When I add a trill from the ornaments popover saying, for instance,
tr M2 over the note E4, it puts the accidental (a sharp) above the tr. Is there a way to set that so that accidentals associated with trills are to the right of the tr instead? Putting them above seems reminiscent of 17th century practice, and it also takes up a lot of vertical space. I’m thinking there may be an option somewhere to make that the default.
I love it. I would have hunted for that for a month before finding it.
There’s one problem with it, but I suppose I can’t do anything about it. I like both having (for instance) tr # and the note followed by (#) in the staff, which I think is easier for the player to understand when the going gets heavy, as it is in this rather hairy passage I’m working on. In the option window (which is different in Dorico 6.1.10 than what I see above, i.e. it has actual pictures to click on) there are two rows and both can be selected, but both don’t show.
At least I know it’s possible to put the accidental to the side of the trill rather than above, which is a huge improvement.
I’ll decide later which one I want to stick with (when I get to engraving).
A supplementary question: Is there a symbol for a downward trill? In my score I wrote (by hand) a tr followed by a little down arrow on an Eb. In this particular case, I realize with 59 years of perspective that it’s probably close to impossible given that there’s also a D grace note before it and at the beginning of the trill (which lasts 10 slow beats) I ask the flutist to also hum the F4 above the trilled note. In performance he somehow managed to actually do it, although I remember his enhancing the sound with a loud gasp when it was over.
The picture above is from the Properties panel, where you can override settings for an individual trill. Engraving Options lets you set global options for your project.
“Position of interval relative to trill” only has an effect if you have selected “Accidental” or “Hollywood style” for “Trill interval appearance”. If you select “Auxiliary note”, then there’s nothing to position relative to the trill, just the auxiliary note on the staff.
A grace note D followed by a downward trill Eb-D sounds to me just like a normal half step trill on D (D-Eb-D-Eb…).
If you want to have the player start ahead of the beat, maybe one of these?
This problem from a couple of weeks ago was never quite resolved.
Is there no way to indicate both an accidental (# or b) following the tr mark and also have the auxiliary note appear in parentheses after the primary note? Because of the nature of this music I like to have the exact note appear, but because of common practice most players who see the sharp or flat following the tr will know what to do. It might save a microsecond of reaction time.
I’m certainly willing to consider a different opinion.
Bear with me for a small analogy: I’m from The Netherlands, where in some parts we are infamous for creating a confusing mess on public roads because some local governments feel they have to try and cover every possible eventuality with traffic signs. The result can be this:
Streets like these, to nobody’s suprise, actually turn out to create unsafe and confusing situations because when driving it’s impossible to parse all that stuff in a split second.
TL;DR, I think the conventional way of either showing the accidental near the trill sign or showing an auxiliary note will give your players all the info they need. 
Personally seeing both would probably throw me off, like when there are too many unnecessary cautionary accidentals.
@Zalde may be right. This piece I’m working on has a fair number of trills. My conclusion is it’s not exactly sight-reading material, meaning that anyone who actually has to play it will have to practice it and then will learn what’s required at each critical point. (It took me 30 hours of rehearsal with doctoral students to get the performance ready in 1966!) Therefore it seems the course of wisdom to go with one choice.
I’ve decided to put the auxiliary note to the side. While less conventional, I think it’s clearer.
Compare for instance a simple tr above an A#. The auxiliary note would be B, right? What about a tr above a Bb? Most people would assume the auxiliary is C. One or the other might cause a person to stumble momentarily. In this case I just show what note to trill to. Problem solved.
This was worth discussing to me, so thanks for the input.