Hello all! This is my first real post in this forum! I downloaded the trial a couple of years ago and really really liked some of the features. It just wasn’t comprehensive enough (yet) to justify my official conversion.
Here I am, two years later and very impressed and excited with all of the work the development team has made! It’s an incredibly smart program, with loads of super convenient implementations and really clever design. Congratulations to all involved!
There’s one thing that would seal the deal for me in terms of making the definite leap from Finale. I would LOVE a button that made it possible to override the great automatic settings Dorico has to offer. I completely understand that there’s a compromise to be made: to have a program so structurally and semantically smart as Dorico, you have to let go of a bit of flexibility, and you’ll work hard to input stuff the “Dorico” way. No arguments there. I’m reading the whole manual, all good!
Having said that, it would be great to have the option of making it as dumb as the competition just for a second… At least in engrave mode. In the same way that a few phones offer a “developer mode”, I would love an option (that wasn’t checked by default) that unlocked the ability to f$%# up my score, graphically-wise, if I so please. To say “listen, I know you know whats best, but please let me do this dumb thing?” The option to sign a waiver and disobey the well-meaning doctor. The Dorictor, if you will.
If that option was checked, an extra property would appear in the contextual menus called “I Want to Break Free”, “You sure? Okay…” or something of the sort, and when activated you could drag the object anywhere without a fear in the world. Objects assigned to beats would still retain their original position stored a click away, it just wouldn’t prevent you from sending that tuplet number to the moon if you so desired. The option to double-click ANY text and replace it (be it instrument labels, performance notes), without erasing the original contents. Or to “delete” (hide) and resize any element. Basically, carte-blanche to do what you please with your score, graphically, without screwing up the structural integrity that is vital to the software.
I love that Dorico is as smart as it is. I love that, for most jobs, it’s way faster and convenient than the competitors. But, for larger more niche and edge-case contemporary works, there are still stuff that I have to use one of the Others for. It’s such an infuriating and dumb software, with so many plugins and workarounds but there isn’t much I’m not capable of doing with it. Which makes me sad, because I really want to change to Dorico for good. But that teensy bit of lack of flexibility still doesn’t allow it.
Be dumb sometimes Dorico! Or at least let me be stupid.
Thank you, and congratulations again for the brilliant piece of software. Have a nice day!