On May 3, 2006, at 7:01 PM, Owain Sutton wrote:
'Beat-attached' expressions.
Already there and always has been, at least since v3.0.
Having read the replies, I still don't get it. It's not there in the
Expression Designer (unless it's an anonymous default option or
summat).
It's there if I double-click to enter an expression, but that doesn't
help for pre-defining one.
I think you've lost us here. When it is so easy to position an
expression at beat 2.5 with a click and three keystrokes, why would it
need to be predefined? What kind of expressions are you using that need
to ALWAYS be placed at the same beat (that isn't beat one, which can be
predefined)? Mine usually need to be placed in relation to a note, or a
bar, or the start of music, or something that is easily found in the
positioning boxes. When I DO need to place something like a rit. to
start on beat 2.5, I can do it, with a few keystrokes and the next time
I need it to start on 3.5 I don't need to create another expression; I
just give it a new position.
Don't take my arguments here as any sort of denial of your needs; you
have come up with a bunch of valid points on other subjects, but if
there is a way of accomplishing something relatively rare that is
relatively easy, I don't think MakeMusic is going to add a feature.
Less global document settings. Far too many things cannot
be adjusted
for just a section of a document. (Stem lengths,
Staff Styles - the list of things that can be changed includes Stem
Settings (under Items to Display, weird), which seems to include stem
attachments and lengths, which might kill two of your problem birds
with one stone...
Doesn't seem to have the same choices as Document Options - Stems
I'm mystified, then. What more do you need than length, endpoints, and
horizontal placement that can't be done with note expressions? Can you
be more specific?
stave line widths,
You're right, the thickness of staff lines cannot be individually
adjusted, but the spacing can (if that's what you meant),
once again in
Staff Styles. You can also set the staff to be bigger, if that might
help, or hide the staff lines completely in Staff Styles
and/or overlay
them with Smart Lines at the appropriate thickness.
Nope, it's staff lines that I wanted to change. Only one occasion, for
one situation, but it's a failure of the software if it makes it
impossible to do this within one file.
It's not impossible, it's just a pain. You can hide the lines and
re-enter them as Smart Lines of whatever thickness you like. Since it's
only one occasion, it shouldn't be too bad.
It's a bit hard to justify a feature like this when the need only shows
up once, and it can be kludged. You may have trouble gaining support on
this one.
A spellchecker which is designed to deal with common musical
instructions and terminology.
This could be a plugin, if someone wanted to make it.
A dictionary needs to be more than a plugin! To be useful, it needs to
be good, from day one. That perhaps is the biggest problem.
I'm sorry, I didn't understand your objection. One could make a plugin
that uses any dictionary one wants, can't one?
I was trying to give you some good news. MakeMusic would not have to
re-write any code for you to get this; all it would take is a plugin
writer. Custom words (like many musical terms) can be added to personal
dictionaries. But the problems with musical terminology is usage more
often than spelling, and a spellchecker might be of limited
effectiveness. Something along the lines of a full dictionary would be
more useful, but needs someone dedicated to implement it.
Because I use a Mac, I already have something like this: Services from
the Finale menu. I can select Antidote Prism (a French-language
speller, verb conjugator, dictionary, thesaurus and grammatical tool)
to check my French, and the options are quite extensive. Frankly, it's
way beyond anything I have ever seen in English, and Finale could never
come up with anything to match it, so I will keep using Antidote for my
French.
Christopher
(BTW, the slogan for Antidote is "le remède à tous vos mots" which
means "the remedy for all your words" but the word "mots" is a homonym
for "maux", the usual word in the expression, which means "ills". So
it's "the remedy for all your ills." Cute little pun. You can laugh
about it while using the program to look up what it means.) 8-)
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