Rehearsal marks can be of the following Sequence types.
Letters
Numbers
Bar Numbers
I propose a new selection:
(Hidden)
This would allow the Prefix or the Suffix to be used as a text field for the Rehearsal Mark. The desired outcome is simply a Rehearsal Mark containing the text itself (no Sequence stuff).
Attached are screenshots of how Dorico works now.
The Prefix and Suffix itself is a funky property anyway. Without manually adding the text as “period space Word”, the Rehearsal Mark is unreadable (i.e. the Mark would be displayed as “AVerse”).
System text and Rehearsal Marks are both system objects. They appear in all the places specified in Layout Options for system objects (except Rehearsal Marks can also be specified to appear underneath the bottom stave, which system text cannot).
So, for most practical purposes, @DanielMuzMurray’s suggestion makes perfect sense.
I am sure you are trying to be helpful but I didn’t ask “how do I do this”. Rehearsal Marks are a unique item and the wishlist is to expand functionality of that specific item.
The only distinguishing feature of a RM is its ability to auto-index (which you clearly do not want) . Otherwise its functionality is identical to System Text.
Unless you are a developer, you can not make that claim, “the only distinguishing feature”. They are separate items. Simply because they may appear on the page as identical after System Text is coerced, does not make them the same.
Quite OT: @Janus what is that piece?
In the meantime: yes, system text and RM come close here. Still, I think a kind of dedicated section title might be useful.
It is easy enough that the Development Team need not waste time programming an alternative when two perfectly good solutions already exist. If they deem it important, they can (and almost certainly will) see to it after capabilities more important and more in demand have been addressed.
Get used to work-arounds. There will always be work-arounds because adventuresome composers and engravers will always be pushing the envelope and want to notate their innovations, for better or for worse.
If you are not on the development team then you should not speak for what they can do, or can’t do, or want to do, or don’t want to do, or what is or is not valuable to do, and you should not nix or bash another user’s feature request based on your uninformed opinion of what is or isn’t “right”.
Requesting an additional property to allow a text-only content for a Rehearsal Mark is not “adventuresome” engraving.
This topic is named Wishlist for a reason: because it is a request to add a capability in the future.
I agree there’s room for a fourth option in the rehearsal marks, where users could access to a list with things like Trio, Verse, Refrain… So that list should be easily editable by the user (to deal with all kinds of genres as well as languages). And since workarounds exist and do work, I wouldn’t expect this to reach the top of the priority list really soon, but only Daniel Spreadbury knows!
There is a clear requirement for a kind of “section mark”, it’s been requested before, and it’s on our backlog for future implementation. We won’t implement it via rehearsal marks, however: they will have to be their own thing.