A Feature Request: is it possible to make the Transpose window more keyboard-friendly by redesigning Tabbing behaviour? The current window design in practice only allows input by mouse. And if that was the intention, why allow tabbing from the keyboard at all?
Currently there are several inconsistencies:
On opening, the focus is on “Transpose by:” but this selection cannot be changed from the keyboard
Next in the Tab order is “Quality”, followed by “Interval:”. These are the wrong way around of course: you need to choose a Fifth or a Third before choosing “Major” or “Perfect”. The current order does not work for most intervals.
Next in the Tab order is Up/Down (in Pro; Elements seems to skip this step).
That would be great if it worked, but this essential selection once again can only be changed by using the mouse.
— Next in the Tab order is “Number of Octaves”. This works fine from the keyboard.
It would be great if next in the Tabbing order was “OK” instead of the 11 (!) tabbing steps required at the moment before finally getting there…
BTW Team, I love Dorico - thanks for all the hard work!
It would also be useful if the last selection was remembered next time the window is opened and/or there was a box in the corner with the last few transpositions used.
Unfortunately the toggle button pairs that we use in this dialog and in other places are awkward with regard to keyboard navigation. We would probably have to use a different set of controls to make this possible.
I do agree that it would be ideal if the window would at least remember the last-used settings when you return to it within a session, and this is on our backlog for future implementation.
If the two Toggles were simply replaced with Select boxes, we could have furiously fast Transposing without having to wait for a major code update … see Mockup
Fair point - that is super quick. I must remember to lose the browsing habit.
The tabbing order- for those who do attempt it - is typically random: it takes you through Alpenhorn in F and an empty drumkit before arriving at the instrument sections
You cannot, in general, exclude specific controls from the tab order in a dialog: all controls must be part of the tab order, and in general it is also important that the tab order reflects the visual ordering of the controls in the dialog, which they do in all Dorico dialogs, including the Filter Notes by Pitch dialog.
The tab order in the instrument picker is also completely deterministic and not in the least bit random: you start in the search box, then you tab into the list of instruments (because having typed the start of an instrument’s name, it’s the instrument you now want to navigate, not the family), before moving to the right-hand list (which we call the “variant” list, because it lists variants on the chosen instrument from the middle list), before moving to the left-hand list (the family list), before returning to the search box. This is all carefully thought-out, even if it doesn’t match your own preferences.
