Dorico

Recommendations concerning notation and publishing software in a non-partisan environment.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Dorico

Post by John Ruggero »

jrethorst, I didn't realize that about Sibelius, but it fits my impression of the philosophy behind the program.

In Finale, notes have been movable horizontally since I started using the program in the late 1990's and there are (at least) three different ways (tools) to do it. That's one reason I use Finale.
M1 Mac mini (OS 12.4), Dorico, Finale 25.5, GPO 4, Affinity Publisher 2, SmartScore 64 Pro, JW Plug-ins, TG Tools, Keyboard maestro

http://www.cantilenapress.com
Knut
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Re: Dorico

Post by Knut »

John Ruggero wrote:Knut, thanks so much for your appraisal. When I first heard about the Properties Panel, my heart sank.

Not being an early adopter of almost anything, I will wait for the demo before I buy Dorico. It will be fascinating to see the growth of this new product which may be faster than we anticipate, given the dedication of the development team. And if MM is wise, it will make use of this time to improve Finale and add new capabilities so that those who require a very flexible approach to engraving have that option.
You're very welcome, John.

I think the properties panel is very good for keeping track of manual adjustments made, but for the actual hands on tweaking and repositioning of elements, there really needs to be an easier way to make adjustments.

I think the aim of the Dorico team has been to develop unparalleled automatic output quality, as well as laying the ground work for as rich and as flexible an environment as Finale. It's easy to understand that this is a very difficult, time consuming task, as well as the reasoning behind Steinbergs prioritization.

I'm looking forward to the fruits of the team's continued labour, but I certainly won't abandon Finale for quite some time yet.
MJCube
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Re: Dorico

Post by MJCube »

It’s no surprise that the 1.0 release of Dorico lacks some customizing capabilities such as fine-tuning spacing, that we in this forum relish. We are a niche market, even within music copying. Just think of all the music professionals out there who will never touch such controls — precisely because Dorico’s defaults are so effective. And certainly Steinberg will get to these things ASAP.

As a Finale user from 1988–2003 and a Sibelius user since 2001 (and an interested observer of the output and capabilities of LilyPond and SCORE), I feel that the way the Steinberg team is prioritizing development of various important features in Dorico is completely sensible. Of course there are loud complaints that a feature missing in 1.0 is a deal breaker for certain potential customers; whatever you choose to do, somebody will find it appalling that you didn’t do what they want.
RMK
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Re: Dorico

Post by RMK »

John Ruggero wrote:jrethorst, I didn't realize that about Sibelius, but it fits my impression of the philosophy behind the program.

In Finale, notes have been movable horizontally since I started using the program in the late 1990's and there are (at least) three different ways (tools) to do it. That's one reason I use Finale.
Just to correct an erroneous statement: It is indeed possible to move notes horizontally in Sibelius, and has been so for quite a while. If you drag a note left or right, all the corresponding notes in other staves move as well, sort of like dragging beat charts in Finale. It is possible to move a note independently, but for that you have to type in a number via the Inspector.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Dorico

Post by John Ruggero »

RMK wrote:
Just to correct an erroneous statement: It is indeed possible to move notes horizontally in Sibelius, and has been so for quite a while. If you drag a note left or right, all the corresponding notes in other staves move as well, sort of like dragging beat charts in Finale. It is possible to move a note independently, but for that you have to type in a number via the Inspector.
Sorry, RMK, I didn't mean to imply that Sibelius could not move notes horizontally. I was only responding to jrethorst's statement:
I don't know first-hand but understand that Sibelius did not permit horizontal movement of notes until version 8. Does Finale permit it? Is it easy?
Was his statement incorrect? Was it indeed possible to move notes horizontally and independently of the others (which is what I assumed he meant) in versions of Sibelius before version 8?

