Robert Patterson Finale wrote:
David H. Bailey wrote:
"Automatic expression alignment" would imply that if we want them lined up so they are a uniform distance below/above the staff, the program would do it so it is uniform.
That's what "Below Staff Baseline" is for (which is available for note-attached as well as meas-attached). The thing is, from your other post it seems you understand this, so I'm quite confused by your complaint.
My complaint was that I imagined that should be the default behavior, not that it would work only in most situations but all, and certainly not that I would have to tweak the library for the expressions to align automaticaly 100% of the time.
C/E, C/E, D/F, B/G. Then using metatool 4 to place a forte expression (f) beneath each chord results in the 4th expression being lower than the first three.
(i.e. NOT aligned with the base-line triangles.)
It sounds like the F (and probably the others) have a baseline offset. You might get more acceptable results by zeroing out the baseline offsets. Also, you must always remember that alignment occurs where the expression handle is and not necessarily where it looks like it should. The main reason to use a baseline offset is to get alignment for a particular symbol that is different from the font's alignment. For example, you could add a baseline offset to P to make it align like an upper-case P instead a lower-case, which is the way the font is designed.
I would have expected automatic alignment to have done no matter how close to the staff I placed them.
If you really want this, change your placement options to "Below Staff Baseline". The setting out of the box is "Below Staff Baseline Or Entry". I vastly prefer this to "Below Staff Baseline", and I hope I'm not telling secrets to say that many people lobbied really hard to get it added to the product and implemented correctly. We prefer it because it allows you to move your baseline closer to the staff and the program (mostly) automatically avoids collisions where necessary.
But it would be very nice if there were a utility that would universally apply the new settings to an existing library
I suspect that wish may be fulfilled, perhaps even soon. Personally, I do not plan to convert any existing files. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I say.
As to horizontal placement, I prefer expressions centered beneath the stem on stem-down notes, so I can't agree with you that they have nailed this either.
If you use the Center/Left Primary options, you will get the exact horizontal placement described in Ross p. 186. (From your description, this sounds like what you want.) It sounds like Coda stayed with Center/Center in their shipped template.
Yes, that is what I want, and again I didn't think I would have to tweak every expression to get it to behave in a standard way.
Anyway, I'll stop complaining now, this is by way more of trying to further clarify my views -- I know I need to tweak the library and am thankful that such tweaking is possible.
-- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
