Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Richard Huggins]

To have same articulations that behave differently, you just create a copy
of the same articulation in your pallette and change the default behavior of
the new one. Of course you also assign a unique metatool to that duplicate.
For example, your articulation pallette might have two accent marks, one for
note side and one for stem side. Finale looks at each of those separately.

That part is easy; keeping the two metatools clear in your brain might be
different!

Richard

> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark D. Lew)

> Like Darcy, I use my own templates and never see Coda's.
> 
> I'm curious.  Is there just one metatool for each articulation?  If so, how
> do they manage to place them properly for all different circumstances?  Or
> is it just assumed that everything is noteside and if for some reason
> that's wrong (eg, two layers) then tough luck?

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Mark D. Lew]

At 10:14 PM 06/07/03, Tim Thompson wrote:

> I like the way the articulation
>tools were changed for example (except that I had to relearn--I tend to
>get used to some stock things like that since I am working on so many
>different systems, and with students).  A for accent, S for staccato,
>etc.

Like Darcy, I use my own templates and never see Coda's.

I'm curious.  Is there just one metatool for each articulation?  If so, how
do they manage to place them properly for all different circumstances?  Or
is it just assumed that everything is noteside and if for some reason
that's wrong (eg, two layers) then tough luck?

mdl


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Re: [Finale] Numbers for JazzFont pieces

[VincentL10]

Also check out Adobe's Tekton font.  I started using it for chord symbols and 
numbers before the hand look fonts came along and it is more readable 
especially at smaller point sizes. 


Vince Leonard
Invinceable Entertainment
Media PA
www.invinceableentertainment.com

<< Following Chris Smith's advice, I re-downloaded the Sibelius Demo and 
checked out their Inkpen font set, in the hopes that the numbers would 
be more legible than JazzFont's, while maintaining the "handwritten" 
look.

When I tried the font, I remembered why I hated it in the first place.  
The numbers *are* more legible than JazzFont (it would be hard to be 
worse), but they are too oblique, too wide, and too stylized for my 
taste.

However, after a bit of web searching, I found a couple of good fonts 
designed for comic book lettering.  The numbers in these fonts aren't 
perfect (what is?) but IMO they are much better than either JazzFont or 
Inkpen.  So, if anyone's interested:

Caroonist Hand:

http://www.webfontlist.com/pages/station.asp?ID=10527&Step=1

Arch Rival:

http://www.webfontlist.com/pages/station.asp?ID=12066

- Darcy

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Tim Thompson]

How would this impact speedy or hyperscribe?  Do I play in concert 
pitch, and see the notes appear on the staff transposed?  I agree that 
it is a pain to play in the notes in a transposed score as they should 
be written, but to hear them sounding as if they were not transposed, 
but of course, I am just hearing the MIDI output of the key I am 
pressing.  I think that is the sticky issue.

Tim

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 06:32  PM, Earl Price wrote:

--- Jari Williamsson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Earl Price writes:

Speaking of playback, I wish that Coda would fix
playback of transposing instruments during Simple
note
entry.  Currently what we hear is playback of the
pitch entered as if it were concert pitch.  This
is
annoying when working in transposed scores, which
is
the way I always work.
Have you (and others who want it) sent in a feature
request?
Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
I'm sure I've seen this issue discussed here before.
I assumed that users have complained about it before,
but I'll certainly send Coda a feature request ASAP.
BTW, I don't consider this a feature. I feel that
transposed instruments should sound the CORRECT
concert pitch when entering notes in Simple note
entry, and the fact that they don't do that means to
me that it's not working properly.
All the best,

Lon

**
Lon Price, Los Angeles

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Tim Thompson]

I think one of the things CODA has done pretty well with in the last 
couple of upgrades is reorganization of stock metatools, and making the 
whole thing more user-friendly.  In fact, in most cases with students, 
much explanation is not needed, because once they have figured it out 
once, they get it.  It's like seeing keyboard shortcuts in the 
menus--one learns them pretty quickly.  I like the way the articulation 
tools were changed for example (except that I had to relearn--I tend to 
get used to some stock things like that since I am working on so many 
different systems, and with students).  A for accent, S for staccato, 
etc.  And I really like how in 2k3 when a smart shape is clicked on in 
the palette, the little info bar shows its metatool assignment.  Since 
that change, I have found that I hardly ever to that palette, because I 
have learned the metatools.

Students are surprisingly astute at this sort of thing, and I don't 
think metatools are too much of a mystery for them.  But I really don't 
know why CODA did away with the quick reference guide.  The graphic 
representation of the key assignments for simple and speedy entry was a 
nice thing to have for students!

Tim

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 06:02  PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 05:37  PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

At 05:11 PM 6/7/2003, Darcy James Argue wrote:
>If you're a beginning and don't know about metatools yet, how would 
you
>know what those letters and numbers in the upper-right corner mean?

Well, I might read the manual.
Well, duh.  But the point was ease of use.  Important info like 
Metatools needs to be in multiple places, *especially* the Quick 
Reference Card and any automated tutorials.

Also -- realistically, "kids these days" aren't going to sit down with 
the manual in order to learn Finale.  Especially not when you can 
easily figure out Sibelius without a manual.  You can either huff and 
puff about "young people" and their lack of patience, or you can deal 
with the reality that most people simply aren't going to read software 
manuals.

- Darcy

-
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No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] connecting MIDI cables

[Crystal Premo]

<>

I have a MIDISport 1x1.

Crystal Premo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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Re: [Finale] TAN: SoundFonts, QuickTime, and OS X

[Tim Thompson]

I don't know about Soundfonts, but the concept works with certain 
soft-synths in pre-X setups.  The QT control panel accesses OMS (if 
that is what you are using), and you can set the inputs and outputs.  
For example, I have a lab that has Virtual Sound Canvas used in this 
way.  QT plays the VSC rather than the QT synth.  VSC is accessed by 
OMS via an IAC bus.

I'll be honest to say that I am dubious about doing much of this under 
X (Classic), and haven't tried much.  I'm definitely no expert on this 
kind of thing, but have found that the QT control panel is actually 
fairly flexible.

Tim

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 01:01  PM, Philip M. Aker wrote:

On Monday, Apr 7, 2003, at 07:05 America/Vancouver, John Croft wrote:

So, does anybody know if it's possible to patch an external MIDI 
keyboard directly into QuickTime, and have it use the selected 
SoundFont? (It would be nice if Apple's "Audio MIDI Setup" utility 
recognised QT as an output, so that you could just patch it in, but 
it doesn't.)
Greetings John,

I've just been through a similar issue with Andrew Levin offlist. Our 
conclusion, based on the setups of our 4 different Macs, was that it's 
not possible with QuickTime (including Pro) right now. I think it's 
something that should be reported by as many users as possible on the 
OS X feedback page.

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] connecting MIDI cables

[Noel Stoutenburg]

David McKay wrote:

> On Friday our 5 year old computer died. So on Saturday I bought a new one,
> with a card reader, firewire, usb cordless keyboard and mouse, but no
> joystick port. So I can't use my MIDI breakout cable thingy to connect to my
> computer.
> What do people use these days?

I know that Midiman makes a keyboard controller which works through the USB
port; I suspect that (if they don't already) they will soon have a similar
divice which works through the Firewire port; I know, too, that Midiman makes a
USB-MIDI interface.

ns

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David H. Bailey]

Then you send it in as a Bug Report, not a Feature Request.  But you do 
it to the same address:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Earl Price wrote:
--- Jari Williamsson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Earl Price writes:


Speaking of playback, I wish that Coda would fix
playback of transposing instruments during Simple
note

entry.  Currently what we hear is playback of the
pitch entered as if it were concert pitch.  This
is

annoying when working in transposed scores, which
is

the way I always work.
Have you (and others who want it) sent in a feature
request?
Best regards,

Jari Williamsson


I'm sure I've seen this issue discussed here before. 
I assumed that users have complained about it before,
but I'll certainly send Coda a feature request ASAP. 
BTW, I don't consider this a feature. I feel that
transposed instruments should sound the CORRECT
concert pitch when entering notes in Simple note
entry, and the fact that they don't do that means to
me that it's not working properly.

All the best,

Lon

**
Lon Price, Los Angeles

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
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.



