No, we (as in: you and me) haven’t, I made this up today. I’m sorry if this already popped up earlier on this forum 
It’s definitely come up before. I’m pretty sure I put together an entirely non-exhaustive list of things that would cause problems. Have a search
@pianoleo I found your post, and, as far as I can tell, my above mockup solves all the ambiguity problems with the selection menu on the right side 
Maybe this could be a nice alternative to make Dorico’s learning curve more gentle in the future.
Your mock-up doesn’t solve G being a lyric, or a clef. I, for one, wouldn’t want to hit a down arrow to type in each syllable of some lyrics.
Or a chord symbol.
Popovers that are typing-intensive, like fingerings, chord symbols, and lyrics, would suffer greatly from an added layer of syntax.
Sorry to bust back in and divert the conversation, but it’s time for a docs update!
I’ve just published updates for both Pro and Elements, available in the same places (just make sure you’re looking at Version 2, as denoted by the name in the top left of pages on the webhelp or the /v2/ in the PDF url!)
Big new sections:
- MIDI recording - in Write mode, after Note input
- Project and file handling - a whole new chapter, including some existing docs about the Hub and opening new projects, with new documentation for importing/exporting files, backups, and autosaving.
- Trills - all the updated information for their awesome functionality, in Notation reference > Ornaments
- Custom bracket/brace grouping (for the new options in Engrave mode, Pro-only) - in Notation reference > Brackets and braces > Custom staff grouping and also Notation reference > Barlines > Barlines across staff groups
- Select More - in Write mode > Editing and selecting (where you’ll also find flipping items and changing items by reopening the popover by pressing Return)
- Property/part formatting propagation - in Engrave mode > Page layouts (Pro) and Layout and formatting > Page layouts (Elements)
Elsewhere, I’ve added little topics or amended existing ones as I’ve worked through all the improvements across the 2.x updates. Which I’m almost finished with, meaning I can get started on something that’s been on my list for AGES and I’m very excited about. But I’ll wait to surprise you with that.
Regarding translation: we’ve made enormous progress on French, German, Italian, and Japanese. The main heft of the manual has been translated in those languages, with only a small amount remaining (and of that, mostly whatever I haven’t written yet!). This means that publishing those translations should be happening very soon indeed. News/announcements when I have them.
Thanks Lillie for the tremendous work you’ve done!
I find my monthly answer rate has dramatically decreased those last six months, along with the evolution of the documentation
Thank you for making this great tool easier to use to new users!!!
Thanks a bunch, Lillie, I’m very excited to have a look at the translations, too, once they are available.
I wonder, and I welcome anybody to comment on this, if it’s a good idea to have both English and translated term in the translations? At least as a yellow flag in the pdf and the online version so it doesn’t obstruct the reading flow? Reason being, as a user of the German version I sometimes struggle to find the appropriate word in English. Or worse, I don’t even struggle, I simply take a false friend for a real one. A “flow” is called “Partie” in the German version, which resembles a lot the English “part”, which led to misunderstandings in the past in this forum before I noticed my mistake.
A glossary would be equally welcome and I imagine you must have established a database to manage the translations, which you could partly provide to the users, where it makes sense. If the glossary was not only bilingual but contained all of Dorico’s language versions I would even carry it around with me
Another main reason for this request is that there is only an English (-speaking) forum available, so I would find it decent Steinberg helps the non-English-speaking folks to express their request, which in turn helps everybody to understand these.
A belated thanks for your comment, Eddo. It’s an interesting idea, particularly including the original English term in the translated glossary (of which one does already exist! albeit in English only currently and is not intended to be used as a dictionary between two languages). I wonder though if some of the problems that have led to your suggestions will be solved simply by having a comprehensively translated manual? Given that I’m hoping (although these things can never be set in stone) that the remaining time for the full manual to be published in languages including German can be measured in weeks, that might go a long way to helping you.
We have also briefly discussed being able to “step” across through different languages on the webhelp so you can compare the same topic in different languages. However, this was only broached earlier this year and there are no definite plans for it at present so don’t hold your breath on that one!
Were I not the sort of person who learns through tutorial videos, selecting menu items at random, and traumatic experience, I would be very appreciative.
