Fair enough, as you say, Rob. You may think there’s no reason (I enumerate reasons above) but what you think is not really the issue. The issue is that the notation program is editorializing my notational content, and I should be able to write what I want to write when it comes to text expressions.
And I prefer purple paper, FYI.
Hear, hear.
While I don’t agree with you about leaving out periods in standard musical abbreviations, I do agree about being second-guessed and "corrected " by Dorico. During my trial of Dorico 2, I found it infuriating, time-wasting, and a big minus for the program. Perhaps Dorico should have two modes: one for those who want a lot of help, and one for those who don’t.
In German there has to be a dot after abbreviations most of the time. Therefore “sim”, “pizz” and “sub” look wrong to my German eye.
Ordinal numbers need a dot all the time. Therefore I’m still hoping for an option “1.-3.” Instead of “1-3.” for repeat endings. I always have to change this by using custom text.
Having “whatever is in the popover appear in the score” is not really viable I don’t think, and I certainly do NOT want to see that.
The popover is not like “you type the symbol and it appears”. It is more of a replacement for Finale metatools, except instead of a key you type some word that represents it. In Finale you can make an articulation “pizz.” (or without the dot if you like) and then you press some hotkey for the metatool (whatever is assigned by default or what you assigned) to get that articulation. In Dorico instead of a hotkey there is a brief keyword within the popover that represents the articulation - ex. “pizz” in this case. It is not the same thing as Sibelius where everything is typed as text freely. It is more like the articulations options in Finale and metatools. In Dorico with the popovers, you could make simply the letter “p” create “pizz.” if you so wished.
Would you really want Finale creating a new metatool for you automatically if you once mistype pizz as pixx and press enter before realizing your mistake? While working on a score you could end up making a few typos - do you really want to have to not only correct the typo but also delete the new playing technique that the notation software made based on your typo assuming it was a real thing?
It is not a bad thing to have computers second guessing people. People can make mistakes occasionally. It happens to everybody, no matter how careful. That’s why they have things like spell check, etc. The important thing is that there is a way of overriding things so you can get what you want, or changing the default to match the way you work.
There is a difference between being able to write what you want and expecting Dorico to reprogram the interface to do it for you.
I think this is the best perspective. Dorico is semantic, not graphical; and as such, has obvious restrictions.
There is far too much bad engraving out there, and Dorico has made me a better engraver (yes, that’s what I said). It has helped me to understand conventions and best practices, which have in turn driven me towards a deeper understanding of notation. And no one can dispute that Daniel and the team are constantly open to input from users if there’s a compelling reason for a notation option, or a precedent in published literature.
Want to write anything you want with zero restrictions? Use Adobe Illustrator!
Thanks for you patient explanation, mducharme. I confess that I was not a great fan of the popovers when I tried the program. I prefer having my own library of markings that I can pop in with single keystrokes. And I remember trying to insert certain expressions, Dorico refusing to let me, and having to do some kind of workaround.
But I am at a distinct disadvantage no having access to the program. As soon as the Dorico 3 trial is available I will demo it again. Maybe I will like popovers with more familiarity; especially if I can develop of library of my own markings that can be entered as easily as I do now.
All this is understandable, but honestly if I have a misprint (writing “pixx”) that’s on me and I should correct it in my editing. I’d much rather be able to make a typo then to not be able to enter the language and symbols I want because of whatever convention we’re adhering to (and note that those conventions change).
(As an aside, why doesn’t Dorico do “espr.” when I enter that in the popover? Is that not also an abbreviation?)
I just tried to write “F espr (second time p)” as an expression and what came out was "p espr (second time "
And so fine if we’re thinking of the popover purely as a traditional dynamic/expression entry tool, but then I have to fudge it every time I write something that doesn’t fit into Dorico’s pre-fab notation? I find that to be limiting, not enabling.
The only category of popover that can be really customized in regards to the actual text input is Playing Techniques. The other popovers parse what you input, to varying degrees (for example, you may have Csus2 chords set to show as just C2, but you still need to input “Csus2” for now). Other popovers’ properties are set via Engraving Options.
Playing Techniques can really be pretty broad. Here’s an example of the options that appear when I start to type “2” into the popover. Three of the choices are ones I created and use often.
In the future, I hope we will be able to have more control over our PT libraries: omitting what we don’t want, creating groups, and importing/exporting as needed.
(As an aside, why doesn’t Dorico do “espr.” when I enter that in the popover? Is that not also an abbreviation?)
I just tried to write “F espr (second time p)” as an expression and what came out was "p espr (second time "
And so fine if we’re thinking of the popover purely as a traditional dynamic/expression entry tool, but then I have to fudge it every time I write something that doesn’t fit into Dorico’s pre-fab notation? I find that to be limiting, not enabling.
This sounds like a candidate for a custom playing technique. Again, Dorico is semantic… so by definition, it can parse an finite number of text inputs!
But these are slightly different things. It’s somewhat conflating an outright error (“pixx,” which no one wants) with flexibility. Dorico is constantly adding options and features in this regard, but I doubt it will ever abandon its philosophy of guiding the user towards what’s “correct.”
