On 7 Jul 2005 at 17:50, Darcy James Argue wrote: > Robert Patterson and Johannes Gebauer have raised some excellent > points about the feasibility of a single-file solution for Dynamic > Parts in Finale. There is also the issue of a possible additional > performance hit if Finale were to implement "live updating" as > Sibelius does. > > What about a multi-file solution with manual updates -- after > extracting parts, an option to "update parts based on score" or > "update score based on parts"? Would that be a more feasible > solution? . . .
No, it wouldn't. It would vastly increase the complexity of implementing dynamic parts, because it would require duplicating all the data in other files, and then creating mechanisms that harmonize changes to the data in the different files. As a database programmer who creates replicated applications for my clients, I can tell you that this is not a simple thing. What happens when changes in two different parts cause a collision when pushed up to the score? This can't happen with a single-file part view approach, since the changes occur sequentially, and are passed up to the score view as they are made. With separate files, you either have to queue them with a time stamp (a transaction-based approach) or figure out some way to harmonize potential conflicts. I spend all my time working with these issues in databases and I can tell you: it's much easier to have all the changes taking place in a single database than it is to try to synchronized changes in multiple related databases. > . . . Is there any way such a solution could duplicate all of the > functionality of Sibelius's Dynamic Parts -- just without the > auto-updating? Would this be the poor man's version, or could it > actually be a *better* solution than SIb's single-file solution, if it > was properly implemented? It could duplicate it, but: 1. it would be vastly more complex to implement, AND 2. it would be much more prone to breaking, both internally (improperly resolved conflicting edits) and externally (intervention via the file system, or any other method outside Finale). Coordinating multiple independent files is just a terrible idea compared to the single-file with views alternative. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
