the offending text elements in red. To reproduce, try adjusting any of the element’s properties in Engrave mode, or simply move it horizontally using key commands. I’ve tried this on 2 separate systems running Windows 10 64-bit, and the bug was reproducible.

Cue Template v3.dorico (445.0 KB)

Thanks for sharing your file, Isaac. This problem is fixed in our development builds, so it won’t be a problem in the next major version of Dorico when it appears. In the meantime, you should find that if you close and reopen the project, the layout will be returned back to its correct appearance.

Thank you for the good news! It’s great to see the team is speedily quashing bugs. And thank you both for your help.

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