We are pleased to announce the release of a further maintenance update to Dorico Pro 2 and Dorico Elements 2, version 2.2.20, providing one last tune-up to this version of the software. There are some modest improvements to be found in Dorico 2.2.20, but the primary motivation for the release was to bring you a number of fixes for bugs we have taken care of in the process of working on our next major release, scheduled for later this year. Read on for more details.
There are no significant new features in Dorico 2.2.20, but we have added some small enhancements that we hope you will find useful.
New key commands
As part of our continuing effort to make it possible to drive Dorico as much as possible from the keyboard, and to help some of our high-volume users who are looking for ways to automate parts of their workflow, we have added some new key commands for printing. In the Print category on the Key Commands page of Preferences you’ll find a number of new commands to which you can assign shortcuts: Export All Layouts as PDF, Export Current Layout as PDF, Export Current Page as PDF, Print Current Layout, and Print Current Page.
Note input and editing
A new option Play all notes in chord when any is selected has been added to the Auditioning section of the Note Input and Editing page of the Preferences dialog. When this option is switched on, when you select any note in a chord – for example, by clicking on it or by navigating to it using the arrow keys – all notes in that chord will be auditioned.
Finally, Dorico will now attempt to maintain a selection after you delete something. Previously, deleting whatever was selected would leave nothing selected, meaning you would generally have to reach for your mouse to get going again. If you delete a note, Dorico will first select another note in the same voice at the same rhythmic position, and failing that select a note in the same voice at an earlier rhythmic position (up to four quarter note beats earlier). If you delete a non-note voice-specific item, Dorico will select a note in that voice at or near that rhythmic position, if possible. If you delete a non-voice-specific item (such as a slur, pedal line, or dynamic), Dorico will select a note in the first voice on the top staff belonging to that instrument at or near that rhythmic position. If you delete a system-attached item (such as a tempo, chord symbol, or repeat ending), Dorico will select a note in the first voice on the top staff in the system at or near that rhythmic position. All of these selection operations may result in the viewport being moved to bring the newly-selected item into view, with a greater likelihood of movement when deleting a system-attached item.
There’s more to be done in this area – in particular it would be nice if Dorico would select an implicit rest if it’s unable to find any notes to select – but we nevertheless hope this will make editing in Dorico feel more fluid.
More than 30 fixes
Dorico 2.2.20 also includes more than 30 bug fixes, including a few quite important ones, such as a few that could cause crashes under some circumstances, and a regression that prevented grace notes from playing back in unpitched percussion instruments. You can read all about the fixes in the Dorico 2.2.20 Version History PDF.
What’s next?
Although I wrote the same thing after the release of Dorico 2.2.10 back in February, we really do anticipate that this is the final release in the Dorico 2.x series. We are hard at work on the next major version of the software, which will be ready later in the year. We said last year that releasing a major new version in late spring or early summer would be our preference, but the features we are working on at the moment, which span all areas of the software, are sufficiently large that the next major release is not scheduled for the first half of this year. We have added an enormous amount of functionality in the Dorico 2.x series and we hope that the knowledge that we are working on even bigger and better things will be exciting to you.
In the immediate future, look out for some more exciting news at the end of this week – keep an eye on the @doricoofficial Twitter and Instagram accounts if you don’t want to miss it.
I would really love it if I could use Inpen2 fonts …
@Peter: If you’re a patient man, you can use the Engrave > Music Symbols dialog to replace many of the symbols Dorico uses with symbols from Inkpen2, and you could do the same for noteheads in Engrave > Notehead Sets. You should probably first do Engrave > Music Fonts and choose Petaluma so you are at least starting from a handwritten appearance, even though Petaluma and Inkpen2 certainly look very different.
Hi Daniel,
I was wondering if there is any news with regards to Dorico 3, or development blogs coming out soon. You mentioned in this blog to keep an eye out on Twitter/Instagram for exciting news, but it never came out.
Would be great if there is anything to share.
Thanks
@John: I think that exciting news was the story about Alan Silvestri and his use of Dorico when writing Avengers: Endgame. We are of course hard at work on the next version of Dorico, and you can be sure that as soon as there is news to share, you’ll see it here!
Looking forward to the updates, Daniel and team. The behind-the-scenes blog entries are so exciting that I sometimes go back and read whole passages from before v. 1 was even released, just for fun. Take your time with version 3 — I’m looking forward to it and to any news along the way!
@Bram: Thanks for your feedback! I wish we had time to write more about what we’re working on these days, but there is just so much to do that I find any time I might previously have spent writing about the things we’re working on trying to help the team squeeze even more into our next release. There will be a lot to get your teeth into in the next release, that much I can promise!
Any chance screenreader accessibility is on the drawing board for version 3.x? Hey, I haven’t asked in awhile. 🙂
Hello Daniel,
I know You have a lot to do but I want to tell You a very nice story. I am a composer and a composition teacher for young musicians. My first experience was on an Atari then I changed to Finale and finally to Sibelius. After Sibelius I did not want to change the notation program anymore but then Dorico came out and I was fascinated about how this amazing program thinks because it is brilliant for teaching, too. So I was a user of the first hour and what You have done since then is more than amazing.
Meanwhile one of my most gifted students – he is 14 years old – is writing all his scores in Dorico and sometimes he explains to me some new features of Dorico or he reminds me of some shortcuts. But it is a fact that there is no other program that clearly lays out all the necessary steps You need to go when writing a score.
The thing is: I am sure my student will be a very good composer and he already won prizes in competitions. But – in contrary to my carreer – I am sure there will be no need ever for him to learn another program.
The gift You and Your team gave to us composers, arrangers and teachers is a century´s milestone – THANK YOU!
Best
Ludwig
@Ludwig: Thank you so much for sharing this story. It means a great deal to me! I hope you and your students have many years of happy use of Dorico to come.
Is performed tracks played by
Musicians transferable to this program for sheet music in
Compositional Building applications – Live to Paper?
Thanks,
Michael
@Michael: Are you asking whether Dorico can automatically transcribe your audio recordings in real-time to sheet music? If so, I’m afraid not.