While I respect Craig's list of priorities, it's pretty much the opposite of what I want.
(I also recognize that what Craig wants is probably closer to what the market wants than what I want… ) What I want is a music notation program that makes much more intelligent engraving choices automatically, without having to invoke plug-ins. I want automatic vertical spacing that is actually functional. When adjusting vertical spacing, I want to be able to specify that dragging staves should move them by increments of one staff space unless I specify otherwise. I also want to be able to specify when I want to keep the bottommost staff of a system in place, and when I want it to move. I want courtesy accidentals that update automatically and make intelligent decisions based on musical parameters (i.e., on tied notes at the beginning of a new system, following a multimeasure rest on the same system, octave displacements, etc). I want articulations that are set to appear outside slurs to actually avoid slur tips. I want tuplet brackets that are longer than slurs to go outside the slurs, and those that are shorter than slurs to go inside the slurs. I want hairpin tips and ends to automatically shorten to avoid collisions with dynamics. I want text expressions, dynamics, etc, to erase barlines without having to define enclosures for them. I want beams to automatically avoid creating wedges. I want accidentals on notes with ledger lines to avoid ledger lines. I want accidentals on chords to space themselves correctly, taking into account that, e.g., flats on a fifth can be closer together than sharps on a fifth. I want to allow dotted rests in 4/4, but only dotted eighth rests and smaller. I could go on all day… There's a book that's been discussed a bit on this list, Elaine Gould's Behind Bars. I know some people have found fault with particular aspects of it (I think any serious copyist or engraver is going to have their own issues), but what strikes me is how very few of the engraving standards that she outlines are able to be implemented automatically and reliably by any notation program currently on the market. Whether you agree with everything she recommends or not, any modern notation program ought to be able to accommodate everything recommended in those 650+ pages as a house style, automatically, without recourse to plug-ins. That ought to be the bare minimum, and I hope it's what the Steinberg folks are working towards. As for whether this is a zero-sum game — features cost development time and money to implement. The above is where I'd most want the time and money to go: making it faster, easier, and more automatic to generate high-quality music notation. Cheers, - DJA ----- WEB: http://www.secretsocietymusic.org _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