--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Offlist Replies (WAS Re: [Finale] New Finale release)

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 07:02  PM, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

I'd like to point out that I sent my message to Mr. Fenton privately, 
as I know this whole discussion is way beyond tiresome for this list.  
As Mr. Fenton decided to post it publicly, I can only surmise he has a 
keen desire for the last word on this subject, which I am more than 
happy to give him.
Not to open up this can of worms again, but I feel I ought to point out 
that the list's default reply-to behavior makes it very, very easy to 
accidentally reply privately instead of posting to the list.  David 
might well have believed that you *intended* to sent that message to 
the list, instead of to his private inbox, and therefore an on-list 
reply would be appropriate.  This happens all the time.

If you *really* want to make a private, offlist reply, it's probably a 
good idea to put "OFFLIST" in the subject header.

- Darcy

-
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Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 18:02, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> I'd like to point out that I sent my message to Mr. Fenton privately, as I 
> know this whole discussion is way beyond tiresome for this list.  As Mr. 
> Fenton decided to post it publicly, I can only surmise he has a keen desire 
> for the last word on this subject, which I am more than happy to give him.

I didn't notice you sent it privately. My filters sorted it into my 
Finale inbox because of [Finale] in the subject.

I apologize for the mistake, though I don't see any reason why you 
shouldn't have posted it to the list.

Certainly, *this* message that you *did* post should have gone to me 
privately so that I would have had the chance to apologize for my 
mistake without you casting aspersions on my intentions.

*You* are the one who is dishonorable, seems to me.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Craig Parmerlee]

I'd like to point out that I sent my message to Mr. Fenton privately, as I 
know this whole discussion is way beyond tiresome for this list.  As Mr. 
Fenton decided to post it publicly, I can only surmise he has a keen desire 
for the last word on this subject, which I am more than happy to give him.

Regards,
Craig


At 06:43 PM 6/7/2003 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 7 Jun 2003 at 17:31, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> At 03:58 PM 6/7/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> >On 7 Jun 2003 at 0:35, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
> >
> > > It is no different with Word, Excel or any other end-user application.
> >
> >Really, would you *stop* using these completely invalid comparisons
> >to programs that have file formats that are several orders of
> >magnitude less complex?
>
> Come on, man.  You're talking nonsense here.  Finale isn't orders of
> magnitude more complex than Word.  Quite the reverse.
I didn't say *Finale* was orders of magnitude more complex. I said
the Finale *file format* is more complex.
> Before lecturing me, educate yourself on the file system that Microsoft
> implemented in the early 1990s as the architectural foundation for storing
> files from all of their complex Office applications.  It is the foundation
> for auto save, incremental save, versioning, and backwards compatibility.
Pointers.

It uses pointers.

Big frigging deal.

Finale files are a database, with parent and child records (frames
are parents, notes are children of the frame, etc.). This is a far,
far more complicated structure than Word.
Excel is more complicated, though, as it does something much more
complicated.
But it's not at all as complex as a Finale file.

--
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 17:31, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> At 03:58 PM 6/7/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> >On 7 Jun 2003 at 0:35, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
> >
> > > It is no different with Word, Excel or any other end-user application.
> >
> >Really, would you *stop* using these completely invalid comparisons
> >to programs that have file formats that are several orders of
> >magnitude less complex?
> 
> Come on, man.  You're talking nonsense here.  Finale isn't orders of 
> magnitude more complex than Word.  Quite the reverse.

I didn't say *Finale* was orders of magnitude more complex. I said 
the Finale *file format* is more complex.

> Before lecturing me, educate yourself on the file system that Microsoft 
> implemented in the early 1990s as the architectural foundation for storing 
> files from all of their complex Office applications.  It is the foundation 
> for auto save, incremental save, versioning, and backwards compatibility.

Pointers.

It uses pointers.

Big frigging deal.

Finale files are a database, with parent and child records (frames 
are parents, notes are children of the frame, etc.). This is a far, 
far more complicated structure than Word.

Excel is more complicated, though, as it does something much more 
complicated.

But it's not at all as complex as a Finale file.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Earl Price]

--- Jari Williamsson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Earl Price writes:
> 
> > Speaking of playback, I wish that Coda would fix
> > playback of transposing instruments during Simple
> note
> > entry.  Currently what we hear is playback of the
> > pitch entered as if it were concert pitch.  This
> is
> > annoying when working in transposed scores, which
> is
> > the way I always work.
> 
> Have you (and others who want it) sent in a feature
> request?
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Jari Williamsson

I'm sure I've seen this issue discussed here before. 
I assumed that users have complained about it before,
but I'll certainly send Coda a feature request ASAP. 
BTW, I don't consider this a feature. I feel that
transposed instruments should sound the CORRECT
concert pitch when entering notes in Simple note
entry, and the fact that they don't do that means to
me that it's not working properly.

All the best,

Lon

**
Lon Price, Los Angeles

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Aaron Sherber]

At 06:02 PM 6/7/2003, Darcy James Argue wrote:
>But the point was ease of use.  Important info like
>Metatools needs to be in multiple places, *especially* the Quick
>Reference Card and any automated tutorials.
>
>Also -- realistically, "kids these days" aren't going to sit down with
>the manual in order to learn Finale.  Especially not when you can
>easily figure out Sibelius without a manual.  You can either huff and
>puff about "young people" and their lack of patience, or you can deal
>with the reality that most people simply aren't going to read software
>manuals.
I agree with you in general, but this can be a tricky thing. If a new user 
isn't going to read the manual, why would he read the Quick Start card? Or 
if you're going to put the "important" things on the Quick Start card, 
where do you draw the line as to what's important? I don't particularly 
think that metatools belong on the Quick Start card, since you can get up 
and going without them just fine. And since it's fairly easy to check 
metatool assignments while you're working (at least for artics, 
expressions, and staff styles), I'm not sure it's particularly helpful to 
have Coda's defaults listed somewhere.

As for ease of use, I've looked at Sibelius demos a few times, and I have 
to say that while point-and-click note entering is fairly obvious, I don't 
find Sibelius on the whole to be significantly more intuitive than Finale.

Aaron.

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Re: [Finale] Numbers for JazzFont pieces

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 05:09  PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:
Caroonist Hand:

http://www.webfontlist.com/pages/station.asp?ID=10527&Step=1

Arch Rival:

http://www.webfontlist.com/pages/station.asp?ID=12066
Forgot to mention that if you are on a Mac, you will need TT Converter:

http://www.signaturefactory.com/tt-converter-15.hqx

PC TrueType fonts work just fine in OS X, but for OS 9/Classic, you 
still need to convert them.

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 05:37  PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

At 05:11 PM 6/7/2003, Darcy James Argue wrote:
>If you're a beginning and don't know about metatools yet, how would 
you
>know what those letters and numbers in the upper-right corner mean?

Well, I might read the manual.
Well, duh.  But the point was ease of use.  Important info like 
Metatools needs to be in multiple places, *especially* the Quick 
Reference Card and any automated tutorials.

Also -- realistically, "kids these days" aren't going to sit down with 
the manual in order to learn Finale.  Especially not when you can 
easily figure out Sibelius without a manual.  You can either huff and 
puff about "young people" and their lack of patience, or you can deal 
with the reality that most people simply aren't going to read software 
manuals.

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Aaron Sherber]

At 05:11 PM 6/7/2003, Darcy James Argue wrote:
>If you're a beginning and don't know about metatools yet, how would you
>know what those letters and numbers in the upper-right corner mean?
Well, I might read the manual.  p.22-2, Articulation Selection dialog 
box, says, "Occasionally, a character in parenthesis appears in the top 
right corner of an
item in the selection dialog box. This character indicates the Metatool 
assigned to the item."

I agree that dissemination of this information might be improved, but my 
point is just that some of this stuff is actually there already in some form.

Aaron.

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 06:27  PM, John Howell wrote:

Well, every situation is probably different.  In our case, (1) all 
university students are required to have computers meeting certain 
minimum standards and a basic, useful suite of software, and (2) the 
music and art departments require that they be Macs (and Music pushes 
very hard recommending notebooks so they will come to class with the 
students).  We were all-Finale from about 1998, when new Freshmen were 
required to have Finale and we started to phase out Mosaic.

Fast forward to last summer.  Since Macs were required, all our 
incoming Freshmen were going to have OS X.  Since Finale dropped the 
ball on this, we had to make a decision, fast, and the decision was to 
require last year's Freshmen to have Sibelius.  That means that Finale 
is now being phased out.  Our hand was forced by Coda's decision to 
wait on OS X compatibility, but we are NOT going to go back to Finale 
for the foreseeable future.  They missed their window of opportunity 
big time.

John
Unfortunately, John, I suspect that yours is hardly the only music 
department to make this decision.  It's too bad that (semi-)reliable 
Classic compatibility was only a few months away at the time.  Of 
course, no one could have known that, except possibly Apple's software 
engineers.