But again, honestly… if you have the ability to define what’s correct for your needs, wouldn’t you want a program that was smart? I have probably entered “pizz” into scores a hundred times in the past week. I shudder to think that I’d have to go through every example and make sure in my haste I didn’t make a typo!!
My point vis a vis “pixx” is that I’d rather be able to enter what I want into a score with the possibility of making an error than being “corrected” every time I enter something that I want to have in my score but Dorico doesn’t want me to have. Notation has so many different perspectives (see all of the above) that I’m not fond of the idea of my notation program forcing me to follow a rubric or convention that the makers subscribe to.
It’s often very small things, but they do add up.
Color me surprised if Dorico ever allows you to make such glaring errors in input.
Dorico is not providing me a “service.” I’m a customer and this is a forum for questions and feedback. There’s something I’d like to see in the program that’s not a “feature,” but something that is possible and easy to do on the other leading notation programs. I’m not asking for the ability to write strange, exotic notations or to translate my score into abstract expressionism–I’m asking to be able to write “sub” instead of “sub.”
Dan, how unfortunately true that is. All current music notation software requires outside intervention to reach a truly professional level. I hope that Dorico will eventually reach a point where it is the exception, because music engravers need a single program that gives them control over every aspect on the page with zero restrictions. At that point, everyone who is serious about music engraving will flock to Dorico.
I hope so too.
As far as errors, I never worry about about errors with markings like pizz. etc. because they are part of my library of expressions, set up exactly as I want them, and entered with a single keystroke.
This was my feeling as well. I’d rather have the possibility of making my own mistakes than having to fight Dorico when it makes its own. This may come down to a matter of temperament, and it is possible that Dorico is not for everyone.
“Sub” is not a “glaring error.” But I don’t think we’ll come to an agreement on this, and it seems to be getting weirdly personal, so I’ll be done with the thread.
I don’t feel that I should conform to my notation program; would much prefer it conforms to me. I’ve bought all three versions of Dorico, so if that’s entitlement so be it. The other notation programs (which I’ll return to before that is the next suggestion) don’t force their rubric on me. I want the metronome mark before the tempo, to be able to write “sub” and “pizz” without periods, and to be able to enter rhythms in a way that shows the beat. I don’t think that’s a ton to ask.
All of those things are possible if you use Shift+X (for staff-attached, or Shift+Alt+X for system-attached) text, of course. You can type whatever you like and Dorico won’t express an opinion about it, nor will it try to correct it.
I understand the concerns that users have about the dynamics popover in particular because this is indeed one of the fuzziest areas of notation. Dorico’s current approach doesn’t handle well the sorts of adjunct instructions you get along with dynamics, like “espr.”. Because it is trying to parse what you type in order to divine what semantic dynamics you’re after, and e.g. the word “molto” could refer either to the dynamic intensity itself (e.g. “molto f”) or to a non-dynamic expression instruction (e.g. “molto espr.”), there is the potential for Dorico to get confused. I think in the fullness of time we need to overhaul the dynamics popover in particular to try to make it able to make a better stab at differentiating between these sorts of situations.
The best way to get exactly what you want in the score for the time being is to use the popover to type just the basic intensity, e.g. “f” or “p”. Then use the Properties panel to add whatever you want to appear before or after that intensity via the ‘Prefix’ and ‘Suffix’ properties. Dorico will not interfere with that at all: if you want to type “sub” with no full stop in as a prefix or a suffix, you can do so.
In general, I also agree with the sentiment that the software should conform to the user, and not the other way around, though there are of course limits. It’s easy to say that software should operate with “no restrictions” but impossible to achieve this in practice. Dorico is semantic by design, and one of the consequences of that fundamental principle is that it wants (it needs) to understand the music you’re writing. That also means that its understanding can only be as good and as rich as what we program it to do. I believe you can see throughout the application many thousands of benefits of this approach, but when you hit one of its edges, it’s understandably frustrating. We listen and try to act on that feedback as quickly as it is practical to do so, and I believe we have likewise demonstrated that.
To clarify, I think “sub” and the other examples you listed here are completely reasonable. Quite different from “pixx,” though… and that’s what I meant by “glaring error.”
Saying “I’d like more options” is a different animal than saying “I’d like to be able to enter typos freely.” That all I meant.
For most things (except for “sub”, which Daniel gave a solution for) you can simply edit all of the playing techniques with periods to remove them. You can save that as a Dorico file with no music and use that as a template for new files you create, then all of the playing techniques will not have the periods.
Yes, for playing techniques you can, as @dankreider said, and that takes care of the majority of cases.
You don’t even need to do that for Playing Techniques: just set each one up the way you like it and then hit the Star (save as default) button.
I use Dorico on two computers, so I find it easier to use the file method (unless there is a way of manually moving the defaults). Also, are these defaults replaced with factory defaults when a new version comes out and you upgrade, or are they retained? I don’t believe I’ve changed any of the defaults before, so I’m not quite sure what the behavior is.