In reply to Mike Rosen.

I have just read this on th eupdate notice.
Pitch before duration input

We have been thrilled to welcome many thousands of Finale users into the Dorico fold over the last month or so, and look forward to welcoming thousands more in the months to come. Finale users of long standing tend to gravitate towards the Speedy Entry input method, which has been part of Finale since its very first version. Dorico introduced its own spin on Speedy Entry in version 3.5 back in 2020, called pitch before duration input, but one aspect of Speedy Entry that Dorico 3.5 did not copy was the use of the arrow keys to adjust the input pitch in the Speedy Entry frame.

In pitch before duration input, the pitch to be input when you specify the duration is indicated by a shadow note drawn on the staff. You can set the pitch of the shadow note by typing the letter name of the note you want to input, or by playing on your MIDI keyboard, or using the arrow keys – though you need to hold Alt to move the shadow note up and down.

At the time of Dorico 3.5’s release, we heard from some former Finale users that they would welcome the ability to adjust the shadow note pitch using only the arrow keys, but we were reluctant to add this capability. Our approach in Dorico is that arrow keys alone should never edit anything: they are always intended for navigation, not for editing. In order to change the pitch of a note in Dorico, you must hold down Alt and press the up or down arrow key (and add Command on macOS or Ctrl on Windows to move by an octave).

However, in light of the many new Dorico users who have come from Finale, we have introduced some new commands in Dorico 5.1.60 that will allow Speedy Entry aficionados to set things up such that the shadow note can be moved with the up/down arrow keys alone. Four new commands have been added to the Note Input category in the Key Commands page of Preferences: map Raise Shadow Note Pitch by Step to up arrow, and map Lower Shadow Note Pitch by Step to down arrow. We also recommend you map Move Up and Move Down (also in the Note Input category) to Alt+up arrow and Alt+down arrow respectively, so that it is still possible to move the caret to different staves. You may also wish to map Raise Shadow Note Pitch by Octave and Lower Shadow Note Pitch by Octave. Having made these changes, after activating note input with pitch before duration, you can use the up/down arrow keys to adjust the pitch of the shadow note.

Furthermore, a new option Play changes of shadow note pitch in pitch before duration input has been added to the Note Input and Editing page of Preferences. If you prefer only to hear the pitch of the note when you commit it to the score by hitting a duration key, which is how Speedy Entry behaves in Finale, deactivate this option.