- Darcy

-
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No one likes us
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We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
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[Finale] connecting MIDI cables

[David McKay]

On Friday our 5 year old computer died. So on Saturday I bought a new one,
with a card reader, firewire, usb cordless keyboard and mouse, but no
joystick port. So I can't use my MIDI breakout cable thingy to connect to my
computer.
What do people use these days?

David McKay
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[John Howell]

Perhaps, given the tardiness in making Finale fully OSX compliant, 
it is the Mac market which is the drag these days.
I'm sure!  I know I skipped the 2003 upgrade for that very reason. 
The only reason we upgraded at my institution last year was that we 
converted to a site license, added a few seats, and got the upgrade 
out of the deal.  We have about a 60/40 split Windows to Mac, and 
we're definitely buying the 2004 upgrade because Finale is the last 
thing keeping us from going to X completely.  And of course, I will 
make the upgrade myself.

My sense is that many Mac users held off this last time, and will 
make up for it with 2004.  I would be surprised if any mac users 
don't do this upgrade.  Of course, there's no telling how many 
jumped ship over the whole thing.

Tim
Well, every situation is probably different.  In our case, (1) all 
university students are required to have computers meeting certain 
minimum standards and a basic, useful suite of software, and (2) the 
music and art departments require that they be Macs (and Music pushes 
very hard recommending notebooks so they will come to class with the 
students).  We were all-Finale from about 1998, when new Freshmen 
were required to have Finale and we started to phase out Mosaic.

Fast forward to last summer.  Since Macs were required, all our 
incoming Freshmen were going to have OS X.  Since Finale dropped the 
ball on this, we had to make a decision, fast, and the decision was 
to require last year's Freshmen to have Sibelius.  That means that 
Finale is now being phased out.  Our hand was forced by Coda's 
decision to wait on OS X compatibility, but we are NOT going to go 
back to Finale for the foreseeable future.  They missed their window 
of opportunity big time.

John

--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411   Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 05:05  PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

At 04:44 PM 6/7/2003, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:
>They DO have many common ones pre-programmed now! As I said, Coda is
>getting better about this in recent versions. But finding them, and
>using them, that's the problem. Listing them on the reference card
>would be a great idea!
I agree that listing them would be good, but they're not at all hard 
to stumble across. Open a new document based on one of Coda's 
templates, enter a couple of notes, select the articulation tool, and 
click on a note. In the Articulation Selection dialog, the letter or 
number in parens in the upper right corner of each cell is the 
metatool. Same with expressions. For Staff Styles, select some 
measures, right-click and choose Apply Staff Style, and the metatools 
are there in parens next to the style name.
If you're a beginning and don't know about metatools yet, how would you 
know what those letters and numbers in the upper-right corner mean?

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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[Finale] Numbers for JazzFont pieces

[Darcy James Argue]

Following Chris Smith's advice, I re-downloaded the Sibelius Demo and 
checked out their Inkpen font set, in the hopes that the numbers would 
be more legible than JazzFont's, while maintaining the "handwritten" 
look.

When I tried the font, I remembered why I hated it in the first place.  
The numbers *are* more legible than JazzFont (it would be hard to be 
worse), but they are too oblique, too wide, and too stylized for my 
taste.

However, after a bit of web searching, I found a couple of good fonts 
designed for comic book lettering.  The numbers in these fonts aren't 
perfect (what is?) but IMO they are much better than either JazzFont or 
Inkpen.  So, if anyone's interested:

Caroonist Hand:

http://www.webfontlist.com/pages/station.asp?ID=10527&Step=1

Arch Rival:

http://www.webfontlist.com/pages/station.asp?ID=12066

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Aaron Sherber]

At 04:44 PM 6/7/2003, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:
>They DO have many common ones pre-programmed now! As I said, Coda is
>getting better about this in recent versions. But finding them, and
>using them, that's the problem. Listing them on the reference card
>would be a great idea!
I agree that listing them would be good, but they're not at all hard to 
stumble across. Open a new document based on one of Coda's templates, enter 
a couple of notes, select the articulation tool, and click on a note. In 
the Articulation Selection dialog, the letter or number in parens in the 
upper right corner of each cell is the metatool. Same with expressions. For 
Staff Styles, select some measures, right-click and choose Apply Staff 
Style, and the metatools are there in parens next to the style name.

Aaron.

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Aaron Sherber]

At 04:48 PM 6/7/2003, Darcy James Argue wrote:
>Oh.  Well, I never use Coda's default files, so I didn't know they'd
>done this.  Which metatools are pre-programmed?  When did this happen?  
There have been metatools pre-programmed at least since 2000, and possibly 
Fin98, which is where I came in.

To see which ones are pre-programmed, open a new file based on one of 
Coda's default files and take a look. Most of the common articulations and 
dynamic expressions have metatools, and all of the built-in staff styles 
have metatools.

Aaron.

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 04:40  PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

At 04:33 PM 6/7/2003, Darcy James Argue wrote:
>What might be good is if Finale templates had certain common
>articulation, expression, staff style, transposition etc metatools
>pre-programmed.  
Huh? You mean aside from the ones that are pre-programmed in the 
Maestro Default File and the various templates?
Oh.  Well, I never use Coda's default files, so I didn't know they'd 
done this.  Which metatools are pre-programmed?  When did this happen?  
Where are they listed?  I don't see any mention of default metatools in 
the Fin2002 Quick Reference Card.  (Of course, it tells you how to 
program your own, but that can be intimidating for a total beginner.)

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 4:33 PM -0400 6/07/03, Darcy James Argue wrote:
What might be good is if Finale templates had certain common 
articulation, expression, staff style, transposition etc metatools 
pre-programmed.  None of us would use them, since we all have set up 
our own customized metatools, having the metatools pre-loaded, 
standardized, and listed on the quick reference card would make 
things easier for beginners.


They DO have many common ones pre-programmed now! As I said, Coda is 
getting better about this in recent versions. But finding them, and 
using them, that's the problem. Listing them on the reference card 
would be a great idea!
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 04:33  PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

What might be good is if Finale templates had certain common 
articulation, expression, staff style, transposition etc metatools 
pre-programmed.  None of us would use them, since we all have set up 
our own customized metatools, having the metatools pre-loaded, 
standardized, and listed on the quick reference card would make things 
easier for beginners.
There is a "BUT" missing in the sentence above.

"None of us would use them, since we all have set up our own customized 
metatools, BUT having the metatools pre-loaded... "

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Philip M. Aker]

On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 13:02 America/Vancouver, David W. Fenton 
wrote:

And the best part: if they code for OS X in the right way, it's about 
halfway to a Linux port (obviously, Aqua-specific code would not > port).
I don't think that's practical for them until they can drop OS 9 
support. The current dual MacOS requirement more or less obligates them 
to use Carbon. Of which I believe only the CoreFoundation API portions 
have ports for other platforms (including Windows).

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Aaron Sherber]

At 04:33 PM 6/7/2003, Darcy James Argue wrote:
>What might be good is if Finale templates had certain common
>articulation, expression, staff style, transposition etc metatools
>pre-programmed.  
Huh? You mean aside from the ones that are pre-programmed in the Maestro 
Default File and the various templates?

Aaron.

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 04:29  PM, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:

At 3:30 PM -0400 6/07/03, Darcy James Argue wrote:
On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 01:40  PM, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:

Basic things seem to go very quickly, but anything fussy will take a 
lot of time, which would make it a good choice for students, bad 
choice for me.
I actually don't think it's that great a choice for jazz students if 
they want to do anything more complicated than a lead sheet.  (At 
least, it wasn't back in 1.4.)  Part extraction in Sibelius is very, 
very, very bad, and I really wouldn't want to tackle a jazz orchestra 
chart unless things have substantially improved since then.


Hm, I'm going to have to test that, as part extraction seemed to go 
very similarly to Finale, with the exception of changing numbers of 
measures per line, which seemed to be very fussy in Sibelius.
Specifically, there were big problems with parts inheriting the score's 
page and system layout.  This was especially a problem with optimized 
scores.  The only way to fix it was to set up a blank document the way 
you wanted, and then copy the extracted part into that.  There were 
other issues, as well, but this was the big one.  This was in 1.4 -- 
things may have gotten better since then.

And I actually like the Inkpen font, especially the text, and 
PARTICULARLY the numbers, which are ever so much more readable than 
the JazzText equivelants. Nothing to stop me from using them in my 
Finale files! (except for lack of transportability to other users.)
Hmm.  I don't like Inkpen, but I will check out the numbers.  I agree 
with you that JazzText numbers are practically unreadable at small 
point sizes.

