On 19 Sep 2002 at 0:42, Mark D. Lew wrote: > I can't tell if your objection is only to the interface and its unexpected > behavior, or to the basic concept of having lyrics be assignments to a > separate, ordered list of items. If it's the latter you object to, then I > would very much like to know what you have in mind instead.
The problem is not the concept, but the fact that the user interface fails to hide the underlying implementation from the user. Or, more correctly, it doesn't expose enough information about the underlying information to allow the user to understand what is going on. If the user needs to know that a syllable is multi-assigned, then the UI needs to indicate that somehow and no allow the user to unknowlingly do something to that syllable that will corrupt the source data stream (such as deleting it in TYPE IN SCORE mode). The point is, the user shouldn't have to know -- the program should make it impossible for a user to unknowingly take an action that will potentially corrupt the underlying data stream. In a straight database program, you can't delete parent records if they have children attached to them. In terms of Finale, a syllable is a perent record and the each assignment of that syllable is a child record. If you delete the parent, Finale is tacitly cascading the deletion of the parent through to the children. That may very well be what the user wants, but a proper UI would allow the deletion of one syllable assignment. Finale does happen to allow that, yes, but it also allows the cascade deletion without any warning. And that's the fundamental problem -- Finale's UI is not making clear the consequence of edits. Nor does it represent in any way how the underlying data stream is being used. -- 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
