Unacceptably bizzare hairpins continue to bite (Update: Better but still issues in 3.5)

Dorico
#1

On what planet is this behavior acceptable?

I have 3 consecutive, simple measures. The 3rd beat in each measure has the identical hairpin applied, literally copy and pasted

Dorico is CONSISTENTLY INCONSISTENT and incorrectly renders this simple passage.

In galley view, the middle one is completely MIA

In the part, all 3 display

In the score… the 3rd one is missing

W…T…F?

At the very least there should be a flag (like with most hidden objects) that indicates “there’s something here that isn’t being rendered”.

I’m pretty convinced there is an actual bug in the layout engine at this point…this is the 3rd time in 4 days, in different files, I’ve run into this, all in very simple music with no spacing issues.

part.png
part.png699×204 34.9 KB

score.png
galley.png

#2

The messa di voce isn’t showing in the second spot because it’s actually a shorter distance from the stem of the note to the barline that follows. Same situation for the third messa di voce in the second example. I zoomed in, and measured with an on-screen ruler. The difference is slight, but I presume the threshold for displaying or not displaying the hairpin is right there between the two.

We’re back to that “bug” discussion. It’s not a bug, but behavior you don’t like.

#3

How is a dynamic not appearing in the page view score not a bug?

If it was a tempo marking gone missing, would that rise to your mystical threshold of “actually a bug”?

A note?

An entire flow?

This is a very simple score unto which I have imposed no constraints (manual breaks or the like), it even tweaked any settings. The layout engine really should be able to handle this without just dropping stuff into a black hole.

#4

Dear TylerE,
I’m with you on this one. Dorico is a great software because it is reliable in almost every way, and this is the kind of problems we surely do not want to have using it (stuff actually entered but not showing). A warning signpost could be a stopgap measure, but I’d rather have this fixed in the first place!

#5

It’s not a bug, but behavior you don’t like.

I find it very hard to understand why the complaint should be categorized as subjective in this way. Surely the user is entirely justified in not liking something that goes against his reasonable expectations; and also entitled to expect that it be logged as something to be fixed. I may not like it if my bus does not arrive, but that is surely not the end of the matter as far as the bus company is concerned – or is it?

David

#6

There is a bug here. End of.

#7

There should be ways to mitigate the bug, somewhat. Part of the problem in this specific case is that the gap between the two hairpin segments in the messa di voce is larger than it should be if the dynamic is truncated by the barline, due to a different bug which we have fixed ahead of the next release, and I think that will resolve this specific case because the hairpin segments will then be a bit longer. Specifying that the minimum length for a hairpin in Engraving Options should be a little less than the 3 spaces default may also help, and allow Dorico to draw the hairpin if it’s just on the threshold between drawing and not drawing.

But, as Leo has quoted me above, it is a bug that we know about and plan to fix, but it’s a tricky one and we’ve not yet gone back to this area to fully solve the problem. I’m sorry for the inconvenience in the meantime.

#8

If you reduce the Engraving Option: “Gap between messa di voce hairpins”, does that improve things? It looks quite wide for that context.

#9

No, that’s the other bug that’s at play, which was discussed recently.

#10

Sorry TylerE, it looks like you were right.

#11

Although this is not a “solution” per se, I often use a playing technique created with the messa glyph from Smufl’s “articulation supplement” when I have to write single messe under single shorter notes.

#12

Thank you Daniel for this absolute honesty. This is rare and precious.

#13

I hope my honesty isn’t rare! :slight_smile: I always try to tell it like it is, and would never dissemble to our user community.

#14

That would help here if one doesn’t care about playback (but I do), but I’ve run into this issue with plain hairpins too.

#15

Happy to report that all 3 hairpins do render consistently in all 3 views in 3.5! Progress…

However, two steps forward, one back, as the messas are now misproportioned and ugly.


messa.png

#16

]Ok, I did a bit more testing… the bug still exists if the messa falls on the final beat of the final bar.


messa.zip (553 KB)
messa2.png

#17

Yes, as described above, we have fixed the problem that prevents the gap between messa di voce hairpins from being too large when they are stopped by the barline, but the wider issue whereby the spacing can sometimes be insufficient for them to draw has not been fixed in Dorico 3.5, and remains on our list of things to fix in future.

#18

Engraving options - Spacing gaps - Gap before barline can be increased (I tried 5), and will solve this particular bar, though it may mess up other things in the score…
There may be better solutions I’m unaware of

#19

Until it’s fixed, can you just nudge it left by a 16th and then put it back in engrave mode? Not perfect but I bet it will (practically speaking) solve the issue sufficiently to get the visual results you desire.