Hi,
Does anyone know how Dorico sorts all playing techniques within the categories given?
Nothing seems to make sense.
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This has mystified me for years. A more user controllable system would be an immense help. You canāt group like combination entries because sometimes they sort way up or down the list. Iām sure thereās a scheme, I just couldnāt tell you what it is.
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Do you mean in the Edit Playing Techniques dialog?
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Yes. Itās something Iām starting to need with the different instruments I have.
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Hello, sorting Playing techniques in the palette (Iām not referring to the dialogue box) would be a really interesting question. I now have so many of my own playing techniques that I would like to sort and group.
I took the trouble to rearrange all the playing techniques in a new Dorico document in a specific order and defined them as standard. Unfortunately, the sorting was messed up again in other new documents. It obviously has nothing to do with the naming. Iām at a loss here too.
Kind regards
Sven
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It sorts them alphabetically but struggles with some symbols. Like ffz is placed before espressivo in my list and not with (f) and the fermata symbols. The default playing techniques appear alphabetically as their own list at the very bottom and are not integrated with the rest.
When you first create a new one, it appears at the very top, sometimes. Sometimes not. Iāve never figured that one out.
This is my number one issue in Dorico. No way to group the playing techniques logically in categories and no way to assign one-key shortcuts to them.
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Yeah, Iām aware it sorts them alphabetically, but as you say itās behavior in that respect is erratic with combinations. If you working on variants of a specific combination set they can sort all over the map. This even includes positioning a secondary playback technique as if it were primary and sorting it alphabetically out of position from the perspective of the user. At the very least it should always put the first-entered technique of a combination at the first spot in the entry name. I imagine thereās some internal reason they do it this way, but for the user who works with long expression maps (VSL, for example), it makes things way more difficult.
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@DaddyO I am hoping that there is not some internal reason, and that the developers have simply not been able to improve this yet. On the other hand, I donāt think I have read anything encouraging about an eventual improvement.
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I hope the developers work on this soon, especially since they have set up the initial structure for people to create their own playback techs, playing techs and expression/percussion maps to accommodate other instrument products not included in Dorico.
Iāve posted on this subject before under wishlist of things to come; even gave them a possible look the playing techs window panel could have. And I know their list is probably longā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦.
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Hello,
I guess they sort playing technics with their ASCII codes (see attachment). Basically, numbers, upper cases and lower cases. (e.g. Zambia will be before abbey).
As there are many techniques already present the ones you add will be mixed with the others. To avoid this, I named all my custom ones with a dot as first character. So they will be on the top of the listā¦ However, as .detache will be after .Legato, I only use lower case names.
Hope that can help.
ASCII-Table-wide.pdf (215.8 KB)
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Dear all, I added a ā.ā to the name of the Playing technique. As expected, it slides to the top of the dialogue box.
But in the palette, however, and this was the actual question, it remains in the random position assigned by Doricoā¦
Or am I missing something here?
It would be so easy if Dorico simply displayed the Playing technique alphabeticallyā¦ Then you could at least determine the position in the palette by the name.
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Hello Sven,
In the right panel, the playing technique is sorted by the āpopover nameā you gave in the playing technique dialog (see picture above).
After double check, it is sorted by the name given in the ātypeā lineā¦
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This is an interesting idea. Perhaps multiple dots or other symbols in front to force certain patterns. I may try this. Editing playing techniques after the fact can in some cases be problematic, however.
Hello Eric, could you please show us a screenshot of your palette?
Thank you!!
To be clear, Iād already be absolutely, positively ecstatic if, for starters, the panel would just remember the last opened categoryā¦ 
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Hello Sven,
As per your request, here is a screen shot of my playing techniques.
I donāt use glyph. There are mainly to select the VSL patches for instrument.
I use short description to fit the score. ācrS4ā stands for crescendo Strong 4 secondsā¦
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Hope we finally get custom categories soon.
Jesper
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Hello Eric, your palette is very impressive, thank you.
Is ad20ā really at the top of your āEdit Playing Techniques" dialog box?
For me, the order in the dialog box and in the palette does not matchā¦
Hello Sven,
Yes it would have been the first one, if I hadnāt put some other playing techniques which labels have an apostrophe in front of them. (apostrophe has a smaller ASCII code than the dot - see picture below)
As you can see, the label I use is ā.adams timp 20 pā is not the same as the one I use to be written on score which is āad20ā (without the dot).
This time, I attached a view of the right panel from the 1st item, it may help to figure out how they sorted the names. One weird thing is that the apostrophe are not considered for the sortingā¦ 
(i.e. Sfatk is before āBend).
Weirder is that āad mergedā is before āAAtkā. So, finally, I donāt know how they proceed for sorting the namesā¦ 
