I’m very impressed by the elegance and simplicity of the interface. The keyboard shortcuts and floating popover panels are fantastic! Note input using the computer keyboard is great too -that’s probably going to be the most important thing for me. 
Absolutely.
I am Australian and there is a rock in our country called Uluru. See a picture at
Now it looks like a pretty big rock doesn’t it? But it puts it in perspective to know that the vast majority of the rock is underground.
Dorico is like that rock. What’s visible is magnificent but there is an incredible amount of invisible work that has gone on that’s underground - that’s not visible to the user that will seep to the surface as users begin to engage deeply with the program.
Even if we focus on what is visible with Dorico there has been so much blood, sweat and tears poured into creating an interface that will empower professionals but be accessible even to young children. My son is seven years old and a keen musician and I plan to use Dorico to TEACH HIM ABOUT MUSIC AND MUSIC THEORY. There is at least a couple of terms of music theory lessons built into Dorico. The very fact that Dorico will automatically fill bars with the required rests, group music so it doesn’t go across the half bar, or rebar music when time signatures are changed will provide enormous insight.
Like it or not software in the way it is designed is both empowered and limited by the chosen design from the beginning. It’s a case of making a bed and then everyone has to lie in that bed. The wonderful thing about Dorico is its creators have spent YEARS thinking about what kind of bed we all get to lie in. And we haven’t tried it yet but I have a feeling this bed is going to be a very comfortable one indeed.
People are so short sighted. I predict that it won’t be long before that enormous work put into Dorico is taken for granted. Oh well. I refuse to be one of those people. I am not criticising people for making suggestions or even criticisms - I plan to make plenty. But we need to realise that a group of people have given the musicians who can relate to notation around the world (an important subset of the world’s musicians) an extraordinary present that will lead to an explosion of creativity and productivity - it will completely change the way in which some people spend every day. I have used Personal Composer, Finale, Overture, Sibelius and have longed for a program that works as well as Dorico will. And I plan to be grateful EVERY SINGLE TIME I USE IT that I can focus my energy on the music and not on clerical work or wrestling with notation.
Oh and I forgot to say something important.
Have you stopped to consider the effect of the Dorico team’s raising of standards? Their work will cause developers of other programs to feel obligated to provide a better experience. Whilst “the best in the world” is now a far higher standard than before but so is what you might call “acceptable”. The notation features provided in some programs have as a result of what the Dorico team have done now gone from appearing just ok to being pretty much unacceptable…and we can also thank the Dorico team for causing that to happen.
It was obviously a calculated risk to be so open about the development of Dorico all the way through from the start, in Daniel’s Making Notes - as you say, raising the bar before the product was even on the market. There was a lot of quiet authority, maybe even a hint swagger, about the blog, which I really liked. For me the best part is the feeling that we’re in dialog with the developers about their product right here and that they will listen actively to what we have to say right now - no remote IdeaScale for example. There’s no other forum that has quite that atmosphere, for me. I am unashamedly excited about this product; the way it’s going and the future possibilities.