On 14 Aug 2005 at 10:05, dc wrote: > David W. Fenton écrit: > >e. the screen doesn't always update appropriately when you click a > >note. In some cases you have to force a redraw to see the lyrics > >you've just assigned, and in some weird circumstances I can't > >identify, Ctrl-D does not repaint the figures, and the only way to > >force it is to switch layers or zoom. > > What about Ctrl-U? That's what I use to update layout and get the > lyrics to appear correctly.
I don't enter lyrics or figured bass in page view, and, so far as I know, Ctrl-U does nothing in scroll view. Am I completely wrong on that? I can't really test, as the problem appears sporadically, not in any way predictably. > >Anyone have any comments on these? I'd like to put together a feature > >request built around this issue, and I would rather hear from others > >to see if they would find the features I'm requesting useful as well. > > > >And if anyone has any suggestions for making the process easier, I'm > >all ears, as well. > > I'd much prefer if the clicking and the editing used the same dialog > box, which should be resizable. How many times do I spot something > that needs correcting when assigning the lyrics! This would really > make life much easier. > > Also, when entering figured bass, or even regular lyrics, it's very > hard to locate in the editing box a specific figure if there are many > repetitions (which is generally the case). . . . Well, I don't duplicate the figures. I enter them once and then click assign. I have tried type into score, but since most of the figures I'm using aren't actually accessible directly from the keyboard, I ended up doing a lot of Alt-Keypad-0160 and the like, which is not worth it. Click assignment is much easier. Now, if I were only using for figured bass the numbers on the keyboard, type into score would be fine. > . . . Say you notice that a 6 > needs to be changed to a slashed 6 in your score, and you have about > 20 or 30 6's in the box... Or you want to resume assigning after > making some other changes and your position is lost in the dialog box > (which happens if you change verses, for instance). When you're > click-assigning, there should be some kind of cursor or whatever in > the box showing you where you are if you click on a note that already > has a figure. (I don't know if this is clear, but anyone who's used to > doing this will probably see what I mean.) It sounds to me like you're entering your figures in the order they appear in the score, and then click assigning. I don't do that. The only value to me of click assignment is in minimizing the number of figures entered. > In any case, figured bass is very poorly designed (actually, it's not > designed at all) in Finale, and the method you describe is but a > kludge. I've been waiting for years for something more efficient and > faster than this. It's still almost impossible to enter figured bass > (at least as lyrics) without a third party or a homemade font! Yes, that's one of the big complaints. The Sibelius demo, however, gets you quite a good selection of figures in its Opus Figured Bass font. > After trying at least three different methods all based on lyrics, I > now think that the easiest is to use a specific font that allows you > to enter all the figures in one verse only, such as what's-his-name's > Figured Bass Font. I don't have that font and don't think I'd like it. It couldn't have the variety of alternate characters that Sibelius's figured bass font has, simply because it has to duplicate figures with the different vertical positions. > One last thing: if you enter figured bass as lyrics, you can no longer > use smart word extensions. There should be some way of turning these > off for one category of lyrics only (section, or chorus, for > instance), which could then be used for figured bass. Yes, it would be very useful if, for instance, there were a staff style for that. I don't have Finale 2004, so that's not an issue for me, but the one time I've used 2004, the smart extensions were a real time saver (I had an hour to transpose an opera aria, and if I'd done it in pre-2004, there just wouldn't have been any extensions at all). So, for a Baroque vocal piece, I'd definitely want to use figures without the extensions, and lyrics with them. I see two possible ways for MakeMusic to address this: 1. staff style, OR 2. a plugin to convert the auto-extensions to real extensions so you could then turn them off. What's the status with the word extension plugins after Finale 2004? Do they still work exactly the same (I believe somebody has a 3rd- party plugin, in addition to the one that ships with FInale, right?)? -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