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 1:02 PM -0800 6/07/03, Mark D. Lew wrote:
At 1:40 PM 06/07/03, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:

[listing advantages of Sibelius]

Add an octave higher or lower in one click, or any interval, for that
matter. Several mouse clicks in Finale.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but isn't this pretty simple in Finale with the
transposition function with "preserve original notes" checked?  You can
program keys 6-9 to any given interval, and then it's just select the
measure and one keystroke to implement.
mdl
You are right. But try showing this to your class, along with all the 
other little tweaks you need to show them to get the program to 
behave to your liking...

Also another little thing I noticed, once you have clicked the box 
"preserve original notes", it ends up selected by default the next 
metatool you program, which may confuse my students.

Also, you use up one of the only 4 transposing metatools available, 
which I find to be way too valuable as octave up, octave down, 
diatonic step up, diatonic step down. I would even like others along 
with these, but hey...

Understand, I can deal with this, as it is no problem for me, but for 
my student beginners, I wish I had a situation that was clean and 
easy to teach and understand. After a couple of these, the students 
will start getting glazed eyes and casting longing looks over at 
Sibelius...
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Re: [Finale] Re: Backwards compatibility

[John Howell]

On Friday, Jun 6, 2003, at 18:10 America/Vancouver, David H. Bailey wrote:

Randy Stokes, senior developer, IS a musician.  I have no idea 
about any of the rest.
Now where did that page of jokes about trombonists go...

Philip Aker
Must have been stolen by a violist.

John

--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411   Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 05:02  PM, Mark D. Lew wrote:

At 1:40 PM 06/07/03, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:

[listing advantages of Sibelius]

Add an octave higher or lower in one click, or any interval, for that
matter. Several mouse clicks in Finale.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but isn't this pretty simple in Finale 
with the
transposition function with "preserve original notes" checked?  You can
program keys 6-9 to any given interval, and then it's just select the
measure and one keystroke to implement.
In Sibelius, this is something you can do as you enter the notes, with 
a single keystroke -- instead of having to select the passage after the 
fact and apply a metatool.  Makes it easier to enter octave doubling on 
keyboards with limited range.  It's not a show-stopper, but it's nice.  
And most people don't know about Finale metatools.  That's Finale's 
most useful and least-publicized feature -- and if Finale sends reps 
around to the schools, it's something should *really, really* emphasize.

What might be good is if Finale templates had certain common 
articulation, expression, staff style, transposition etc metatools 
pre-programmed.  None of us would use them, since we all have set up 
our own customized metatools, having the metatools pre-loaded, 
standardized, and listed on the quick reference card would make things 
easier for beginners.

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 3:30 PM -0400 6/07/03, Darcy James Argue wrote:
On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 01:40  PM, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:

Basic things seem to go very quickly, but anything fussy will take 
a lot of time, which would make it a good choice for students, bad 
choice for me.
I actually don't think it's that great a choice for jazz students if 
they want to do anything more complicated than a lead sheet.  (At 
least, it wasn't back in 1.4.)  Part extraction in Sibelius is very, 
very, very bad, and I really wouldn't want to tackle a jazz 
orchestra chart unless things have substantially improved since then.


Hm, I'm going to have to test that, as part extraction seemed to go 
very similarly to Finale, with the exception of changing numbers of 
measures per line, which seemed to be very fussy in Sibelius.


You seem to be stuck with Sibelius' way of doing things in a number 
of ways, but their way is so easy and immediate! Their equivelant 
of the Setup Wizard always gives a score that plays back with the 
right instruments, for example.
Finale's doesn't?


Not on my machine. And the chords need to be turned off for playback, 
and the drums parts are very fussy in Finale (I hated having to learn 
the percussion map, and it seems to be buggy in 2003, as things are 
not working the same when I have imported a 2002 or earlier file, and 
I can't get custom heads to show up properly using Simple Entry 
(Speedy is fine, though) and you can't transpose things if they have 
started out on the wrong line, etc.)


But they are really lacking certain advanced features for modern 
music and jazz, including lacking articulations for scoops, doits, 
long accents, and falloffs, and all those funny string markings 
(except for the usual ones, which are there.)
Doesn't Sibelius support custom alternate fonts yet?  Couldn't you 
use JazzFont instead of "Ink" (or whatever their faux-manuscript 
font is called)?


Sibelius does support custom fonts, including the JazzFont, but for 
that I would have to create markings in the new font, and define 
their playback, etc, exactly the same thing I was lambasting Finale 
about in other areas. The idea (for marketing purposes) is to have 
all this stuff already set up and working right out of the box for 
either classical or jazz/pop students to get right to work, without a 
lot of customising.

And I actually like the Inkpen font, especially the text, and 
PARTICULARLY the numbers, which are ever so much more readable than 
the JazzText equivelants. Nothing to stop me from using them in my 
Finale files! (except for lack of transportability to other users.)
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Re: [Finale] TAN: SoundFonts, QuickTime, and OS X

[Philip M. Aker]

On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 12:55 America/Vancouver, John Croft wrote:

I've just been through a similar issue with Andrew Levin offlist. Our 
conclusion, based on the setups of our 4 different Macs, was that 
it's not possible with QuickTime (including Pro) right now. I think 
it's something that should be reported by as many users as possible 
on the OS X feedback page.

Thanks Philip -- I'll certainly do this. In the meantime, after some 
messing around, I've stumbled accidentally across a way to use a 
SoundFont directly as a sound module for a MIDI controller. Of course, 
there are other reasons why it would be desirable to have QT appear in 
the Audio MIDI setup utility, but for what it's worth, you can use an 
application called SynthTest (http://puck.homeip.net/~creed/). It will 
automatically use the built-in QT sounds regardless of what you have 
selected in the QT preferences as your music synthesiser, but you can 
click "edit" to bring up a window which contains a menu which allows 
you to select the SoundFont -- the trick is, although it looks like an 
ordinary pop-up menu, it only works if you right- or control-click on 
it (!). Then you can select a new SoundFont and play it directly from 
a MIDI controller.
Interesting news. Andrew said he was more less obligated to use QT but 
I'll check it out for sure.

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 19:24, Jari Williamsson wrote:

> Philip M. Aker writes:
> 
> > But Jari, I've been _using_ Carbon controls in plugins since 1998 and 
> > requesting support for them in the PDK since the autumn of that year. 
> 
> So what happens if Carbon isn't installed on the client's computer?

Well, surely it could be installed, just as the Win32 subsystem could 
be installed on Win3.x computers back in the day.

> > Multitasking as an issue is only important to Windows developers 
> > because DOS (and I think Windows before W95) never had anything like 
> > the (old) MacOS event loop concept in the first place.
> 
> What are you talking about? Windows has _always_ used the message 
> loop concept (which is Microsoft's "version" of the event loop) for 
> communication. The new thing in Win32 (=Windows95 and later) . . .

Win32 predates Win95. It was used in all versions of NT, the first 
being NT 3.1, from 1991 or so, and then a Win32 subsystem was created 
(a set of appropriate DLLs) that could be installed on 16-bit Windows 
to support programs written for Win32. You didn't get the multi-
threaded preemptive multi-tasking of NT, but you were at least able 
to run the programs.

> . . . was pre-
> emptive priority-based threaded multitasking.
> DOS had nothing to do with Windows, not even under Win16 (specially 
> true since Windows 3.0), since most of DOS was disabled anyway.

Uh, DOS underlies all the Win9x kernels (Win95, Win98, WinME). It 
handles booting and quite a lot of the direct communication with 
hardware (though certain subsystems such as disk I/O use direct 32-
bit acces, which was first available in Windows for Workgroups 3.1 
and then in plain old Windows 3.11).

DOS is definitely *not* present in any of the NT kernels (NT, Win2K, 
WinXP), but the command prompt emulates DOS so that DOS programs can 
be run. Indeed, I have a client running a dBase II program compiled 
in 1983 under WinXP! We had to futz a bit to get the printer to work, 
but it runs fine!

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Philip M. Aker]

On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 12:48 America/Vancouver, Jari Williamsson 
wrote:

But even more telling is the complete lack of an analogy on Windows 
for high level events. All of which have now been subsumed into 
AppleEvents BTW. My best nutshell explanation is that they are an 
object oriented approach to messaging and data passing.

Well, OLE2 works a lot like that, although the communication is mainly 
between objects instead of applications.
If OLE2 'receive' and 'send' is available from a Windows message 
(param(s)) rather than being something else entirely I'll have to eat 
my words about "complete lack...".



Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] Re: Backwards compatibility

[John Howell]

i'm impressed that many of you seem to be both musicians and computer
programming types. This has caused me to wonder...
If anyone happens to know the inner workings at Coda, I'd be interested to
know if any or all of the programmers are musicians to the extent that it is
helpful to what they do? Or are there some are and some aren't? Or are there
musicians who are giving the programmers objectives and then the programmers
reduce it down to programming concepts they understand? Or would being a
musician actually not be very important?
Richard
I don't know what the answer to this is going to be, but it strikes 
me that the situation is very similar to synthesizer programming.  Up 
through about 1980 you needed at least two people, someone who 
understood the things and how to get specific sounds out of them, and 
someone else who had the chops to play them.  It was during the late 
70s and 80s that we started seeing players who also understood the 
programming, and in my experience more than a few were also computer 
literate types.  Of course it was also in the 80s that we started to 
see extensive banks of presets instead of having to start from 
scratch.

I was on tour with Mancini in the mid-70s, and he had brought along a 
MicroMoog that had been used to generate certain sounds on his latest 
album.  Unfortunately his son had programmed it in the studio, and 
Mancini didn't have a clue how to get it set up!

John

--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411   Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 10:01, Philip M. Aker wrote:

> Multitasking as an issue is only important to Windows developers 
> because DOS (and I think Windows before W95) never had anything like 
> the (old) MacOS event loop concept in the first place.

Eh?

DOS was single-tasking, so is not a relevant comparison to any 
version of Mac OS.

Win3.x was used cooperative multi-tasking, just like Mac OS, and used 
a messaging queue, as any multi-tasking operating environment must.

Win95 introduced a combination of cooperative multi-tasking and 
preemptive multi-tasking, depending on whether the software was fully 
32-bit or depended on 16-bit components.

To claim that the "event loop" was an advantage that made multi-
tasking unnecessary is rather ridiculous. Microsoft got it right long 
before Apple, by introducing decent multi-tasking by Windows 3.0 (I 
never used early versions, but I believe multi-tasking was there in 
somoe form from the beginning; virtual memory management came in 
Windows 3.11, based on the work done in Windows for Workgroups 3.1). 
It reminds me of all the WordPerfect users who claim that REVEAL 
CODES is such a great tool, when in reality it's just a kludge to 
help you get around all the problems inherent in a sequential file 
format.

"It's not a bug, it's a feature!"

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Mark D. Lew]

At 1:40 PM 06/07/03, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:

[listing advantages of Sibelius]

>Add an octave higher or lower in one click, or any interval, for that
>matter. Several mouse clicks in Finale.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but isn't this pretty simple in Finale with the
transposition function with "preserve original notes" checked?  You can
program keys 6-9 to any given interval, and then it's just select the
measure and one keystroke to implement.

mdl


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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 10:00, Philip M. Aker wrote:

> On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 03:13 America/Vancouver, David H. Bailey 
> wrote:
> > Perhaps, given the tardiness in making Finale fully OSX compliant, it 
> > is the Mac market which is the drag these days.
> 
> Nope. It's Coda not having had their ear to the ground 6 years ago when 
> Apple sent out copious notes about coming changes.

Coda was very slow with the Win32 release, too. Win32 was coming from 
about 1990 or so, and Coda did not release a 32-bit version until 
Finale97, and because of problems with 16-bit thunking layers for 
MIDI, it did not run on NT until Finale98. Win95 came out in August 
'95, NT 4 came out in '96, so Coda was quite a ways behind.

However, it wasn't until the release of Win2K that NT compatibility 
became really crucial and by that time, they'd made the conversion.  

I think that Code is following exactly the same path with OS X as 
they did with Win32, and my guess is that this involves a major code 
restructuring and maybe even a conversion to new development tools, 
just as the WinFin97 release marked the abandonment of the old 
codebase and a switch to Microsoft development tools.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 8:40, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> This type of thing is everywhere in the software world, not just in the 
> storage of "object oriented" objects.  The best example is HTML.  From the 
> very beginning of Mosaic, the browser was designed to parse and discard 
> tags it couldn't recognize, then carry one with the set of tags it did 
> recognize.  As HTML evolved, they included mechanisms for authors to 
> include different sets of HTML with that in mind.  E.G. the NOFRAMES 
> section that can allow one HTML file to work whether the browser supported 
> frames or not.

And the Finale file structure was not designed that way, so what 
you're proposing is an entirely *new* file structure.

Frying pan, meet fire.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 8:28, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> Every release of Finale I have used has supported slurs, 8va and 
> practically all the SmartShapes that are used today.  Granted the 
> SmartShapes changed the way these are manipulated (and presumably 
> stored).  But in an object-oriented environment a successful strategy would 
> store the objects BOTH ways and therefore allow the older program to find 
> the version of the shapes it can recognize.

I don't think you really understand object-oriented programming.

In an OO storage structure providing backward compatibility, there'd 
be a base class object that had the properties/methods common to all 
versions. The then version-specific instance of that object would be 
subclassed to add the newer properties/methods. This might very well 
be something that cascades through various levels of subclassing.

But the real problem is what to do with elements that use conflicting 
storage methods. Take, for instance, engraver slurs. There would be a 
base slur class object, and it would be sub-classed by all the 
versions that used that class object's structure. Then at a certain 
point when engraver slurs were introduced, it might be that the new 
structure could *not* be created by subclassing the old base class 
object, so you'd need to base it on a new class object. Then the 
issue of conversion would be a matter of converting the new class 
object into the old, replicating the same look. That would require 
some pretty fancy programming.

Leaving aside areas that were just wholesale added in (such as 
graphics), there are dozens of such areas like that, such as text 
handling.

The devil would be in the details of writing the conversion code to 
convert one storage structure to the equivalent old structure. And my 
bet is that it wouldn't be successful enough to be satisfactory for 
the vast majority of users. If you're not satisfied with MIDI import, 
I doubt you'd be satisfied with these conversions.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 15:23, Jari Williamsson wrote:

> David H. Bailey writes:
> 
> > Perhaps, given the tardiness in making Finale fully OSX compliant, it is 
> > the Mac market which is the drag these days.
> 
> Avoiding to make this into a OS war issue, I think the OSX development 
> will benefit both platforms in the end. Although the rewrite for OSX 
> undoubtedly takes a lot of development time, some of the core of Finale 
> perhaps gets rewritten, ancient code fragments are thrown out, it gets 
> easier to add more "advanced" stuff on both platforms in the future (since 
> Mac now have many things that Win32 has had for years, like easy multi-
> threaded multitasking, a good set of user controls, etc).

And the best part: if they code for OS X in the right way, it's about 
halfway to a Linux port (obviously, Aqua-specific code would not 
port).

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] TAN: SoundFonts, QuickTime, and OS X

[John Croft]

On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 18:01 Europe/London, Philip M. Aker wrote:

I've just been through a similar issue with Andrew Levin offlist. Our 
conclusion, based on the setups of our 4 different Macs, was that it's 
not possible with QuickTime (including Pro) right now. I think it's 
something that should be reported by as many users as possible on the 
OS X feedback page.
Thanks Philip -- I'll certainly do this. In the meantime, after some 
messing around, I've stumbled accidentally across a way to use a 
SoundFont directly as a sound module for a MIDI controller. Of course, 
there are other reasons why it would be desirable to have QT appear in 
the Audio MIDI setup utility, but for what it's worth, you can use an 
application called SynthTest (http://puck.homeip.net/~creed/). It will 
automatically use the built-in QT sounds regardless of what you have 
selected in the QT preferences as your music synthesiser, but you can 
click "edit" to bring up a window which contains a menu which allows 
you to select the SoundFont -- the trick is, although it looks like an 
ordinary pop-up menu, it only works if you right- or control-click on 
it (!). Then you can select a new SoundFont and play it directly from a 
MIDI controller.

Hope this is of use to someone.

John


Dr John Croft
Lecturer in Music
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9RQ
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/music/profile145975.html
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 7 Jun 2003 at 0:35, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> It is no different with Word, Excel or any other end-user application.

Really, would you *stop* using these completely invalid comparisons 
to programs that have file formats that are several orders of 
magnitude less complex?

It *is* different from Word and Excel.

It's *very* different.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David W. Fenton]

On 6 Jun 2003 at 19:37, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> At 07:11 PM 6/6/2003 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote:
> >On 5 Jun 2003 at 23:19, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
> >
> > > Coda is possibly the only vendor of a
> > > major software product that does not provide backwards compatibility.
> >
> >It depends on the product category. It is very common with database
> >programs to *not* have backward compatibility, or only limited
> >backward compatibility.
> 
> I don't mean to be pedantic, but all the DB systems I am familiar with 
> provide the means for inter-release compatibility forward AND 
> backward.  This includes DB2, Oracle, Access, Paradox, and rBase, to name a 
> few.

