Vertical placement of dynamics between staves

[Mats_Frendahl]

A single hairpin centers correctly, with correct vertical alignment with the brace;

Adding a p changes vertical placement;

I don’t think it should, the hairpin should ‘set the center’.

Adding an f;

Still too high.

Grouping;

Better (possibly the f is too high compared to the p)

But, without the f, even with grouping, it is too high.

Is there a setting so that the hairpin sets the correct position, and p, f, mf, etc. adjust accordingly to the hairpin?

[Mark_Johnson]

1. The f and p are correctly aligned with each other. Observe the ones in this paragraph, for example. They both have descenders, and only f has an ascender. The hairpin in centered on the x-height of the letters, as shown by the guide line. To my eye this is optimal, and matches traditional engraving practice.
2. The way positioning works is that dynamics are centered halfway between the staves unless collision avoidance takes effect, which it does not here. If you had Middle C’s on the lower staff too, these dynamics would look optically centered. But otherwise, Dorico is not trying to center them between whatever the notes are.

[Mats_Frendahl]

Why does the hairpin move when adding p as in fig. 2?

And why does these not align?

IMO Dorico should focus on centering the hairpins. In this example there is nothing that would cause a collision.

This looks wrong in my eyes:

The mf does not align with mp nor p.

Further, IMO I don’t think f and p are aligned well vertically,

It seems to be vertically centred (with a slight shift up) but this is not how it should be, IMO, rather

just like any normal text:

(Times)

(Academico)

Note that ‘fp’ is well made

It seems like ‘words’ with f align with each other, and words without align, but the 2 groups does not align well, and strange behaviour with hairpins that should be the ‘base line’ after which all ‘words’ align (given no collisions, but we are excluding all such cases here, as can be seen. There is plenty of space to align them properly).

(A short session in Sibelius (which I try to avoid these days…) showed that it has better vertical alignment than Dorico, which annoys me… Dorico being the better program)

[JeroenH]

Do not want to “steal” this topic (so please correct me if I did), but I want to add that I also have some problems with the vertical placement of dynamics, see this example:

That “f” is not placed very well, and there is ample (though not generous) place to avoid this collision:

I think there are several ways to place this f better:

• like the second picture, I moved it only a bit down but still very cramped
• it could be moved to the left also, so the descender is left of the high f-note
• or the distance between the stave could be expanded

So the question is, why Dorico does not do these things?

[Janus]

@JeroenH

So the question is, why Dorico does not do these things?

Probably because you have changed some options that affect spacing?
This is what I get by default…

[JeroenH]

Oops
That really is a shame!

Somehow this was NOT selected, I do not remember that I switched this off, probably in a moment of madness, that is also why I did not think of it.
I am deeply ashamed, and thanks for this very obvious solution!