Aaron Sherber wrote:
At 10:20 AM 11/8/2006, dhbailey wrote:
>Here's hoping that MakeMusic comes up with a right-click dialog for text
>blocks which includes a "This Part Only" option (among others)!
I think there are two issues here.
First, it's important to realize that the basic Fin2007 paradigm does
not let you affect the *existence* of an item in score or parts -- you
can only affect the *display* of an item (or the position). If you put
(for example) a text block on p.1 in a part, what you've done is define
a text block which appears on any p.1 in that Finale file -- in other
words, in the score and all parts. You cannot delete the item from some
parts and leave it in others, because the item is tied only to the
*page*, not to the page within a part. But you can tell Finale to *hide*
the item in certain parts and show it in others.
Keep in mind that a linked part itself is nothing more than a
specialized view of the data in the score. When I create a flute part,
I'm telling Finale to hide everything in the score that's not in that
system. This, in fact, is the whole essence of a linked part. The note
in the flute part is exactly the same item as the note in the score,
which is why changing one changes the other. Finale is able to store
different positioning options for an item in a part as opposed to a
score, and different hide/show states, but it is not able to have an
item exist in one place and not the other.
The point of all of this is that there will never be a 'Create in This
Part Only' option, because that's not how Finale stores its data.
The second issue is one of UI. A 'Show in This Part Only' option I think
is certainly possible -- it's essentially shorthand for 'hide in the
score, then show in the part'. But it takes some thought to figure out
how this interacts with other menu options, and also to keep menus from
getting too cluttered. I'm not sure right now how useful this particular
option would be -- I haven't thought about it much -- but I just want to
point out that adding useful and technically possible options is not
always as simple as just doing it.
I realized that about the data existing, so I had thought that the "Show
in This Part Only" option would do exactly as you say in your final
paragraph.
But just as plug-ins do very little more than we can all do by hand,
tediously, so, too, such an option would simply automate the following
steps:
1) enter the text block
2) switch to score view
3) click "Hide"
4) switch to Flute view
5) click "Show"
Of course, the switching of the display wouldn't occur, but the end
result would be the same -- an automated process to eliminate our need
to do those five steps "manually." It would set whatever switches are
necessary in the data which is stored for each part, behind the scenes.
I don't see how that would be so very difficult -- it simply switches
whatever attributes are switched for that text block so that it only
shows in the Flute part, for instance.
And once that is automated, it should be a simple step (leap?) to
allowing the use of staff lists just as we can do with expressions. so
it would be possible to define a text block to show in all the woodwind
parts, once we had defined such a staff list.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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