When you're dealing strictly with data tables, most db's can read and 
write to their older versions. However, many of them require 
conversion for more complex compatibility with other features (such 
as management tools, for instance). 

Access, which is more comparable to Finale than, say, Oracle, can 
convert forward, but until Access 2000, could not convert backwards. 
The reason I say Access is more comparable to Finale is that an 
Access file stores more than just data tables, with form and report 
layouts and VBA code in the file, just as a Finale file includes tons 
of things about the actual data and presentation/layout of the data. 

> For backward compatibility, with any of these systems, you have the ability 
> to build your data base in a prior format that is recognized by earlier 
> versions.  That may prevent you from using the latest features with your 
> new DB.  It is a trade-off of flexibility versus new function.  But the key 
> point is that the user gets to make that decision.

But they all require conversion to use the newer features. And Access 
2K+ is the only one I know of that will allow you to save back into 
an older version.

> Also, end-user database products like Paradox and Access allow SaveAs to a 
> multitude of formats, so it is easy to use those products on collaborative 
> projects.

Well, you can export data from them, but you can't export the user 
interface objects, which are the parts of Paradox and Access that are 
more like a Finale file.

If it's so easy to do, then you go do it -- write your own notation 
package that has backward compatibility of file formats. 

Until you've done that, you really have no business criticizing Coda 
for this. Yes, it's inconvenient, but it would be extremely difficult 
to implement. 

Coda would go out of business if they took the time out of their 
product release cycle to implement backward compatibility. And how 
many users would need it? Yes, the users who do need it need it 
really *bad*, but my guess is that this is only a very small 
proportion of the user base. Why should Coda devote such massive 
resources to something that would serve only a small part of their 
customer base.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Jari Williamsson]

Philip M. Aker writes:

> But even more telling is the complete lack of an analogy on Windows for 
> high level events. All of which have now been subsumed into AppleEvents 
> BTW. My best nutshell explanation is that they are an object oriented 
> approach to messaging and data passing.  

Well, OLE2 works a lot like that, although the communication is mainly 
between objects instead of applications.


Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 01:40  PM, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:
He actually got a bit testy with me when I pointed out that the chord 
analysis provided by the analysis plugin was faulty. He didn't give me 
chance to point out that Finale's harmonic analysis is worse. His 
exact words were, "We have spent far too much time on this to accept 
groundless criticisms. Do you think we would put out a program with 
features that don't work?" We all stared at him in amazement. Was he 
serious? Apparently so.
Holy shit.  This guy should go work for the current administration.  He 
would make an excellent replacement for Ari Fleisher.

I admire your restraint.  I would have ripped him a new one -- starting 
with the devastating "guitar frame crash" bug from 1.4 (clicking on the 
first fret of a guitar frame would cause the *entire operating system* 
to crash).  [This was on NT4, don't know if the Mac version was 
similarly afflicted.]   Or did they "not put far too much time" into 
versions prior to 2.0?  Give me break, already.

Sibelius's manual, BTW, drips with condescension on every page, so it's 
not surprising to me that their reps are such assholes.

Some features that looked nice (to me):

Re-pitch. You set the cursor on an entered line, and start pressing 
MIDI keys. The line changes notes to the entered ones, one by one, 
skipping rests and intelligently dealing with tied notes. This is 
many, many more keystrokes in Finale.

Add an octave higher or lower in one click, or any interval, for that 
matter. Several mouse clicks in Finale.
Those are good, once you get used to them.  However, I found that 
Sibelius was not nearly as friendly towards "blind" entry as Finale -- 
in Finale, I can basically keep my eye on the score and blaze away 
doing note entry without ever looking up.  In Sibelius, I could never 
quite do this, despite months and months of practice -- it required 
more visual checks to make sure that (for instance) the screen was 
keeping up with the input and no notes had been dropped.

Also, my number-one problem when I was learning how to use Sibelius was 
the lack of an insertion point.  When a note is highlighted, it could 
mean one of two things:

1) I am ready for you to input new notes, and when you play something 
on the MIDI keyboard it will be added *after* this note;

or

 2) You have selected this note, and when you play something on the 
MIDI keyboard it will *replace* this note.

There is *no* visible difference between these two states.  The user is 
simply expected to remember what state he's in.

Other people who had never used music notation software before seemed 
to have no problem with this behavior, but for those of us familiar 
with Finale, it was infuriating.

Scanning music was demonstrated, and it worked amazingly well with his 
test scan. I mention that it was his test scan, because I suspect it 
was chosen because it works 99% or better with the program, and that 
MY scans would drop down to the usual 85% or so success rate. Maybe 
not, though.
Oh, no, obviously the test scan has been, well, tested.  To scan.  
Well.  I was told scanning with Sibelius worked really well, all things 
considered, but we never actually used it at work.  Obviously, it 
didn't work *so* well that it was faster than entering Hal Leonard 
sheet music (pop tunes, mostly) by hand, or converting from the Score 
files.

(The Score converter was, BTW, an enormous pain, but I suppose 
marginally better than doing it from scratch.  The files needed a *lot* 
of correcting, though.  I wouldn't want to do it that way on complex 
music -- luckily the stuff we were doing was pretty simple.)

Any item you click is highlighted immediately in the proper tool, kind 
of like Finale's Selection Tool, but it is on all the time, and you 
can start editing immediately.
Unless two elements are really close to one another, or overlapping and 
you can't get Sibelius to highlight the right one.  (This is obviously 
a problem with the selection tool, too.)  Ties on chords were the worst 
for this -- you had to zoom in to 400-800% in order to grab the tie you 
wanted to move.

Basic things seem to go very quickly, but anything fussy will take a 
lot of time, which would make it a good choice for students, bad 
choice for me.
I actually don't think it's that great a choice for jazz students if 
they want to do anything more complicated than a lead sheet.  (At 
least, it wasn't back in 1.4.)  Part extraction in Sibelius is very, 
very, very bad, and I really wouldn't want to tackle a jazz orchestra 
chart unless things have substantially improved since then.

You seem to be stuck with Sibelius' way of doing things in a number of 
ways, but their way is so easy and immediate! Their equivelant of the 
Setup Wizard always gives a score that plays back with the right 
instruments, for example.
Finale's doesn't?  I don't know about these things, because I just have 
everything set to play back on the Rhodes piano patc

Re: feature request (was: Re: [Finale] New Finale release)

[Jari Williamsson]

Michele Sharik writes:

> Where does one send in a feature request?

To the tech support e-mail addresses:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
or
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

If you send in multiple requests, MakeMusic seems to appreciate if you 
make a wish list in priority order.


Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Philip M. Aker]

On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 10:24 America/Vancouver, Jari Williamsson 
wrote:

But Jari, I've been _using_ Carbon controls in plugins since 1998 and 
requesting support for them in the PDK since the autumn of that year.

So what happens if Carbon isn't installed on the client's computer?
Those control APIs in older Mac systems are in the Appearance Manager 
libraries/extensions. Possible to use them since System 7.5.5 (maybe 
7.5).


Multitasking as an issue is only important to Windows developers 
because DOS (and I think Windows before W95) never had anything like 
the (old) MacOS event loop concept in the first place.

What are you talking about? Windows has _always_ used the message loop 
concept (which is Microsoft's "version" of the event loop) for 
communication.
Well, I could have used more accurate wording. The MS 'message loop' 
realization only superficially resembles the Mac event loop (a loop is 
a loop after all). As seen in the PDK, it's possible to parse a Mac 
EventRecord and reformat it into pseudo WPARAMs and LPARAMs. But it 
doesn't go other way--there's no 'nullEvent' on Windows plus there's 
the complication of having to use callbacks/messages to deal with 
things the Mac handles by addressing the object directly. This means of 
course that at the system level, Windows can't handle the whole Mac 
event _concept_.

But even more telling is the complete lack of an analogy on Windows for 
high level events. All of which have now been subsumed into AppleEvents 
BTW. My best nutshell explanation is that they are an object oriented 
approach to messaging and data passing.  If one is not familiar with 
them, it's not possible to pass an educated comment of what the Mac 
concept of events is about and hence, make a realistic comparison to a 
Windows 'message loop'.

