On 10 Jul 2005 at 19:17, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: > At 05:48 PM 7/10/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote: > >I don't quite get this criticism. > >Using the Sibelius 4 demo and my copy of WinFin2K3, if I launch the > >new document wizard and use Finale in Simple Entry mode, it works > >almost precisely the same way as Sibelius. > > Once you're there, which is far from obvious. Keep in mind that > Sibelius always was ready to go, but not Finale. I was trying to > account for the acceptance of Sibelius several years ago here in > Vermont.
Well, the document setup wizard (which was copied from Sibelius, no?) has been around for about five years, hasn't it? > >But once you're in simple entry, I just don't seen enough differences > > to make a difference, except for the kindergarten large size of the > >page layout in Finale (something that has always made no sense to me > >at all). > > The main difference once you're there is that in Sibelius you can put > notes anywhere in the measure, and the score gets added to and > reformatted on the spot. Finale forces you to start at the beginning > of the measure. Again, I see this as an advantage and not as a disadvantage! > And, as you say, the formatting is not bad in Sibelius and bad in > Finale. Again, remember -- I'm talking about our schools. In terms of > immediate usability, Sibelius was way ahead of Finale a few years ago. > Finale is closer now, but still unacceptable because at this point it > would have to be much better than Sibelius for the schools to > transition from Sibelius *to* Finale. I have always complained about the layout of the default files in Finale. The thing about Sibelius is that it seems to me to automatically adjust the sizing of the systems on the page based on what instruments you've chosen. This, it seems to me, is inherently possible because of the way staff/system layout is implemented, which allows it to be dynamic, whereas Finale's template-based approach and the method of storing and editing the sizing information makes it virtually impossible. This is also, it seems to me, why vertical spacing is something you have to futz around with in Finale, because of the way these things are implemented. I've said a million times, and for close to 10 years, that I think these basic problems are engineered into the file format of Finale and can only be fixed with a radical redesign. When page formatting was drastically overhauled a few years ago, it was basically all in the UI, and not in the way the data is stored, seems to me, and thus, there's not much further you can go with it. The result is that you end up with only a plugin-based response to it, rather than something that happens automatically. -- 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
