I’ve also run into your problems #1 and #2. Definitely a bit frustrating.
I’m also running into the same thing @Michael_Cuthbert mentioned (I also just came from a Facebook thread where it was mentioned) where Pitch Before Duration + “Specify accidental, rhythm dot and articulations” set to “After inputting note” auditions the last input note (well, actually, it’s any note that’s selected, which with those options set is usually the last input note, but it doesn’t have to be) any time the shadow note moves. This is true whether shadow note auditioning is on or off.
Those three are the big ones for me, and I think there’s a good case to be made for them being undesired behavior or even outright bugs, so I’ll cross my fingers and supplicate to the notation gods that the team deems them worthy of addressing.
While I’m here though, I will leave one extra thought. This one I’m less hopeful that a fix would be implemented because I know it’s likely considerably more work, but it is a bit of a shame that these things require remapping of key commands and potentially preferences as well such that the default Dorico note entry paradigm is compromised. On the one hand I’m fortunate in having had years to adjust to the Dorico way of doing things (which I generally prefer over the Finale way), so on the other hand when I flip back to duration before pitch, it’s really too bad that, e.g., up and down don’t work to move between staves (since they’ve been remapped to shadow note movement). I know the team likely disagrees with the following since they’ve more or less gone the exact opposite route, but in my ideal world, pitch-before duration and duration-before-pitch would be two fully separate… modes/styles/whatever… where at least certain key commands could be mapped to different things independently/without affecting each other. In pitch-before-duration, my arrow keys would move the shadow note and I would want to set rhythm dots etc. to be entered after the note, but in duration-before-pitch, I like very much the Dorico defaults where arrows move between staves and rhythm dots etc. are entered before the note. For my own personal remedy, I’ve resorted to python scripts and batch files that will pretty seamlessly swap between two sets of key command and preference files (on my github if that sounds up your alley and you have no qualms about running strange scripts off the internet), so I can have my cake and eat a decent amount of it too, so I’m honestly not hurting tooooo bad for a fix, but I also feel like I can’t be the only one who feels this way. Anyways, just a few extra cents
I feel ya. Well anyway dorico is what it is and the best approach is to learn how to work with it rather then try to make it work exactly like finale. In 10 years finale will be a distant memory.
I have remapped the move up and move down to universally use option key instead, that includes both in note input and note edit for consistency. Then the key commands for moving the note head up and down I am set to pure arrow keys, again for both note edit and note input. I use shift arrow and command arrow for raise by octave and raise chromatic though I am still missing raise and lower chromatic of shadow note until dorico team adds it for completeness. Please!
Yes it means I have to get used to using option arrow move between staves, always. But it also means I have consistent use to use arrow keys to move noteheads up and down. Somehow this has worked for me in both pitch first and duration first. In both cases I can move the note up and down with arrows. With pitch first it’s a shadow. With duration first it’s a selected note. It actually works almost exactly the same in principle, similar as speedy mode, but the main difference is that with pitch first you can audition stuff with a midi keyboard a lot easier to your hearts content before finally hitting a duration to register the note. Conversely with duration first you can quickly entire a string of notes of the same duration. I actually had been using it that way for a number of years to kind of simulate speedy mode and then just used a separate midi keyboard for auditioning notes and chords when I need to. For pure qwerty input it may actually be preferable this way using duration first with the arrow keys changed as I explained but the downside is that I have to get used to using option arrows for moving the caret around which is actually fine I do that less often then moving notes for speedy entry
I’m totally with you on the additional thing (having « speedy entry » behave on its own, without disrupting what we already had with pitch after duration). But I understand it can create big technical problems under the hood. Maybe speedy entry and its shadow notes is not for me…
I go back and forth but the more I compare, even with the new 5.1.60 update, I think I like working in duration-before-pitch, but with the arrow keys remapped as I suggested earlier so that up/down arrow keys move the selected note after it was added with a duration selection… This gives a couple advantages:
the raise and lower chromatic feature works.
Its dead simple to add chords
it’s actually quite a bit faster to enter a string of eighth notes, for example
Only disadvantage is if you’re using a midi keyboard you can’t audition stuff and fool around on the midi keyboard while in note entry because every strike on the keyboard will register a note on the stave at the currently selected duration. Well there might be more I’m trying to understand @snakeeyes021 post above a little better also.
I actually find this faster then the recently added Finale compatibility changes…which I do also find useful and pretty good, but as has been pointed out a bit frustrating in certain ways…and actually duration before pitch, but with the arrow keys remapped is quite fast…I think maybe “speedier”…but you can’t noodle around on your midi keyboard is all unless you hit “k” to switch modes while you noodle.
