Tips/tricks on preventing Dorico losing place when navigating

Dorico
1

One of the things which continues to frustrate me to no end is Dorico’s inability to maintain its place when navigating between different layouts and different modes. For example, while modifying a full score in galley mode and switching to a part layout in engrave mode, page view, Dorico does not set focus to the same location as it was previously. While this is not a big deal for smaller scores, when dealing with orchestral scores and multiple flows, this is a major pain in the rear. An often helpful way I’ve identified to limit these occurrences is to select an element on the frame prior to switching, then switch and pray, however this doesn’t always work. I have had to mentally prepare for these eventualities by taking note of the flow and bar (or nearest rehearsal figure) and, when Dorico inevitably resets itself to the beginning of the piece, use the jump menu to get back to where I need to work.

Can any folks share tips or tricks they’ve learned on how to mitigate these losses of consciousness on the part of Dorico? Having to do this dozens of times during the course of final preparation really wears on me and flat out makes me angry. I’d like to get back to enjoying working with the tool more if possible. Thanks for any wisdom.

5 Likes
2

Me too.

When there are many pages of sheet music, it sometimes jumps back to the very first page instead of the original page.

3

I don’t know if you’ve already done this, but you can set a key command for Center Selection that will bring you back to your selected item when Dorico loses its place. It’s an extra step but it can help - sometimes. Obviously that won’t work if Dorico has lost your selection altogether, which I feel happens a lot as well, e.g. when switching between Write and Engrave mode.

4 Likes
4

I think Dorico tries to keep the selection in view; but if you switch from a part or Galley View to a Page View with Condensing (which can’t select an individual instrument), then it goes to the start.

There is a command to Centre the Selection in the screen. I’ve assigned a shortcut to it (C). That helps sometimes.

4 Likes
5

You could open another window (or tab) in the same project.
This is very convenient if you have two displays, but even with one display it’s efficient to just switch windows/tabs.

1 Like
6

Switch and play is also useful sometimes.

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7

This is one of the greatest time savers there is. For instance: one window with the score in engrave mode, one in write mode galley view.

1 Like
8

Thanks for the feedback. These are all helpful (and useful).

9

Chip,

two tricks might help:

  1. select one note before you switch view. After switching hitptwice in succession.

  2. or, to prevent Dorico from jumping back to a formerly selected place, do a “Deselect” by pressing Ctrl+D (on a PC) or ⌘+D (on a Mac).

10

What does the p key do here?

11

Starts and stops playback.

12

P relocates the playhead to the selected note and starts playing (the second P just stops playback).

13

Ah right, I’ve used that before.