Systems collapse ~ why is it occurring?

Dorico
1

Hello all and I hope all is well.

So - I am working on a two pianos project and recently - when ever I try to click a note in - it collapses the entire page. Why ? is it a hardware issue?

  • I wasn’t able to get the page layout the way I wanted from the layout options so I am working manually. But the systems values are mostly the same although they will change again once I’ll introduce Ped. and articulation markings in… I dread to deal with this kind of behavior when I’ll start doing that…Dorico does give us users the option to define the page layout in engraving mode manually so why this is happening over and over again on the same spot… makes me rearrange each time the entire page… Also… very often one needs to change the T direction - why must press exactly on that blue button and not simply on the word itself ( less important) ?
    Thanks very much for your help.
    Regards - Rami.
    systems collapse
    systems collapse560×667 109 KB
2

Could you please post a small version of this file that has the same behavior? That will make it easier to troubleshoot.

3

I forgot the procedure , I reduced sound but this doesn’t change the size…

4

Maybe a version of the piece that only has a few bars? Or if the piece isn’t too long you can upload the whole thing if you’re comfortable doing that. You can also set the Playback Template to Silence.

For what it’s worth, I occasionally experience problems like your screenshot shows (it used to happen more often, now it is very rare in my experience). If I close the project and re-open it, that seems to fix it.

5

ok great I’ll try do close and re-open - thanks very much for your comment - cheers.

6

From the screenshot it appears that the value for Layout Options > Vertical Spacing > Ideal Gaps > Staff group to staff group is set way too high. This controls the gap between the two grand staves. For reference, the factory value is 8 spaces. If this isn’t the problem, as Stephen said, please upload a project - a screenshot shows us what you’re seeing, but it doesn’t tell us what you’ve moved manually on the page, what you’ve adjusted in Layout Options etc.

As to flipping ties, typing F (for flip) achieves exactly the same thing, and it’s much quicker than going into the properties.

7

In Ideal Gap I changed the values completely.
I gave 0 to all those that didn’t have an effect on my page ( staff to staff; staff group to staff; staff to staff group ) , staff group to staff group = 2, I tried to gave it the value of 8 as you’ve said but it had an un desirable fx…
the braced staff to braced staff = 5. Inter sys. gap = 0. I didn’t touched the rest. I set the pace size to 1.4mm .
After that I gave the systems in the page the values of:
8 - 10 - 8 - 14 but I had to change that at times.
Maybe I am mistaken but perhaps amore simplified way to set engravement for scores like two pianos or even one - could have been of help. But then there is a chance that I missed Dorico’s concept all together… still - I need to get some progress.

Thanks very much for your help and willingness - cheers.

8

Again, without seeing the project we’re in the dark here. From what you’ve already written, it sounds as though the reason that the vertical spacing options are having undesirable effects is that you’ve already been manually adjusting the gaps between staves and systems. My guess is that the vertical spacing options will behave much more predictably if you reset the manual staff spacing (Engrave > Staff Spacing > Reset Layout/Selected Frames etc.).

But frankly, I’m a little fed up with guessing. Please share the project so we can get to the bottom of this.

9

I had no intent to upset you I can only be thank full for the help you provides. Kindly remind me how do I reduce the weight of the file size and I’ll be sending the project to you a.s.a.p.

10
  1. Save As a new file.
  2. Switch to Play mode.
  3. Play > Playback Template… >
  4. Select Silence, Apply and Close.
  5. Save.
  6. Upload file.
11

file was sent to you as a message - thank you.

12

Which Layout are you working in? The screenshot at the top of this thread shows the Piano 1 & Piano 2 Part layout, whereas the manually-adjusted staves in the file are in the Full Score layout.

13

I see now that in setup all 3 are marked… but I rather work in full score… I mean - this is the score the performers will get…

14

Working with a space size of 1.15mm, if what you want is 8mm between staves, 10mm between players and 14mm between systems, those values in Layout Options should be something in the region of 7 spaces, 8 5/8 spaces and 12 1/8 spaces. That said, you should go lower as Dorico pays attention to items that protrude from the staves and these are really minimum values - it will tend to push music onto the next page in order, erring on the side of roominess.

You can counteract that to a degree by turning off Automatically Avoid collision between staves and systems (in the same bit of Layout Options), or by reducing the minimum gaps there.

You also have the vertical justification settings at their default values in all of the layouts, meaning that it a page is more than 60% full it justifies all of the gaps between staves and systems. As in your first screenshot this is a poor choice for a combination of staff size, page size and number of staves that results in there only being two (four-staff) systems on a page. I’d be tempted to set the next option down from 80% to 60% so that it consistently spreads the extra space between systems rather than between staves.

One thing you could do to give yourself more room - you’ve done this manually on page 2 - is to reduce the bottom music frame margin (again in Layout Options, I believe in page setup - sorry, I’m not currently in front of Dorico).

The manual spacing adjustments you previously made were relative to the vertical spacing settings that were in place at the time, e.g. Dorico tells you that the lower staff is 8mm from the top staff, but that’s calculated entirely as whatever the default distance is +/- the adjustment that you made. If you change the vertical spacing settings now, your manual adjustments will remain intact, but relative to the new settings. As I said earlier, to Engrave > Staff Spacing > Reset Layout (and maybe perform all this on a copy of the original file, so that in the unlikely event that you can’t persuade Dorico to do what you want automatically, you still have your previously manually adjusted version.)

I guess the bottom lines are:

  1. Don’t work a two piano piece in a part layout with the default (or nearly default) part layout settings, as in your first screenshot.
  2. Try to find a happy medium with Layout Options before you start manually adjusting staff spacing.
  3. Don’t use Make Into Frame or Frame Breaks set to Wait for Next while you’re still inputting music (and this includes pedal marks and accidentals).

Things are going to change as the music is entered and adjusted, so really try to resist touching anything in Engrave mode (at least in the Note Spacing, Staff Spacing and Frames sub modes) until you’re truly done with Write mode .

1 Like
15

Thanks very much for your very serious guidance. I’ll read it carefully a.s.a.p. . God Bless.