I find the overall note entry concept of Dorico slightly problematic, particularly when relying primarily on a laptop (i.e. Macbook Pro) keboard.
The “chord mode” doesn’t really make sense - why waste time to switch a permission to enter chords on and off? It just you one down…
Also having to enter chord notes via keyboard by hitting the appropriate key of the note name is rather awkward in practice.
It would have been much easier and quicker (!) to simply copy the Sibelius way: enter one note via its note name and then add the intervals above or below this note to get the desired chord.
And why do the selected properties’ panels feature those little left/right switches, only to activate a selection of options which then again have to be chosen and thus activated all by themselves? It would be much more hassle free to be able to select the sub-options right away without having to activate them beforehand.
Many of those sub-menue/properties functions can be accessed in Sibelius via simple keyboard shortcuts, e.g. flipping a stem or a slur by typing “X” (in a breeze).
I find the lack of many of these clearly time-saving concepts simply mind-boggling. Why do you guys need to make things slightly more complicated? This somewhat reminds me of some of the clutter of Finale…
I think the Dorico team should really focus on speed, speed, speed when developing the system for entering the music in the first place.
You really shouldn’t fall for the trap of turning into a second kind of Finale.
…or the Musescore way, where you can use intervals or note names. Finale btw has more or less the same routine as Sibelius.
And why do the selected properties’ panels feature those little left/right switches, only to activate a selection of options which then again have to be chosen and thus activated all by themselves? It would be much more hassle free to be able to select the sub-options right away without having to activate them beforehand.
As far as I have understood, this is to make it more clear if an edit has been made to the default state or not.
Many of those sub-menue/properties functions can be accessed in Sibelius via simple keyboard shortcuts, e.g. flipping a stem or a slur by typing “X” (in a breeze).
I believe you can program shortcuts for forcing stem up/down.
I find the lack of many of these clearly time-saving concepts simply mind-boggling. Why do you guys need to make things slightly more complicated? This somewhat reminds me of some of the clutter of Finale…
I think the Dorico team should really focus on speed, speed, speed when developing the system for entering the music in the first place.
You really shouldn’t fall for the trap of turning into a second kind of Finale.
In my experience Finale’s entry methods are at least as smooth as Sibelius’, so I do not get the comparison… But everything comes down to what kind of music you are working with I guess. For my purposes the note entry phase of Dorico is very good - I have programmed some extra shortcuts though, and use some external scripts as well.
For people who have only used one of Sibelius or Finale for many years, note entry in the other one is “backwards” - if they have only ever used one option from “pitch before duration” or “duration before pitch”, many people instantly dismiss the other one as self-evidently “wrong” or “worse” than the only one they are familiar with!
I miss the simplicity of a one button “add diatonic third”, “add diatonic fifth”, etc. to the current note rather than jumping to chord mode and naming specific pitches to add notes to a chord. Fast entry of intervals to one or several notes (without an intervening dialog) would be very helpful for keyboard entry in Dorico.
In another thread somewhere Daniel mentions plans for a very cool popover to add intervals to notes, it seems it will be quite a bit more powerful than the Sibelius version.
Regarding the differences between Dorico and other software, I’m finding that the more I use Dorico, the more I like it. I’ve used Sibelius since 1999, and to me it became so second nature that learning Dorico was almost like learning a new language, with all its idioms, twists of grammar, etc. As other forumites have said, I think it’s worth trying things the way Dorico “wants” you to do them, at least for a trial period. Certain things that were a real pain in other programs are easier (chords with cross-staff notes is one instance I ran across just this week); other things, like adding intervals, aren’t as good yet. But the team are working hard, and they’re paying attention to its users. It’s a good place to be.
I’m with the OP on “speedy entry” for chords being slower in Dorico. That said, I can’t remember the last I input anything serious (in any program) without a MIDI keyboard, so this doesn’t bother me.
On balance, not having to worry about how notes/chords are split/tied across bar lines and beats dramatically speeds things up. Likewise, the fact that I can apply an articulation to a whole bunch of notes and then not have to go through and manually remove articulation from tied notes speeds things up.
You win some, you lose some. My guess is that the Dorico team will continue to improve things much quicker than either of the teams developing Sibelius and Finale.
It’s amusing (to me at least) that Finale has two input modes, “simple entry” and “speedy entry” - and guess which one is fastest, once you learn the shortcuts. (Hint: it isn’t “speedy entry”).
Oh, you are right. As long time Sibelius pro-user (since the year 2000!) I can sympathize with your experience. I must say I do feel the same.
Apart from the (current) hassle of getting accustomed to some Dorico-detals, the graphical output of the program is JUST PHENOMENAL!!
I urge everybody to stay in there – in the end this is gonna be sooo good…