In any case, what you describe is what I would assume Sibelius would do in terms of note movement, given my limited knowledge of the program. But since I like to move things around by hand, I would not want to type in numbers to move notes. I don't even like to use the arrow keys to do various operations in Finale. It is possibly for that reason that I am concerned about the Properties Panel in Dorico, which sounds a bit like the Inspector in Sibelius.
M1 Mac mini (OS 12.4), Dorico, Finale 25.5, GPO 4, Affinity Publisher 2, SmartScore 64 Pro, JW Plug-ins, TG Tools, Keyboard maestro

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RMK
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Re: Dorico

Post by RMK »

As far as I can remember, it was possible to drag notes in Sibelius from the outset (Version 1).

Don't like to type numbers? You really would have hated SCORE!
Knut
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Re: Dorico

Post by Knut »

RMK wrote:Don't like to type numbers? You really would have hated SCORE!
I suspect that's true for me as well. OTOH, I much prefer using the arrow keys to nudge things around rather than using the mouse. I don't think I would even mind inputting values THAT much either, as long as I don't have to move my focus away from the music to a whole other area on the screen (which is the case with the properties panel).
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Alexander Ploetz
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Re: Dorico

Post by Alexander Ploetz »

I am pretty sure that offsets for notes will be properly implemented eventually (indeed, the fields to change these values are in the UI of the last build that I used, although you could not change them), but I would like to reiterate the point that I tried to make in the review: you will make your work unnecessarily difficult if you insist that Dorico should just allow you to do, step by step, what you are doing in other programs. In the three months that I spent using Dorico, there was exactly one (!) case where I failed to position a note in the way I wanted with the described approach of telling the program what is wanted instead of what it should do (and I can't even rule out that it was due to user error or a bug). While having more finished features (especially from the "basic" category) would certainly be preferable, I think that a simple note-offset available right now would probably just lead to fewer users unlocking the true power of Dorico, which comes much more from a deeply ingrained understanding of notation than on any approach of just moving graphics around.
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John Ruggero
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Re: Dorico

Post by John Ruggero »

RMK wrote:
As far as I can remember, it was possible to drag notes in Sibelius from the outset (Version 1)
But was it possible to move notes independently of the others in the earlier versions of Sibelius by typing numbers? It would be interesting to know given the present situation with Dorico. Both programs seem to have the same philosophy: produce the best possible output automatically to limit the necessity for user tweaking. This would mean that at least in the initial versions, emphasis would be on program output rather than on user control, the necessity for tweaking being viewed as a failure of the program.
Don't like to type numbers? You really would have hated SCORE!


;) I know little about Sibelius and less about SCORE. But if SCORE involved a lot of typing, I definitely would have hated it.

Knut wrote:
I much prefer using the arrow keys to nudge things around rather than using the mouse. I don't think I would even mind inputting values THAT much either, as long as I don't have to move my focus away from the music to a whole other area on the screen (which is the case with the properties panel)
Working styles are so individual. It sounds like you might desire the greater sense of precision of the arrow keys. I prefer the smooth motion of the mouse because I can move symbols very quickly to new positions while the old positions remain in my mind's eye, so I can compare them. Your analysis of the situation via the properties panel is very interesting. I tried to imagine what it would be like to use a properties panel, and it felt like a barrier, or as you describe it, a loss of focus.
M1 Mac mini (OS 12.4), Dorico, Finale 25.5, GPO 4, Affinity Publisher 2, SmartScore 64 Pro, JW Plug-ins, TG Tools, Keyboard maestro

http://www.cantilenapress.com
Knut
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Re: Dorico

Post by Knut »

jrethorst wrote:A while ago several of us did a comparison of seven engraving programs, all examples of the same one-page score. A thread on it is at:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=160&p=3452#p3452

Would any new Dorico owner like to add an example from his or her new pride and joy?
Attached is the Elegy with Dorico's default output. I've made a point to deviate from the default settings as little as possible. I've made one change to the engraving defaults to keep Dorico from putting fermatas in all voices of the relevant measures. Additionally, I had to force the last system to stay on the first page.

Other than that, this is all Dorico; no manual edits, no changes to default options. Disregarding the missing endings, Coda signs and arpeggio symbols, this is rather excellent if you ask me. Not all rests in the middle voice have received an ideal placement, but it's pretty close, and certainly readable.
Elegy Full score.pdf
(45.7 KiB) Downloaded 570 times
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