Dorico…to be or not.

[OCTO]

Thanks!

And if you were a Finale user, there is a very favourable cross-grade price.

Yes, both Finale and Sibelius.  Actually, I already submitted the crossgrade information, but I forgot to check the status.  It was approved, but then cancelled because I didn't respond within 30 days or so.

If I decide to go with Dorico, I will go all in, no demo or tryout.  That is usually how I do things.

[benwiggy]

Plethora.

To start with - who is in the most stable position in the long run? Not I who went for Finale. Those who mastered open source stuff (Lilypond, MusiXTeX, Frescobaldi etc.). Nothing has changed for them, and won't change, unless they decide so. No unwanted "transition", conversion, re-editing. Everything always where left, with output potentially second to none.

Open source software still needs to be supported by someone else, unless you're doing it yourself. There are plenty of abandoned Open source projects. It's not impossible that Lilypond will grind to a halt, 20 years down the road. And it's currently a lot harder to get data out of Lilypond than other notation apps.
So that seems a pretty poor argument for choosing the right tool for getting your work done now.

By the time anyone needs to move away from either Dorico or Lilypond, 30 years from now, we'll likely have much better tools for migration anyway.

[John Ruggero]

Thank you for the compliment, OCTO! You are clearly very able to adapt different notation software to your needs and would probably have much less trouble than most doing the same with Dorico.

[OCTO]

How about quick copy/paste between different instruments, moving phrases around (left/right, as with Sibelius CMD+ALT+arrow), quickly copying and pasting specific elements from one instrument to another (slurs, hairpins, etc.), filtering specific elements within a selected measure, etc.?

What I mean by "quick" is to execute the command in a shortest possible time by using shortcuts and without any screen-delay.

These are the things I find very effective in Sibelius, as Word processor, even though the final output is not near what Finale can achieve.

[MichelRE]

copying and pasting works very well.
you can set up little macros that will select things for you as well, only notes, only articulations, only slurs.

Dorico does some fun things too, for example, enter all 8th notes, then select the measures (ie: all of the notes, and simply press "." (the period key) and it will transform the whole passage into dotted 8th - 16th note patterns.

Dorico works better when you know the keyboard shortcuts, unlike Finale which was a bit more menu-driven.
I use a MIDI keyboard for note entry, and I can really fly through entering notes. The only time it really slows down - and it's mostly from a lack of experience on my part - is if the rhythms become particularly complex (which rarely happens in my particular musical language.)

[benwiggy]

How about quick copy/paste between different instruments, moving phrases around (left/right, as with Sibelius CMD+ALT+arrow), quickly copying and pasting specific elements from one instrument to another (slurs, hairpins, etc.), filtering specific elements within a selected measure, etc.?

You can Alt-click to copy/paste a selection to a new location, just as in Finale.

Moving a selection of material is done with Alt Left/Right. The music is moved along a "rhythmic grid", whose duration you can set. So you might choose 8ths for 6/8, and then move Alt-Right 3 times to move it one beat. (Or set the grid to a dotted quarter, and move it once.)

Dorico will also sort out beaming and note groups as you move notes across beats.

All music items are treated in a similar way, so anything you select can be duplicated to the staff below, or alt-clicked. (Slurs, lyrics, etc.)

There is a filter for types of notation. I've configured a sequence of key shortcuts to use it, so it's very quick.

[harpsi]

What I mean by "quick" is to execute the command in a shortest possible time by using shortcuts and without any screen-delay.

To be fair, one should mention that depending on your computer specs you might experience some lag with big files, because of the recalculations of spacing that always goes on behind the scenes. There are various strategies to handle it.

Regarding shortcuts, they are totally user programmable. But if you want shortcuts for popover content, like for instance dynamics or playing techniques, you will have to use scripts/macros, internal ones suffices sometimes but other times you will need external.

However, the way copying and pasting works, many times compensates for this. If you for instance want to copy a dynamic consisting of p<sfzp from one player bar 1 beat 1, to all the others coming in after, like on random beats polyphonically during the next 4 bars, you can just copy your marking, select the passage and paste. The marking will be pasted correctly to the entrances of the other instruments.

Just to mention one time saver.

[OCTO]

What I mean by "quick" is to execute the command in a shortest possible time by using shortcuts and without any screen-delay.

To be fair, one should mention that depending on your computer specs you might experience some lag with big files, because of the recalculations of spacing that always goes on behind the scenes. There are various strategies to handle it.

This is what I noticed with my student’s computer (Windows laptop).  Despite being a newer “gaming” computer, the screen delay was far too long, maybe 2–4 seconds.  The student admitted that the computer needs some adjustments and is a bit slow.  It was an orchestral score.

[harpsi]

Because of the nature of music notation, the most important is to have a processor with good single core performance.
So it could well be that the problem is partly with your student's computer and partly with Dorico.

I used to have a rather high specced laptop, but even so it struggled with large projects. But even in a project like that, I would anyway save lots and lots of time compared to doing the same project in Finale or Sibelius. So the lagging that occurs is not so much a problem for the project as a whole, but more disturbing on a personal level; when we do something at the computer you want it to respond immediately, otherwise we will be affected by the "micro-delay productivity killer".

If and when you try Dorico and experience slowness, make sure you post about it — I and others can show you what to do to help.

[OCTO]

Today I almost got a mental breakdown because of Sibelius.  

I am in.