Daniel,
It’s been almost 2 months since the announcement of Dorico.
I’m guessing you can’t tell us too much. But from watching the video of the MOLA conference about 4 times, and reading other interviews you have done, etc. I get the feeling that this project is in the final stages of getting ready for release.
1.) In the MOLA video, you said that playback was “oh so close” to working. Are you at a point now where playback, even if in an infancy stage, is working?
2.) When it comes to the idea of “we are hoping to get it in the first release, but if not, if will come shortly” comments. Are many of the things you have said that about in progress (i.e., code written but buggy, code written just not implemented, etc.)? Or are they things that are still on the drawing board (i.e., no code, just thoughts)?
I haven’t been this excited for music software in quite sometime, and the lack of knowledge of what is going on is driving me nuts.
Robby
I can’t really give you chapter and verse on what’s done and what’s not done. A lot has been done since the MOLA presentation in May, including bar numbers, ornaments (nearly complete, except for their effect on accidentals), hiding empty staves, tremolos, lyrics, and so on. We’re currently working on automatic transitions between doubling instruments, barlines of various types, user interface for editing tonality systems, user interface for choosing instruments, the basic mechanics for copy and paste, keyboard navigation in Engrave mode, localisation, and, of course, playback. I can’t tell you right now what will and won’t make it into the first release, as we are effectively working towards a pretty hard deadline for release, and we’re just going as fast as we can to get as much in as we can by then.
It’s important for everybody to remember that the first version of Dorico is just that: the first version of Dorico. It will be followed by a number of maintenance releases that will not only fix bugs but also add more features. We are obviously releasing Dorico because we want to start recouping some of the (not inconsiderable) costs of developing the software over the past three and a half years, but we also recognise that it will not at first have every feature that we wanted to get in, or that our prospective customers would want it to have in. We hope that nevertheless there will be enough interesting and unique things in Dorico when it’s launched that people will choose to come with us on the journey as we work to mature the application into the tool we all want it to be.
Daniel,
That is great to hear!! I am glad to see things are continuing to move forward.
As a long time engraving software user, I do not expect Dorico 1.0 to be the greatest thing ever. I do however, expect it to the be the platform to becoming the greatest thing ever. 
I am not worried about what won’t be included, and what will be. From what I have seen, it appears the groundwork is being laid quite well. And I am excited to purchase Dorico 1.0 upon it’s release!!
Thanks for the heads up on the progress!
Robby