Warning when trying to print parts in concert pitch

Just because it’s not something you would use doesn’t mean it’s not useful to others. It makes perfect sense to me—or did when I was doing studio work—but I am not you.

I am all in favor of some type of indicator so that you can be aware before parts are printed.

Hmmm…lets see… how many are tweaking or correcting a minute after the rehearsal was to begin? Oh c’mon, it’s more of us than that! With today’s fast printers, it’s easier to do.

Thanks, Dan.

The warning message is helpful, but it appears only when printing part layouts.
Could we turn on this feature also for score layout?

No, since score layouts may quite legitimately be in either concert or transposed pitch.

I am the TA for an orchestration course and several times I had the situation where students who used Sibelius accidentally turned off transposition in a part and it printed in concert pitch with no warning, and the student did not realize the issue. It is great that the Dorico developers added this feature, but your assumption that this issue cannot happen in Sibelius is not correct.

I’m just thrilled to death with the warning dialogue. That’s all I really needed. My confidence for Easter has skyrocketed lol.

Daniel, I respectfully disagree with your decision about giving warning for concert pitch parts, but not for scores.

Yes, you are certainly right that some people print concert scores; and some pieces are even published that way, though having made my living as a professional conductor, I wish they weren’t.

But I can’t think of a single time in the 50+ years I’ve been writing, first by hand and, since Finale 1.0, by computer, when I’ve ever intentionally created a concert score. I’ve done it several times by accident, though, and for me that’s just wasted time and paper.

I’d never ask that printing concert scores be disabled; I’m sure some people want that capability. But I never - truly never - want to print a concert score; so given the fact that I go back and forth between concert and transposed view in the process of writing, particularly in harmonically complex music, I really want a warning if I’m about to print a concert score.

Would you consider at least making the concert score warning a setting that I could turn on and the concert score folks could turn off?

As always, thanks for listening.

Daniel, I respectfully disagree with your decision about giving warning for concert pitch parts, but not for scores.

Yes, you are certainly right that some people print concert scores; and some pieces are even published that way, though as having made my living as a professional conductor, I wish they wouldn’t.

But I can’t think of a single time in the 50+ years I’ve been writing, first by hand and, since Finale 1.0, by computer, when I’ve ever intentionally created a concert score. I’ve done it several times by accident, though, and for me that’s just wasted time and paper.

I’d never ask that printing concert scores be disabled; I’m sure some people want that capability. But I never - truly never - want to print a concert score; so given the fact that I go back and forth between concert and transposed view in the process of writing, particularly in harmonically complex music, I really want a warning if I’m about to print a concert score.

Would you consider at least making the concert score warning a setting that I could turn on and the concert score folks could turn off?

As always, thanks for listening.

+1 for this request.

I do understand that there are people out there whowant to print concert scores. But I have never and never will, and the fact that I switch between both views while working should hopefully never interfere with what I will print eventually.

Please, Dorico, help me prevent mistakes. :slight_smile:

Lew, please in future provide a more informative subject heading for your threads. This will avoid people having to click on it to discover what it is all about.

Many thanks!

David

I really don’t like the way this is going. “Are you sure” messages for everything that could possibly go wrong are self defeating (you stop reading them and just click the button) and time wasting.

Next on the list - somebody is going to complain that they sometimes print on the wrong size of paper, so can the program put up a warning dialog?

If you use sharp tools carelessly, you can get hurt. End of issue, so far as I’m concerned.

They do not want to have warning messages for everything, but only for printing scores with concert pitch.

I think it would be also helpful to show a warning message if the paper size for layout is different from the paper size in the printer.

Prko, there’s an English proverb “give somebody an inch and they will take a mile”.

There’s a request for one warning message, which was implemented.

You have just said “they” don’t want any more warning messages, and your next sentence says “you” want another one.

If people want the Dorico user interface to give them warning messages about everything that might possibly be a mistake, That’s OK. I’ll just delete Dorico from my PC and find some PROFESSIONAL software to use instead.

The version I heard was…

Give someone an inch, they want a foot.
Give someone a foot, they want a yard.
Give someone a yard, they want a pool in it.

(I agree with Rob.
And also with david_p about using descriptive titles.)

And putting these INFOs (not WARNINGs) in the print dialog? Then I press OK or CANCEL…
Francesco

I print scores in concert pitch all the time, and some professional new music ensembles prefer scores in C as well. In general, the less intrusive the user interface, the better, imho.

For the record, I asked for a warning whenever a part OR score were in concert pitch…

There are a handful of brass instruments that are commonly read in both transposed and concert pitch. Euphonium is the big one for concert band/wind symphony, and if you’re writing for brass ensemble, trombones and tubas read in concert pitch in the US and transposed in the UK, so it’s useful to be able to generate both in two passes.

Once Dorico adds a way to make multiple transposing parts from the same base part, then I think you’ll be right that there’s no reason to print a plain concert pitch part.

Trombones aren’t transposing instruments so the argument doesn’t really apply. You aren’t printing a “transposed score shifted to concert pitch” for trombones. The issue of this thread revolves around instruments that require transposing parts being printed incorrectly.

I do not agree to the opinion that showing warning window for some important commands is not a professional software program.

There are different categories of Dorico users: students, amateur musicians, hobby musicians as well as professional musicians. Some of them would be happy when seeing the warning messages; some wouldn’t.

Satisfying a broad range of users seems to be a characteristic of professional software.

For example, Finale shows the following window when printing score in concert pitch:


Sibelius seems not to show a warning window when printing a score in concert pitch. It seems to display all part always in transposed pitch. Is it right?

If showing warning message is one of the essential criteria of professional software, then could we say that Finale as not professional, Dorico as semi-professional, and Sibelius as professional?

I have never used concert pitch in Finale, and I realised today that Finale shows this window.
Now I am a Dorico newbie, and I selected the concert pitch while trying lots of things in Dorico.
I realised I had printed a score in concert pitch after printing the score. The problem is, of course, that I was not careful, but I could have avoided the mistake if Dorico shows a warning message. I believe that I will not use concert pitch in working again, but who knows if I prefer to work in concert pitch in future?

Showing a warning window with the option “do not show this message in future” will satisfy all users.