I’m a recent convert to Dorico. Below are some things on my wish list that relate to preferences and options. Some of these may be things that others have suggested as well; some may also be things that Dorico already has but I haven’t found yet – please feel free to point them out to me if that’s the case.
Move all Font Styles to Paragraph Styles. I did see a previous comment from @dspreadbury indicating that Font Styles were developed first and that there’s a fair amount of work in switching them over. What I particularly miss in Font Styles is the ability to assign different sizes for score and parts; I’ve seen workarounds that involve using an absolute size that sort of works for both, but that doesn’t quite meet my needs.
Separate the properties (in Layout Options) for putting the instrument pitch at the start/end of full and abbreviated staff names. This is minor, but it would be nice to automatically do “Clarinet in Bb” but “Bb Cl.”
In the various options and preferences dialogs, where there is an input field that takes a number or a string, I need to double-click the value to select the whole thing and change it. It would be nice if (single) clicking on the label for the field automatically selected the entire value; this is how Adobe apps work, for example, and it’s very handy.
It would be nice to have an easy way to see what command a key combo is mapped to. Preferences > Key Commands will tell me if I’m trying to assign a key that’s already mapped, but it won’t tell me what it’s mapped to, and there’s no way to check an arbitrary key combo. I find that the Key Commands web page doesn’t always give me complete/accurate info, and while it has a box to search for a command to see what its key is, I have to use text search to try to find a key combo to see what command it executes.
I understand why the team originally separated these items, but I too find it overwhelming and confusing, and feel it could be somehow consolidated in a single menu.
That’s pretty specific haha! There might be some way in another menu already but I understand what you mean. For now, it would be easy enough to rename the player exactly how you want:
And then in the same layout options menu there’s options to show player names instead of instrument names, which is handy for to override for a lot of reasons.
Try Help > Key Commands, which will open an image of your keyboard in a browser window showing how you have each key currently mapped. I would prefer an internal one myself right there in the key commands menu (which exactly is how Adobe products like Premiere has it), so I can understand having it in totally separate places like this is confusing.
That’s what I was referring to when I said “Key Commands web page”. I have found that it’s not always complete/accurate, and it doesn’t give a good way to look for a specific key combo.
Sorry, I thought you meant the manual web page or something you found on google. Yes, I understand, it’s not complete and it frustrates me sometimes as well. I really like the way Adobe has it like I said, where you can search for commands and see if/where they are assigned and if not, assign or move them. Easy peasy.
For reference to anyone unfamiliar, it looks like this, and it’s incredibly easy to use, all in one place:
I don’t have an example handy, but I have definitely had times in the past few weeks when there were things I knew to be true but the page wasn’t showing me. The categories that the page uses are also a little confusing to me, because they don’t match the categories in the Key Commands prefs dialog.
More to the point: The page has a combo box that lets you type in the name of a command and find all the matches, but it doesn’t have anything that lets you press a key combo and find all the matches, and that’s really the sort of thing I’m looking for.
I’ve used a little app (on Mac) called CheatSheet and whichever program you’re using holding down the cmd key brings up a screen which gives you all the key commands for that particular program. Some people like it but it can be annoying if you hold it down while trying to remember which keystroke you need it will pop up. In Dorico though the shift key is used more than cmd so it shouldn’t be too distracting.
My two penneth
Ah! It’s a matter of scope. This alert message is actually saying it’s okay to use this key assignment, but understand that it operates only in the context of this command, and otherwise the shortcut will do what it normally does.
One way to force it to tell you what that global command is: Try assigning it to Application > About Dorico (the first command in the list), and just don’t press Add Key Command.
Oh, that’s a neat trick! Unfortunately, it doesn’t give all assignments. For example, if I use your method and press Space, the dialog tells me it’s already assigned to Play > , which is true. But it doesn’t tell me that it’s also assigned, for example, to Note Input > Advance Caret.
This dialog already has an edit box that lets me enter text and see all the assignable actions that contain that text. Basically, what I’d like is to also be able to type a key combo in that edit box and see all the actions that are assigned to that key combo.