I would very much appreciate a language selection menu in the help because I frequently switch to the English manual since the other translations aren’t complete and I’m missing out on crucial information otherwise. Currently I have to change the language path in the URL in the address bar to “en” which feels a little weird.
Thanks, Lillie, for your reply!
This is even better! If the web help could be overhauled in a way to make it possible to switch on a second column with the English original lyrics next to the translated version? This would provide users with the semantic, syntactic — well — any-tic environment.
Still, at times I find myself abroad without a valid mobile data solution. A glossary for the offline pdf versions would definitely help, too.
Another small docs update!
I’ve published updates to the Pro and Elements manuals (available in the usual place). Overall a small update this time as it’s basically complete at this stage. However, some chunky useful additions include:
- Staff/system/vertical spacing: big new topics in Engrave mode>Page layouts and Engrave mode>Staff spacing to explain in more detail how spacing, vertical justification, and minimum gaps work, including tips about how to achieve good results.
- Setup mode>Players, layouts and flows: more detailed explanation of how they link together and how you can customize this, with screenshots focusing on the checkboxes that appear in the other two panels when you have a card selected in one.
- Options dialogs: improved explanation of the two buttons in the bottom left corner (esp “Reset to Factory” vs “Reset to Saved Defaults”), when and why different buttons appear, and how they work.
- Play mode>Playing back music: new tasks about muting/soloing instruments and individual items (including notes but also pedal lines etc).
- Barlines: hiding/showing systemic barlines on single-staff systems
- Time signatures>Pick-up bars: you can define partial bars specified as part of a time signature (e.g. 4/4,1.5) as either a pick-up bar or an irregular bar, which affects note grouping
- Write mode: some new topics about inputting, including changing the input pitch (concert/transposed), whether MIDI controllers are imported/treated as a sustain pedal, muting/hearing notes during input and selection including hearing individual notes in chords or all notes in the chord when a single note is selected.
- Octave lines: how to make them angled and how to remove these angles (with pictures)
- Autosave and backups: stronger warnings about how they behave and why you shouldn’t save projects in the same folders
- Fingering: some more pictures, including for string fingering shifts
- Glossary: some more entries, including for things like implicit/explicit/padding rests
- Flow headings: more information about hiding/showing information (incl page numbers) above them
- Text frames: related tasks about adding borders to them and changing the border thickness
- Empty pages: new task about “Deleting pages” that describes in a bit more detail why empty pages might not automatically disappear, and the steps to take in order to delete them (Engrave mode>Master pages>Master page overrides)
- Trills: new screenshots for changing the interval partway through trills
- Repeat markers: changing the default size of segno/coda symbols
And obviously, additions to the index all round. It’s 66 pages long, and its only goal in life is to help you
Wonderful, thanks Lillie!
I can’t quantify this, but it seems the number of basic questions on the forum have decreased, no doubt due to the expanded manual. I need to get better about consulting it myself!
I’m looking forward to having the time to read it like a book!
This is most impressive, and will be enormously useful. Hurray!!!
One question, persisting from the earliest days of Dorico documentation: the keys (numbers) for note durations in Write mode are shown on the numeric keypad, and not on the top row of alphanumeric keys.This gives the impression that a numeric keypad is essential to run Dorico. I’m sure there must be a good reason for this (maybe it’s already been given somewhere), but it would ease my mind to know what it is.
Nice work, Lillie!
Any news on the Manuals in other languages? Dorico is heading towards Version 3 and at the moment not even the manual for Version 1 is ready in other languages than English. The German Version has still got 168 pages (PDF) compared to 860 pages of the finished (?) English Version 1 Manual. The gap is getting larger and larger …
Work on the German, Japanese, French and Italian versions of the documentation is ongoing, and we expect to publish versions that are more or less in line with the current English-language version over the summer.
I’m not sure the reason but the key commands can be re-assigned easily. For what it’s worth, I’ve always set the regular keyboard “1” to whole note, “2 to half, etc. so I could choose durations with my LH and then play pitches on my MIDI keyboard afterwards with my right (when doing step entry) - and I also had previously re-assigned Sibelius shortcuts similarly (though in the latter case using F1, F2, etc.)
- D.D.