On 14 Jul 2002, at 22:27, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: > At 06:59 PM 7/14/02 -0400, you wrote: > >I think the idea of separate files connected back to the score file is a > >complete non-starter. > > I don't. The database can be the master file, and all the other files draw > from it or add to it to produce their "reports". Putting everything in one > file is a recipe for disaster. (Can you say "Windows registry"?)
If the files are simply like report layouts in, say, the old DOS version of Paradox, well, I guess that would work. But where is the layout for the score? Stored in the main database file? Database programs like Paradox that use separate files for data tables and forms/reports give no preference to any of the layouts. If you are going to store the layout information in a separate file, then the basic file format is going to have to be radically altered, to separate data from appearance. I don't think that makes the slightest bit of sense. As to "putting everything in one file," Access uses a single Jet database file for all of its data, and the only cases in which anything goes wrong is if something goes wrong while data is being written to the data file. That most often occurs in multi-user situations (almost exclusively, in fact). Given that Finale's file format has never been designed for multi- user access, this kind of problem would be very, very slight. The reason the Windows registry is such a problem is because the entire OS depends on its integrity, yet nearly every program that runs modifies it. This would not be the case with Finale, so the parallel is not really very strong. But, as I said, for those who feel insecure about the monolithic file structure, I have repeatedly suggested the the feature be implemented in such a way as to allow the creation of parts in the same fashion as is done today. In reality, I think corruption is more likely with separate files than with a single file. Word master documents, which, being word processing files are many orders of magnitude less complex than Finale files, tend to corrupt quite easily, so the idea of coordinating disparate files seems highly problematic to me, much more problematic than a single file with the score and the parts stored all together. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
