In some string parts, with a time signature change when going to divisi (2 staves) to unis (one stave), I’m not getting the new time signature on the bottom stave at the very end of the system.
Something I’m doing wrong?
No, I’m afraid there are some bugs in this area that we plan to address in future versions (though unfortunately not in the next major version of Dorico).
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Thanks Daniel,
It happens only about 7-8 times in 1200 pages, so I’ll just do it in Acrobat !
Cheers
I’ve worked around this recently by inputting time signature Bravura characters in Shift-X text, dragging into place, then hiding (or moving locally) in the part layouts.
This is something to do once the casting off and note spacing is set.
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That’s a good idea. I curious as to how you get the time signature Bravura characters into Staff or System text?
Copy the glyphs from the SMuFL website (Time signatures - Standard Music Font Layout (SMuFL))
Type Shift-X in Dorico
Set the character style dropdown (top left corner of the text editing toolbar) to “Music Text”.
Paste.
Size to suit.
I’ve definitely managed to get the two characters into a single piece of text, by inserting a line break between them (hitting Enter) and then using the options over to the right hand side of the text toolbar (line leading?) to shunt the top line down or the bottom line up.
It’s a bit fiddly the first time, but then once you’ve done it you have a single piece of text that can be copied and pasted as necessary.
There’s probably an easier way of doing it using MusGlyphs or similar, but this particular project was for a publisher and while I can guarantee they’re running Dorico, I don’t know what custom fonts they have.
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Cool ! Thanks for the info !!
Anecdotally, I find that moving the time signature a beat (or whatever) to the right/left rhythmically then moving it back causes it to appear on divisi staves correctly for printing/exporting immediately - that won’t persist between sessions, unfortunately. But does allow for a quick, correct export at least.
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Divisi was introduced over three years ago. I understand the next update has a ton of Mac M1 and Qt architecture changes to deal with, but in my experience divisi is the most glaringly bug-laden feature and to hear it will yet again be passed over for clean-up is eyebrow-raising. What is the point of introducing a feature if it’s not also worth fixing and perfecting, like the extensive work that condensing gets?
Condensing needs plenty of attention too, and unfortunately we have not been able to dedicate the necessary time to address the remaining issues in either condensing or divisi as yet. Dorico 4.0 will not bring any significant advances in either of these areas, but of course we have every intention to return to these important areas as soon as we can.
We have a small team, and although everybody is able to work on every area of the software, we prefer to have the work done by the person with the most knowledge and expertise of each functional area.
It so happens that it’s the same person for condensing and divisi, and indeed for percussion, which is the area that we ultimately chose to spend time in this cycle, making it possible to edit rests in percussion staves and improving the handling of tuplets.
This work is not glamorous, but it’s very important. Similarly, the problems with divisi unison ranges and the remaining limitations in condensing are also very important, and we will return to them as soon as we can.
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That sounds untenable for a single person to have primary responsibility of such huge features in the program and, based on the issues long present in all three items, it shows. As a customer, and certainly one who takes the opportunity to connect with the developers here frequently, I try to appreciate how difficult the work your team has ahead of it, but I have to admit that multiple years of unaddressed issues in a feature does little to inspire confidence in future releases. Any incremental improvement over time would likely be better received than massive chunks a quarter-decade at a time.
I think it’s a bit uncharitable to start measuring the interval between major chunks of work using terms like “quarter-decade”, given that Dorico itself is only one “half-decade” old, and condensing as a feature arrived in the software less than one “quarter-decade” ago.
I have explained to you the constraints under which we are operating. We are a small team working to build a piece of software as sophisticated as any you might care to think of, in any field. Prioritisation has always been and will remain perhaps our greatest challenge, and trying to meet the needs of a growing and diverse user base doesn’t get any easier. Software development is hard, and when you are solving novel problems, things can take longer than expected for a myriad reasons. Plans have to change in response to changing requirements. This is simply the world we are living in.
All I can say, again, is that we will address these issues as soon as it is practical for us to do so.
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I don’t mean to be uncharitable or reductive with my words, so I apologize. I don’t want to beat a dead horse nor cheapen my apology, as I do mean it, but I hope such time that it is practical for this divisi issue and others reported by myself and fellow forum members to be addressed shan’t be too much farther in the future.
