Text Order

I presume that there’s no way to order stacked text objects, but why, when I Alt-click two text objects to a new location, does that order change?


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Doesn’t Dorico stack separate text objects according to the order in which they’re entered or copied? If I enter two different text objects at the same rhythmic position, they’re ordered from bottom to top, the second one being placed above the first. If I select and copy both, they get placed in the same order at the destination. If I copy the top one first and then the bottom one, their order will be reversed. I just experimented with this and if I try to change the stacking order of two text objects in Engrave mode, they seem to jump around wildly, almost as though Dorico is trying to restore the original stacking order. Is this what you’re experiencing?

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Ah: yes, I think it is doing it in the order they’re entered. I can also force the order by moving one of them (in Write mode) away from the stack and then back again, to put it to the top.

I guess the alt-click copy and paste must do each item in turn.

Engrave mode is probably a bad idea: it’ll be trying to avoid collisions and move them relative to their anchored positions. For a moment there, from what you said, I thought there was actually a stacking order property. I’m sure there will be one day.

I also have this problem.

Is there an efficient way to change the vertical stacking order of (system) text? Cutting and pasting doesn’t work to change the order so I’m re-entering each piece of text from scratch at the moment. Thanks.

It’s been asked litterally yesterday… although not exactly the same. The same answer applies, AFAIK.

…and I even posted a similar problem today, since I did not find this thread somehow (I swear I tried to search :expressionless:):

Daniel replied that there is no way to change the order of automatic stacking except reentering as @sammys said, which only works for the same type of text (e.g. system or tempo, since tempo will always be outside system, but two system texts as you described are stacked by input time). So for now we’ll have to live with that (regarding system text, reentering is probably faster most times than adjusting EVERY layout, but there will be occations you have to manually adjust everything, e.g. if you want system text outside tempo markings). Hopefully there will be some advancement in this area in the future!

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Coming back to this after a thorough “initiation” to Dorico 4.3. This is still a problem when dealing with different categories of text based items. The most typical is staff text and Playing Techniques, were the playing technique will always be below text, regardless of the order of input. Not sure how disrupting this is to implement, but a quick command in the lower panel to change the stack order of items, even simple arrows, would be an awesome addition, sort of a modern take on the “Bring to front/Bring to back” for Z-ordering in graphics applications. Of course, it could be a total nightmare to implement, in which case the suggestions above are good workarounds!