Wishlist – language for instruments, instruments

Dorico
1

Hi!

Dorico is great! I think everybody here shares my opinion.

So, I have two tiny little thing as a suggestion for a quicker workflow:

FIRST:

When I want to create a score in german, the first step is to choose players and instruments. But: to get the german instrument names I have to go to the engraving options (Shift-Opt-I) before I even started to do anything, then to language, and there I can switch from Englisch to German.

BTW (1): There is no shortcut for engraving options in the setup window.
BTW (2): If I change the language after I have choosen the instruments, the change of instruments doesn’t have an effect of existing instruments. They remain in english.

So: If the language of Dorico is – let say – in german, why are the instruments not in german by default, too?
Or: Maybe it would be fine to be asked for the instruments language before I have to choose players and instruments.

SECOND:

Instrument names at all:

Please look at this picture:

Bildschirmfoto 2020-08-15 um 17.06.42.png
Bildschirmfoto 2020-08-15 um 17.06.42.png520×672 30.6 KB

Whats the difference between Bassgambe and Bassgambe and between Bassgeige, Double Bass, Kontrabass, Kontrabass and Kontrabass? (ok, in 2 times identical string tunings are visible, but in the other 3 options there are no hints about the differences.
In english its not much better: Baritone, Baritone Horn, Bariton Bugle …

I think it would be great to see the differences (clef, transposition, whatever) before I choose the instrument.

Thats all …
Thanks a lot!

2

Ctrl/Cmd-shift-E is the shortcut for Engraving options. It works in all modes where I need it (Setup, Write and Engrave. I have not tried it in Play nor Print). You can save as default if you need (star button) after you’ve applied the changes.
I agree there’s room for improvement in all the other things you mention. Once you know them, they are no longer a problem, though

3

I totally agree with you. We should have the option to change the name of the instruments to other languages once they have been set up in an automatic and consistent way.

I’ll go further:

  • Instruments with two names in different languages. For educational purposes.
  • A particular Instrument in a different language (especially the non orchestral ones). For instance, you have the orchestra in Italian, but you may want to put and “Electric Guitar” and not a “chitarre elettrica”.
  • An instrument in a language and its key in another (classic Russian style, they usually have the instruments in italian and their keys in German).
  • Switch name instrument inside the page where you chose the instrument, to check if what you’re choosing is correct (educational purposes again).
4

Dear reztes,
If I may, you can Edit the name of chitarra elettrica as Electric guitar and save it as default… I have changed the bass singer name as Fa, so it’s very easy to select (and it’s not a string instrument) and it displays as Basse. I think there are so many different needs it is important that users can optimize their tool without waiting for the proper option to be implemented :wink:

5

One can also edit the name of any instrument in the Player Panel of the Setup Mode to make any incremental changes once one has the defaults set to the language one wants.

If one wants highly customized scores, it’s going to involve effort beyond what the program supplies automatically. One can always set up quasi-template configurations for score setups one needs repeatedly.

6

For what it’s worth, as of Dorico 3.5.10 you can now reset instruments back to their default names, and I believe that should also work to change instrument names from one language to another. When you reset the instrument names, Dorico will reset them to the defaults for whatever language is set in Engraving Options. At the moment this command does not appear in the menus, but you can assign a key command to Reset Instrument Names in the Edit category in the Key Commands page of Preferences.

7

Dear Daniel,
Thanks for this information! I will certainly create a new shortcut for this feature :slight_smile: Have a nice Sunday!