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 10:21  AM, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:

At 12:49 AM -0500 6/07/03, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
At 09:06 AM 6/7/2003 +1000, "Matthew Hindson wrote:

By the way, has Makemusic/Codamusic _ever_ made a profit?
I don't know about "ever" but apparently not recently.

They face a tough confluence of circumstances.


Part of that is a heavy push by Sibelius in the school market. At our 
school we had a visit by a Sibelius specialist who gave an all-day 
workshop, which went a long way to getting over the "getting started" 
blues that so many students have with notation software. I have to 
say, he was very good, very focused, and very critical of the things 
that Finale doesn't do as well as Sibelius that are of interest to my 
students.
Does Finale have reps that can do similar workshops in schools, 
highlighting all the problems (including ease-of-use problems) with 
Sibelius?  If not, I volunteer myself.


If Coda could supply more usable default files to start with, this 
would ease things in the school market considerably.
Agreed.  For starters, their jazz orchestra template is awful, just 
awful.  I never understood why it was set up in landscape orientation 
-- I guess so it looks like a miniature version of jazz orch score 
paper.  But it's ridiculously cramped in that orientation, with no room 
to enter chord symbols and/or kicks above the rhythm section parts, no 
additional space between sections, etc.  To make it usable you'd have 
to reduce it even further (from 50% down to 45% or lower).  Ugh.  I 
have a much more readable jazz orch template in portrait orientation at 
55% reduction, with plenty of room for the rhythm section, etc.  (I 
also have a tighter version at 60%.)  If Coda wants it, it's theirs.

And chord suffixes, sheesh!
Not really a problem if you use Jazz Font, although obviously "type 
into score" can be confusing.  But I agree, setting up custom suffixes 
is a monumental pain -- though it's actually not much easier in Sib 
last time I checked.

 In Sibelius, chord symbols can be attached to virtual beats (like in 
Encore) without needing to be attached to actual measure items. This 
also is very attractive to students who have struggled with the 
multi-step process to do this in Finale.
That is definitely true.

- Darcy

-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Boston MA
No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
- Randy Newman, "Political Science"

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[YATESLAWRENCE]

In a message dated 07/06/2003 19:02:38 GMT Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

??? That's odd, why would you want to hear a note that's NOT the 
sounding pitch?

That's exactly the problem - you don't hear the souding pitch - for example, if you write a g second line for horn which should sound C, it plays a g as though you had written g for a concert pitch instrument.  This is murder to work with if you are using a score for brass instruments.  

All the best,

Lawrence
http://lawrenceyates.co.uk

feature request (was: Re: [Finale] New Finale release)

[Michele Sharik \(The Golden Dance\)]

Jari wrote:
> Have you (and others who want it) sent in a feature request?


Hi, all!  I'm brand-spankin' new to this list, so forgive me if I'm asking a
stupid question.

Where does one send in a feature request?

I do a lot of composing and arranging for handbells & am a member of another
Finale forum (called "Frustrated Friends of Finale"  - mostly handbell
people) in which we've wondered how to ask for specific features.  One that
is most vexing to us is the placement of measure numbers.  Handbell music
(written on a grand staff, like a piano & may encompass up to 7 octaves)
numbers each measure & since the music often uses several leger lines,
measure numbers sometimes get buried.  We all have changed the default
position of the measure numbers, but still end up having to move a lot of
them for each score.  We'd like to see them automatically position
themselves so as not to collide with other entries, like other elements do
when you optimize.

ps.  Yesterday, I did a lot of research on plug-ins & recognize some of the
names posting in this forum.  Thanks so much for writing plug-ins - I've
discovered several that will make my life much easier!

Thanks so much!
-Michèle Sharik
Director of Adult Handbells, San Ramon Valley UMC, Alamo, CA
Director, Choir of Bells, Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church, Sunnyvale, CA
Handbell Solo Artist, Teacher, & Clinician http://www.TheGoldenDance.com
Member of Sonos & Sonos Quartet http://www.sonos.org

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 10:07 AM -0500 6/07/03, Richard Huggins wrote:
I don't know Sibelius, so keep that in mind, but how likely is it that the
Sibelius rep would conveniently ignore those things that are easier and
faster in Finale? If he wants to keep his job, VERY likely.
One fellow on this list (or perhaps another) once listed (numerically) over
60 reasons why Finale was better than Sibelius. Granted, those were from his
perspective but impressive nonetheless and must reading for those looking
for which program to buy.
My point is, was the Sibelius demonstration impressive not so much for its
content but rather that (1) they got the invitation or (2) they solicited
the invitation as a result of a better push to rope in the education market
(one that Coda must respond to)? Could an impressive Finale demonstration be
put together, *including* similar criticisms of Sibelius that the latter had
of Finale and including Finale's own one-click capabilities? Of course it
could. Shame on Coda if they are lagging in this area, but to selectively
pick those things Sibelius does better (esp. when it's being done by a paid
Sibelius employee) while ignoring those that Finale can do better proves
little.
Richard


You raise some excellent points, and no doubt this fellow (hired by 
the school as a result of a solicitation) WAS conveniently ignoring 
some Sibelius weaknesses and playing down some Finale strengths (see 
my previous post). But in order for Finale to come up with a 
comparable presentation, they have to create a better default file 
and an easier introduction to the program. They are getting better at 
these last two points (especially in 2002 and 2003) but there is 
considerable room for improvement.
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 10:12 AM -0700 6/07/03, Earl Price wrote:
--- Christopher BJ Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
 If Coda could supply more usable default files to
 start with, this
 would ease things in the school market considerably.
 For example,
 almost everything in Sibelius plays back out
 correctly of the box. To
 set up Finale so that everything plays back in the
 same way is a
 week's work. (notably, some things that don't play
 back correctly in
 Sibelius are bari sax, tenor sax, and any
 octave-transposing
 instrument.)
Speaking of playback, I wish that Coda would fix
playback of transposing instruments during Simple note
entry.  Currently what we hear is playback of the
pitch entered as if it were concert pitch.  This is
annoying when working in transposed scores, which is
the way I always work.
Lon


??? That's odd, why would you want to hear a note that's NOT the 
sounding pitch? Particularly if you are hearing back a sampled 
instrument, this way you get to hear the timbre that the instrument 
is actually playing. I can't imagine playing in a baritone sax's high 
D and hearing not an F above middle C, but a strained sample of an 
actual concert high D on a bari sample!
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Christopher BJ Smith]

Ha ha! No, he was very quiet on all points regarding Sibelius' 
weaknesses. I only mentioned the ones that came up in the workshop. I 
should have brought Darcy's email with me, where he outlines all the 
things that drove him nuts about the program, but I wasn't trying to 
be confrontational, I was only trying to learn enough of the program 
to get the students started if they wanted it.

He actually got a bit testy with me when I pointed out that the chord 
analysis provided by the analysis plugin was faulty. He didn't give 
me chance to point out that Finale's harmonic analysis is worse. His 
exact words were, "We have spent far too much time on this to accept 
groundless criticisms. Do you think we would put out a program with 
features that don't work?" We all stared at him in amazement. Was he 
serious? Apparently so.

Some features that looked nice (to me):

Re-pitch. You set the cursor on an entered line, and start pressing 
MIDI keys. The line changes notes to the entered ones, one by one, 
skipping rests and intelligently dealing with tied notes. This is 
many, many more keystrokes in Finale.

Add an octave higher or lower in one click, or any interval, for that 
matter. Several mouse clicks in Finale.

Scanning music was demonstrated, and it worked amazingly well with 
his test scan. I mention that it was his test scan, because I suspect 
it was chosen because it works 99% or better with the program, and 
that MY scans would drop down to the usual 85% or so success rate. 
Maybe not, though.

Any item you click is highlighted immediately in the proper tool, 
kind of like Finale's Selection Tool, but it is on all the time, and 
you can start editing immediately.

Basic things seem to go very quickly, but anything fussy will take a 
lot of time, which would make it a good choice for students, bad 
choice for me. You seem to be stuck with Sibelius' way of doing 
things in a number of ways, but their way is so easy and immediate! 
Their equivelant of the Setup Wizard always gives a score that plays 
back with the right instruments, for example.

But they are really lacking certain advanced features for modern 
music and jazz, including lacking articulations for scoops, doits, 
long accents, and falloffs, and all those funny string markings 
(except for the usual ones, which are there.)



At 11:01 AM -0400 6/07/03, David H. Bailey wrote:
Did he tell you that Sibelius can't playback D.C. and D.S.? 
Everybody in the Sibelius universe seems particularly quiet on that 
point!



