This is an old problem and request, but a new question.
When I’m working on files I’ve worked on and exported previously, I use Cmd-Opt-E to automatically export the layout to the desired location and overwrite the old PDF without needing to go into Print mode, open the export path dialog, and manually choose a location, which is quite tedious when the edits are tiny and the number of files is large. But when I’m working on a file that someone else has worked on and exported, their folder export path is different.
Soemtimes export doesn’t work at all, throws an error message. Sometimes it exports to another folder I’ve exported to previously. Sometimes it exports to the default Documents folder.
Is there a way to know what will happen automatically here? Or is there a way this behavior could at least be standardized?
This annoyed me as well on a recent project, which had not even been someone else’s, but midway through the project I decided to change the PDF export destination to a newly made subfolder (which I did in Print mode by changing it for all layouts). After that, the location of the files generated by the Export Current Layout as PDF command became a total lottery. Sometimes the file would be created in my newly set destination folder, sometimes in the old one. It differed across layouts and sometimes the same layout would end up in different folders even within the same session of using Dorico. I was under time pressure so I couldn’t really figure out if anything about that behavior was reproducable but it was a huge PITA.
Even when going through the Print Graphics menus, I wish the initial default directory path was ALWAYS the same as the one in which the Dorico file was [just] opened. Too often I’ve moved folders around, then re-open the Dorico file to update or revise parts. When subsequently doing the Print Graphics I don’t generally check which destination folder it’s going to because… well, it should be the same destination that the score was opened from or saved to.
But the Graphics destination is remembered by the last Print Graphic file path, which no longer exists (because the file/folder was moved or renamed). Sometimes there is a warning, but more often the PDF files are written [somewhere] – but not in the folder in which the Dorico file just has been saved (and opened). It seems to me the default should be where the Dorico file presently resides, not “where it used to be some time ago” [which no longer exists].
So you’re suggesting relative file paths from wherever the file is?
But when does the default become an “override”? If I set my PDFs to go in a sub-folder called “PDFs”, but then move my Dorico file, should it keep the same absolute filepath, or create a new PDFs folder where the new file is?
The trouble is that lots of people have different workflows, and store their Project files and PDFs in different places. (And different layouts may have different locations.)
A relative export path from the project’s current location would cause just as many problems for other workflows when you move a project file.
I dare say that improvements can be made, but making sure that they benefit everyone’s workflow is not easy.
Perhaps you could get a dialog: “This file has been moved. Do you want to adjust the export destinations?”. Though I imagine that could get tedious.