Sometimes a new time signature will be displaced in the bar on some staves compared to others.
Also sometimes a new time signature will be duplicated on some staves but not others. So it actually says 5/4 5/4 on some staves.
Is this a known bug? If not, I’ll try to work out conditions and send a file.
No, this isn’t a known bug. It sounds as if you’ve managed to create local time signatures on individual staves, which you can only currently do by holding Alt when clicking a time signature onto a staff, and only if there was no selection before you started. If you want to attach the score here, I’d be happy to take a look.
Probably operator error then… I can’t seem to reproduce it today.
If all the notes in all staves are tied over the bar line, what is the best way to select the new bar for a new time signature (to start on the new carline, not at the position of the note tied over it)? I’m sure this is my dumbest question yet…
Tied notes seem to play at increased volume on selection, proportional to how many notes are joined together? Is this supposed to happen?
Related question. How can I drag-select whole bars without including the previous tied note?
And how can I select multiple time-signatures to change them all to say 4/4? For example, after experimenting with a complicated time-sig structure, I decide that it’s best to just leave it in 4/4. Unless, I’m missing something I can only do them one at a time even if they are all selected.
Irrational time-signatures don’t seem to affect playback?
Not at all a dumb question. Double-click the note to show the caret, which will appear at the start of the note, then hit Ctrl+right arrow to move the caret to the start of the next bar.
I suspect not. I’ll see if I can reproduce this and ask Paul to look into it if I can.
Probably you have to manually exclude the note from the selection by Ctrl+clicking it afterwards.
At present, you can’t, though we hope to add this somehow in future.
That’s right: at the moment we don’t have any way of representing the required metric modulation. This will come in due course.
“Double-click the note to show the caret, which will appear at the start of the note, then hit Ctrl+right arrow to move the caret to the start of the next bar.”
Great! Shift-control-right arrow for me, for some reason.
Dear Steve Parker,
Cmd-right arrow for me (Mac) 
Thanks Marc!
That is better, because it moves to the straight to the next bar.
Has this been documented any further? I’m encountering this bug in the most recent release and it doesn’t seem to go away when I close and re-open the file or when I reboot Dorico. The voice staff and bottom piano staff seem to be affected but only after a certain point in the file.
I think you must have accidentally created “local” time signatures, i.e. time signatures that are specific to a single staff, in this project. Try deleting all of the time signatures in those bars, and then creating them again, being careful not to hold down the Alt key when creating them, and that should ensure they are created as global time signatures that apply to all instruments.
Hi Daniel,
Yes, there are “local” time signatures in this project, but I used them intentionally and would prefer to be able to still use them as that functionality is often very useful for me, whether for displaying independent time signatures or formatting barlines independently.
This particular flow does not require that functionality, so I deleted all time sigs in the flow (cmd+A, Edit > Filter > Time Signatures, delete) but as I try to reenter them in the normal manner (shift+M) the top staff does not want to recognize a time signature at the very beginning of the music (previously 3/8 with an 8th pickup). Putting a time signature after the first 8th note seems to be fine. The “displacement” bug still occurs at the same point in the music, as in my previous screenshot.
It seems I’ll have to put this all into a fresh flow, but I would hope to avoid having to do that for a larger project in the future!
Hi Daniel.
I have the same problem with the time signatures, except I am certain those are not local time signatures (I did not hold down the Alt key, and the time signatures apply to all staves in the score). My trial license is running out, and I would really like to buy the product, but I want to see if I can fix this first. The only way I have been able to correct that is by selecting each time signature manually, entering a random Spacing Offset value in the Engrave mode, and then erasing it back to zero. However, that does not guarantee the proper alignment the next time I run Dorico.
Best regards,
Konstantin Klimov
I suggest you zip up the project and attach it here so I can take a look and see if I can figure out what might be wrong.
Please zip up your project and attach it here too, Konstantin, so I can take a look.
Here’s the zipped file, Daniel. I notice that in galley view it sometimes appears correctly but in page view it seems consistently misplaced.
EDIT: As I was retyping the file, the first displacement occurred again at the same location. After deleting the caesuras, the time signatures seem to have returned to normal. I notice that Konstantin’s screenshot also includes a caesura; perhaps there’s something conflicting there.
dickinson songs (time sig issue).dorico.zip (376 KB)
Yes, the caesuras are indeed the key! Slightly counter-intuitively, when you want a caesura to appear at the end of the bar, you should select the note at the start of the following bar, and create the caesura with that selected (either by clicking the caesura in the panel, or typing “caesura” into the Shift+H popover). If you try to click the caesura in at the end of the bar, you can end up attaching it at a weird position that can then cause other things to go awry. Ideally we would snap the caesura to a legal position when you input it with the mouse, and hopefully we’ll be able to do this in the future.
Very good. I was trying to work around the fact that caesuras and fermatas cannot be attached to the same note, which occurs three measures in a row in this passage. Presumably that functionality will be realized at some point in the future!
In the meantime, having only fermatas is clear enough. The caesuras are probably too fussy anyhow.
Perhaps the eventual solution is a new expression that includes a caesura under a fermata.
Another item to put on the wish-list: “local” caesuras.
In one of my scores, I want the conductor to cut off only the brass, but when I add “//” it gets added to every instrument! And ALT+ENTER in the popover doesn’t create a single one either… ;(