That’s been my tack as well; Finale speedy was so great for over a decade for me, but I’ve been on Dorico long enough now that I’m not willing to compromise the default Dorico paradigm (my brain and fingers would revolt, lol), so for the past several years since Dorico got pitch-before-duration, I just didn’t really use it. If those few above bugs/undesired behaviors are addressed, it becomes totally usable if only somewhat inconvenient to map keys and preferences back and forth.
So, the default Dorico paradigm is great and, having been using it since version one, I’m quite accustomed to it (duration-before-pitch, up/down move the cursor to staves above and below, and rhythm dots/accidentals/articulations are entered before the note is entered). So that requires one set of key commands and at least one preference to be set to the default.
Then, for pitch-before-duration, as a former Finale user who used it without a midi keyboard and thus used up/down to change the pitch, I find it most useful if up/down can be set to change the shadow note and rhythm dots/accidentals/articulations are entered after the note. This however requires a change of several key commands (up/down to shadow note, ctrl-up/down or alt-up/down to navigate staves, four key command changes in total) and one preference change. The rhythm dots/accidentals thing is both because it more closely matches Finale’s speedy, but also because regardless of when you enter pitch, dots and accidentals are always entered immediately after duration, which matches the above mentioned Dorico default paradigm, which then makes things nice and consistent.
The problem then is how a user could switch between these two paradigms. At the moment, the only way to do it if you want it as I described it is to change at least four key commands and one preference each time you want to switch back and forth, because changes that make one paradigm possible break the other paradigm. Alternatively though, if you don’t need it as I described it and mere pitch-before-duration capability is enough, you could come up with some compromise key commands that make both paradigms possible in a way that is satisfactory enough. It sounds like that’s worked out for you, which is great, but like I mentioned, I’m not willing to compromise the default Dorico paradigm just so that I can use a compromised version of the F-speedy paradigm; I’d rather just use the default Dorico paradigm in that case.
So the third option that I’ve created for myself was to write a script that will swap all the necessary key commands and preferences instantly for me. It requires a restart of Dorico, so definitely less convenient than if it was built in that changes to pitch-before-duration didn’t affect duration-before-pitch, but it works ok enough for me. But the reason I mentioned all of it in my first post was that I suspect other folks (especially some of the new Finale refugees) might be in a similar boat as me.
Have I cleared it up? Or is it still muddy? Not sure I’ve made any more sense than I did before, lol, but you tell me
I got ya. Guess i’m lucky that I don’t have burned in muscle memory about using arrow keys to move the caret. If I hear you correctly, you’re saying that you prefer to use arrow keys to move the caret, option-arrow then in order to move the note…UNLESS you’re using pitch-before-duration, in which case you want the arrow keys to move the note instead of moving the caret. To provide that inconsistent workflow they would need to provide additional keyboard commands for the different modes of operation, there is nothing IMHO that can’t be done with some programming, but consider that it would require several keyboard commands to match what are now a single set.
Right now we have the NoteEntry behavior and we have the NoteEdit behavior. Different arrow key definitions for each mode. So you can at least separate things that way, but if I’m understanding correctly you’d like an additional subclass of key commands that divides between NoteInput(duration first), and NoteInput (pitch first). yes? And NoteEdit as a third set of arrow keys should be completely only used when there is no caret, not in input mode at all. Am I making sense?
Yup, more or less correct. At least in terms of the workflow; what it looks like under the hood is of much less concern. I already knew, but after getting myself a day job in tech, I’ve learned even moreso to never use words like “simply,” “just,” or “nothing that can’t be done with some programming” when asking others for features or code changes, lol. But yes, that general behavior plus changes to address the first three issues I (and others) mentioned would be *chef’s kiss*
Well…if long-time Sibelius users can get comfortable very quickly in Dorico, I’m sure that long-time Finale users should be able to do the same.
A great feature of Dorico is how quickly you can switch form ‘Duration-before-Pitch’ to ‘Pitch-before-Duration’ and vice versa depending on the situation.
And, you can set up your own custom Keystrokes (or Keypad or StreamDeck keystrokes) to suit your own comfort and muscle memory.
What’s not to love? You’ll be flying in Dorico after a few weeks!
After trying out the new features with pitch-before-duration, reliving my old Finale workflow, I agree with the above—and did some digging to find that there was at least one feature request for this some years back. I’d like to cast my vote for it.
I can imagine switching to pitch-before in certain cases, even though I’m now used to pitch-after. But I cannot think of many cases in which one would want to use the “specify articulation after…” setting when using the traditional Dorico pitch-after-duration entry. I think what would be ideal is:
Separate out settings for specify accidental, specify tie, and specify articulation before/after as separate options. Each of these has a different connection with how we input notes, and it would be efficient to be able to set these independently—especially ties.
Have an option for “only when in pitch-before-duration”. The key command K is not very efficient on its own if one has to then open preferences to reset settings every time we switch modes.
Very grateful for the new “speedy” options either way.
