Tie/slur thickness

I noticed today that Dorico’s factory settings have ties thicker than slurs. Is this intentional? It’s a look I’m not used to.

I also noticed that if I start a new project from the hub, using one of the provided templates, that project has several differences from the factory defaults – including ties and slurs. Ties and slurs in this project actually have the same thickness settings, which are different from the factory settings for either ties or slurs.

Hi @asherber, yes interesting.
I also noticed that in the Dorico templates from the Hub there are several differences from the Factory settings in many places (looking at the Library Manager).
(Maybe the creator of these templates decided for a different look then the factory in different places, and those settings was saved in the templates.)

Generally I would make ties and slur thickness just slightly different (as in the factory or something similar), so that they cannot be confused when reading the music, and this may be I think the original intention of why they are different in the Factory settings.

I believe the reason is due to the fact that you can specify different music fonts in the Hub. If the json for the selected SMuFL font contains various default settings, these will override the defaults you have specified, or even Dorico’s own defaults. It’s one reason why I almost never start a new project from the Hub.

If I open the Bravura.json file, these settings (and more) are specified:

I think all of those settings will override your own defaults or the factory defaults if you start from the Hub.

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Okay, so I’m missing something here. If I do File > New and look at Library > Music Fonts, I can see that Bravura is selected and “Use font’s recommended engraving options” is checked. I can also see in the Library Manager that the engraving options are all at factory defaults.

Now I use Library > Music Fonts to switch to some other font, and then back to Bravura. I can see that the engraving options have changed to match the ones in the hub templates.

I can understand why Dorico’s factory defaults, independent of music font, are different from the ones specified in a particular font’s json file. But if I’m starting a new file with a particular music font, why doesn’t Dorico read that font’s json file to begin with?

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If I start from File/New then all the Engraving Options are my defaults, not factory or json. This is definitely desired behavior as it’s the only way to confirm that I am starting a file with all my latest up to date settings.:

I think the “Use font’s recommended engraving options” only applies when making a change in Library/Music Fonts or when starting from the Hub, as I am definitely not getting the json or factory settings when I start from File/New. If you change to another font with that setting checked, thus applying its json settings, then when you change back to Bravura you’ll be getting the Bravura json settings, not the factory or user settings for any settings specified in the Bravura json, so your Engraving Options now won’t match your User library.

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Ah, thanks, you’re right – that’s the conceptual piece I was missing. Since I’ve only been using Dorico for a month or so, I haven’t added any customizations to engraving options, so my user options are the same as the factory settings.

However, it does seem like there’s an issue here: A new Dorico user starting a document with File > New is given Bravura by default – but is not given the specific engraving options that go with Bravura. In order to get those settings, I think a user has to either start a document from a Hub template or use File > New and then switch away from and back to Bravura.

It might be nice if, when starting a new document, Dorico noticed that the user’s engraving options don’t match the json and offered to update them. This would also help in the case where a Dorico update installs a new version of Bravura with a changed json file – even with a project I’ve been working on for a while, I would like to know that the recommended settings have changed and have the option of importing them.

Personally, I would hate this. I’ve spent a lot of time customizing my Engraving Options, so I definitely want to use them and not have to bother importing my own settings. I honestly don’t really care what settings the font designer or Dorico devs like, I want to use my own!

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The whole reason for options is that everybody wants something different. By Saving your Engraving Options, you can be sure (by pressing “Revert to User Defaults”) that you’ve got what you wanted.

My choice of JSON settings for Sebastian may not be what every user wants. (In fact, I don’t think they’re even what I use!)

There’s nothing magical about defaults – the options have got to have some value to start with!

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@FredGUnn and @benwiggy – note that I said Finale might offer to update the engraving options, not force update them. And what I meant (poorly worded) was not to update the user’s options, but to update the current document’s options. IOW, File > New will start with the user’s options, then load Bravura and see that the current doc’s options don’t match the Bravura defaults and offer to update the doc to match. If you want to keep your personal options in that doc, you can just decline.

And obviously I haven’t thought through the implementation – probably there should be a “Remember my choice” checkbox or something like that.

I totally agree that Dorico should not override user options unless instructed to. My point is that a new user, or a user who has never customized their engraving options (and there are probably many of those) may never realize that they are using options which don’t match the ones suggested by the font’s designers.

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Yes, and we can be absolutely certain that millions of scores out there will end up with mismatched settings – regardless of how Dorico tries to handle the situation – and that nobody will ever notice, except the likes of us when we see them!

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