Good UI would be:
1) The first time you try to optimize systems with a group set to "Only optimize if all staves are empty", Finale should warn you (with a "Don't Show Again" box, of course). This question about optimizing staves out of piano parts comes up ALL THE TIME on the list, so obviously the default behavior is confusing to a lot of people.
For many types of music, it would be totally wrong to optimize out just one of the staves of a piano part. Displaying a warning box about this, would invite users to think that's it would always be ok to optimize out single staves from a piano grand staff.
2) The first time you try to change optimization settings in Page View (or group name, etc.), Finale should warn you that changes to these settings made in Page View affect that system only -- and offer options to "Apply these settings to all systems," "Apply to system range," and "Apply to only this system. Again with a "Don't Show Again" box -- so people who like the current system can continue as they are accustomed to -- but that way, new users are not baffled.
That would be a lousy UI, IMO. Changing the optimization settings for a group attached to a staff system would never do anything, so a better UI would be to disable the group optimization settings when editing a group attached to a specific system.
Also, I personally don't think that having alert boxes poping up all over the place is what makes a good UI. If there are too many of them, people tend to stop reading them.
It *is* counter-intuitive to have the same command yield different results depending on whether you are in Scroll View or Page View. The -- quite reasonable -- assumption is that these are just two different VIEWS, and that they do not cause commands to behave differently. We all know otherwise through bitter experience, but it's still lousy UI.
If you drag staff handles verticaly in Scroll View, what should happen in Page View to make it behave exactly the same in both views? And if you drag a staff handle in a staff set (which still would be Scroll View)?
Best regards,
Jari Williamsson _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
