To the Dorico Team

Curious. I tried a search with your exact phrase and it turned up these results:

I wonder if there’s something amiss in your browser…?

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I stand corrected. Yes, it refers to them, but my struggle is locating the “how to” part. Lots of descriptions, but I just need a “elementary, Dorico for dummies” explanation….

I’m sure I’ll get there at some point. I managed to learn some things in Finale.

Certainly the split is a foundational principle of Dorico, but this must be open to debate, as any other aspect of the software. I would be great if Dorico had the two working options: with split in Write and Engrave or with a unified score.
Maybe we old musicians have learned to notate music without differentiating “musical content” from “page content”, or at least trying to minimize the possible differencies. I think about them as the same thing, so splitting them into (identical) pages seems a waste of space, and time switching again and again between them. But it is just my point of view.

Another benefit of the mode split is in Engrave mode you can’t change the musical content, only its appearance.
This I do not see as I benefit, I am happy running the risk in the interest of a faster workflow.

Again, it is just my viewpoint, of course.

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And I obviously am not criticizing the software. I know the problem lies with me and my learning curve, it’s just the frustration of trying to learn something in a time crunch.

It’s two vocal charts, the first I was able to get through.

As much as I want to stick with Dorico, cause that’s the future, I did dig out my old iMac w Finale installed just to get the job completed.

Always seems to work this way. Always busy with something else so you don’t take the time to learn a new program until you’re “under the gun”.

I already can see there are several items I like over Finale. Eventually I expect I’ll get “competent” with it…….

Thanks

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I like the distinction between Notation, Layout, and Engraving Options, and it is easy to understand what belongs where, once you have grasped the basic premise. If not, the Jump Popover (Shift-J) is your friend.
Changing a menu needs thoughtful consideration. It is a grave process that might affect many, many users, some of which may not share your preference. Just adding menus might clutter the GUI, and contribute to the confusion. (I remember, when Sibelius introduced the “ribbon” to the UI. That was a bummer.)
I’d rather like the Dorico team to tie up some loose ends (like, auto-condensing lyrics, or playing repeats correctly).
This being said, music engraving is a complicated process. I like the way how Dorico tries to stay out of the way most of the time.

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This is priceless. What I gleaned from all this is you need two monitors and a manual to explain the manual.

Let’s turn this into a sticky - “If you don’t love Dorico, then shut up and f***k off, loser”.

EDIT: For clarity, it should be obvious to everyone that when people post to complain it’s not because they are evil and mean. They are likely extremely frustrated. Even when they are rude, annoying and repetitive, their posts are the result of their interaction and experience and frustration with Dorico. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t involved with Dorico at least in some way.

If someone feels defensive about it, they should put the offending user on the ignore list and quietly move on. It’s as simple as that. Switching to and learning Dorico can be extremely frustrating and time-consuming. Let the users who are patient and capable of hand-holding the newcomers during their on-boarding be the ones who build the reputation of the forum as a whole.

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One of the things I like about the jungle is the ignore feature.

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@eebiggs1 you now have this direct thread to the Dorico team itself, sorry us users cannot make any changes in the software ourselves, so obviously, please feel free to add to your requests or suggestions here so they can be considered.

However if you have a specific problem for a Dorico score you are working on, find a relevant thread or create a new one, add screenshots or cut-down version of your score, or description so we can help you progress to the next stage :slight_smile:

I use Dorico daily and I love it. But it took me several years to get there, and some of that time was unbearably frustrating. If attitude like yours was what I saw over and over in those days, I would have felt encouraged to give up on it and walk away. I’m very grateful to a handful of very patient and welcoming people here, they are saints and should be given special badges for their forum avatars.

Everyone is different. Everyone needs their own pace, has their own habits and context and personality and manners (or lack of them!). It is not necessary to hound people into writing “I know I am the problem”. The only thing that achieves is add to the negative perception of the forum, nothing else.

As for the OP problems with the GUI, there have been literally thousands of posts like that over the years. It’s clear that accepting Dorico’s GUI and logic is a difficult process and a milestone for a lot of people and it takes time. But once they get over the hill, everything becomes easier. I hope this happens with the OP too, unless we drive him off sooner.

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The manual is structured very consistently. Whenever you see a description of a feature, immediately after there will be a series of related links. Follow those!

The problem with Dorico manual is that sometimes it’s very difficult to find an explanation of a specific option. E.g. search for “Follow selection changes on undo and redo” doesn’t return anything helpful.

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You should be able to get this from asking existing users here at the forum. If you can be quite specific, add screenshots, or a cut down version of the score, this would help explain where you are up to.
Then at some later point the user guide might make more sense as it has more complete information and various associated links.
You probably do this anyway, just adding this information here for anyone in the future (or past?.. :slight_smile: ) coming to this thread.

A (the latest) summary of help information:

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I’ll agree: there don’t seem to be pages describing all the options in the Preferences dialog. Many of them are perhaps self-evident, though this one might not be entirely obvious.

But, it’s clearly something to do with changes to the selection, and undo. Turn it on, and see what’s different about selecting something when you undo it. Then turn it off, and test the same thing.

That would take less time than searching through webpages, looking for an answer.

I’m sorry, but this kind of energy is simply not needed. Even with the ellipsis dots, and even to make a point.

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So as not to repeat in full:

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I encourage you to take your own advice and see if you can figure out what this setting does. :wink:

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@SugarFree, I’m reasonably confident that @benwiggy already knows what this setting does.

But, to save you searching the forum for “follow selection changes” and looking at the first three Dorico results like I just did, the function is to bring any selection changes you’ve made into view when undoing/redoing.

e.g. if you select something at the beginning of the piece, scroll to the end of the piece, and press undo, the window will jump back to page one where you selected it.

(I agree that it would be useful to have this in the manual, if it isn’t already)

I tried this (with the option turned ON)

  1. Selected a note in flow 1


2. Went to the last (3rd) flow using the scroll bar

3. Pressed CMD-Z (undo)
4. Result: Nothing happens in the display (the note is un-selected; however, out-of-sight.

I might do something wrong, or I’ve misunderstood the action.

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