Aside from agreement with others on wishlist items, here are mine -- sorry if they've been mentioned already. If they are part of Finale and I've just missed the option, please tell me. If they're available in a third-party product, also please tell me, but the number of post-production third-party things to do are getting a little out of hand!
1. Enlargement of the Speedy frame's canvas. I'd like to see all of what's above, below, and to the right in the measure I'm working on. This is in particular when notes go out of the 'official' time signature, have wide ranges, etc. The cross-staff beaming should be optionally on inside the Speedy frame when it's been activated, as well as other optional items (again, the same stuff as found in the Mass Mover dialog). I like the Speedy frame because it takes out of my eyes the rest of the material, and gives me a clean space to work. But it's just not big enough. It might even have grippies to drag-enlarge it. 2. The ability to temporarily highlight/show *all* hidden items. This is especially important for accidentals, because as I'm composing, I know the accidentals should (or shouldn't) be there, but don't see them -- selective blindness! And even as I'm proofreading, I'll miss them -- Midi proofing or not. Finale seems to fall down on accidentals when moving material (leaving them out at the beginning of measures is the worst of it), so these I especially fail to see. 3. Rubber bands that connect items with their owner (show/hide). I got into big trouble with score letters that were attached just a little bit too far left, and stuck on the wrong measure (when placing the letters in scroll view with the measure in question as the first measure on the line). I didn't see it, it didn't affect most parts, only parts with multimeasure rests. I didn't pick up on this until rehearsals (ouch). Rubber bands would also indicate where that doggone item is placed that I can't find, especially when it's up above the page in scroll view (which happens when importing earlier files with lots of graphics work). 4. Indicators of start and end point with owner (show/hide). All smart shapes should have this option. For example, finding that itty bitty piece of hairpin, for example, that sneaked over into the next measure and isn't visible except in page view, or discovering that it's attached to the wrong staff because there wasn't room to place it near to the proper staff on the score. 5. More conventional use of navigation keys (arrows, page up, page down, etc.) This may be a Mac/Win difference, but I really want to be able to move pages up and down incrementally without having to use the nasty scroll bar. 6. Fixing the PostScript output (Windows). Just add a doggone fail-proof PS, EPS, and PDF default output. OwnPS=0 is back, but that's really not enough. This has been a 10-year battle to work properly, and based on the traffic on this list, it's still an issue. 7. Slurs and other smart shapes that break when they encounter another object. This could be selectable as a document option, and by context menu. There are just times when that slur can't be put out of the way! 8. End the collisions! Again, this has been an issue long enough to have been solved by now, especially with things like seconds in separate layers, and hairpins against slurs, etc., etc. At least a collision-avoidance warning system (e.g., optional flashing items where collisions occur) as found in the old error-indication mechanism in Netscape view-source mode. 9. This has been mentioned, but I want to second it: Fix the note-spacing bug in measures with grace notes. I have one score (my flute concerto) littered with them, thousands of them, and I have to examine each measure for crashing accidentals in other parts. I still don't know why this happens, but it seems to be an artifact of the presence of grace notes in some part. 10. Allow music to be moved and adjusted during playback. For some reason, F2K3 no longer allows the scroll bars to work, and if I'm in another application listening to playback for errors (yes, I tend to multitask a bit), when I switch back, Finale has not advanced to the screen that's playing, nor can I make it do so. 11. Delete all articulations in a selection. This has been mentioned, but it's really important for some purposes -- not just editing while composing, but also in producing separate Midi files where the articulation effect needs to be different for the Finale file vs. the Midi file that will be later massaged. (This is because I post both scores in Finale format and, where possible, good audio files produced in Sonar). 12. Both type into score *and* a droplist of text expressions on the toolbar! (In their proper font.) Okay, that's all for now! I also have quite a few suggestions on John Greschak's site. Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