Christopher BJ Smith wrote:
At 12:49 AM -0500 6/07/03, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

At 09:06 AM 6/7/2003 +1000, "Matthew Hindson wrote:

By the way, has Makemusic/Codamusic _ever_ made a profit?


I don't know about "ever" but apparently not recently.

They face a tough confluence of circumstances.


Part of that is a heavy push by Sibelius in the school market. At 
our school we had a visit by a Sibelius specialist who gave an 
all-day workshop, which went a long way to getting over the 
"getting started" blues that so many students have with notation 
software. I have to say, he was very good, very focused, and very 
critical of the things that Finale doesn't do as well as Sibelius 
that are of interest to my students.

We know Finale can do all these things, but when it is a multi-step 
process in Finale and one click in Sibelius, that makes it more 
attractive to students. And we all know that the software someone 
starts on, they are likely to stick with. It worked for me and 
Macintosh, and me with Cubase on Atari.

If Coda could supply more usable default files to start with, this 
would ease things in the school market considerably. For example, 
almost everything in Sibelius plays back out correctly of the box. 
To set up Finale so that everything plays back in the same way is a 
week's work. (notably, some things that don't play back correctly 
in Sibelius are bari sax, tenor sax, and any octave-transposing 
instrument.) Just getting all my students on Finale to let items 
show on other layers when using Slash Notation is a major hassle. 
And chord suffixes, sheesh! In Sibelius, chord symbols can be 
attached to virtual beats (like in Encore) without needing to be 
attached to actual measure items. This also is very attractive to 
students who have struggled with the multi-step process to do this 
in Finale.
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Re: [Finale] putting a "." after 1st and 2nd ending numbers

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 10:58 AM -0400 6/07/03, David H. Bailey wrote:
You can, but if you don't type anything the 1 and 2 appear 
automatically and he is asking if the periods can be made to appear 
automatically along with the numbers.

I don't think the periods can be automatic.


Aha, I see in the Friendly Manual that it inserts the number that you 
have put into the Total Passes box. If you put nothing, it defaults 
to 1. If you have put 2 or 3, it inserts that number. You have to 
define the number of passes to be 2 in order to get the 2 
automatically, otherwise you get 1 again in your second repeat box.

However, I have happily used Finale for many years without knowing 
that, simply typing the number (or other text) I want into the box 
that is highlighted by default when the dialogue box opens.

And you are right, the periods cannot be automatic.

Christopher



Crystal Premo wrote:
I would like to change a Finale default behavior:

I want a period (.) after the 1 in a first ending and the 2 in a second
ending.  Is there a way to do this?<<
I almost always use a period there.  Can't you just type it?

Crystal Premo
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Jari Williamsson]

Earl Price writes:

> Speaking of playback, I wish that Coda would fix
> playback of transposing instruments during Simple note
> entry.  Currently what we hear is playback of the
> pitch entered as if it were concert pitch.  This is
> annoying when working in transposed scores, which is
> the way I always work.

Have you (and others who want it) sent in a feature request?


Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Jari Williamsson]

Philip M. Aker writes:

> But Jari, I've been _using_ Carbon controls in plugins since 1998 and 
> requesting support for them in the PDK since the autumn of that year. 

So what happens if Carbon isn't installed on the client's computer?

> Multitasking as an issue is only important to Windows developers 
> because DOS (and I think Windows before W95) never had anything like 
> the (old) MacOS event loop concept in the first place.

What are you talking about? Windows has _always_ used the message 
loop concept (which is Microsoft's "version" of the event loop) for 
communication. The new thing in Win32 (=Windows95 and later) was pre-
emptive priority-based threaded multitasking.
DOS had nothing to do with Windows, not even under Win16 (specially 
true since Windows 3.0), since most of DOS was disabled anyway.


Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Earl Price]

--- Christopher BJ Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> If Coda could supply more usable default files to
> start with, this 
> would ease things in the school market considerably.
> For example, 
> almost everything in Sibelius plays back out
> correctly of the box. To 
> set up Finale so that everything plays back in the
> same way is a 
> week's work. (notably, some things that don't play
> back correctly in 
> Sibelius are bari sax, tenor sax, and any
> octave-transposing 
> instrument.) 

Speaking of playback, I wish that Coda would fix
playback of transposing instruments during Simple note
entry.  Currently what we hear is playback of the
pitch entered as if it were concert pitch.  This is
annoying when working in transposed scores, which is
the way I always work.

Lon


Lon Price, Los Angeles

<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Re: [Finale] TAN: SoundFonts, QuickTime, and OS X

[Philip M. Aker]

On Monday, Apr 7, 2003, at 07:05 America/Vancouver, John Croft wrote:

So, does anybody know if it's possible to patch an external MIDI 
keyboard directly into QuickTime, and have it use the selected 
SoundFont? (It would be nice if Apple's "Audio MIDI Setup" utility 
recognised QT as an output, so that you could just patch it in, but it 
doesn't.)
Greetings John,

I've just been through a similar issue with Andrew Levin offlist. Our 
conclusion, based on the setups of our 4 different Macs, was that it's 
not possible with QuickTime (including Pro) right now. I think it's 
something that should be reported by as many users as possible on the 
OS X feedback page.

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Philip M. Aker]

On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 06:23 America/Vancouver, Jari Williamsson 
wrote:

(since Mac now have many things that Win32 has had for years, like 
easy multi-threaded multitasking, a good set of user controls, etc).
But Jari, I've been _using_ Carbon controls in plugins since 1998 and 
requesting support for them in the PDK since the autumn of that year. 
The threading calls which developers can use on OS X have been 
available since at least MacOS 8.6. I personally forwarded all the 
links to MPThread documentation and SDKs to Coda a few years ago. Just 
because Windows-oriented developers like yourself weren't aware of 
these things 5 years ago doesn't mean they didn't exist.

Multitasking as an issue is only important to Windows developers 
because DOS (and I think Windows before W95) never had anything like 
the (old) MacOS event loop concept in the first place.

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Philip M. Aker]

On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 01:07 America/Vancouver, Darcy James Argue 
wrote:

By the way, has Makemusic/Codamusic _ever_ made a profit?

I don't know about "ever" but apparently not recently.

Maybe it was when they were only releasing products for Macintosh? Be 
interesting to find out if the Windows versions have actually made an 
overall positive contribution to the balance sheet. If it hasn't, 
perhaps it should be dropped. Smaller but profitable is not an 
unheard of corporate strategy in these times of market turmoil.

Ho boy.  Let the flame wars begin.

No, just kidding.  All you Windows users, pretend Philip didn't say 
that.
FWIW, I think they should drop pre-OS X versions as well. The idea 
being to focus the internal code porting to as many unix calls as 
possible. Then branch laterally to Linux and finally to the SCO unix 
implementation that Microsoft says they'll have ready in a few years.

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Philip M. Aker]

On Saturday, Jun 7, 2003, at 03:13 America/Vancouver, David H. Bailey 
wrote:

It would be very interesting, as you say, to see what the numbers are, 
in a development-vs-income comparison.
That is the point isn't it. $US284,000 of revenue loss is a mighty cold 
supper. And also a review of the value of the non-music items such as 
file placement on Coda's website.


Perhaps, given the tardiness in making Finale fully OSX compliant, it 
is the Mac market which is the drag these days.
Nope. It's Coda not having had their ear to the ground 6 years ago when 
Apple sent out copious notes about coming changes.


But if financial survival is a large factor for the company, that 
might be another reason for each of us to upgrade to a newer version 
each year -- it would serve two purposes: 1) keep the company afloat 
and 2) we would each have the latest version should the company go 
under.
Like someone else mentioned, it's highly unlikely you'll get that kind 
of sentiment out of the general music community.


So if MakeMusic (I still think that's a stupid name -- Coda Music was 
a much more elegant corporate name)
Agree!

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Tim Thompson]

Perhaps, given the tardiness in making Finale fully OSX compliant, it 
is the Mac market which is the drag these days.
I'm sure!  I know I skipped the 2003 upgrade for that very reason.  The 
only reason we upgraded at my institution last year was that we 
converted to a site license, added a few seats, and got the upgrade out 
of the deal.  We have about a 60/40 split Windows to Mac, and we're 
definitely buying the 2004 upgrade because Finale is the last thing 
keeping us from going to X completely.  And of course, I will make the 
upgrade myself.

My sense is that many Mac users held off this last time, and will make 
up for it with 2004.  I would be surprised if any mac users don't do 
this upgrade.  Of course, there's no telling how many jumped ship over 
the whole thing.

Tim

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Noel Stoutenburg]

Richard Huggins wrote:

> I don't know Sibelius, so keep that in mind, but how likely is it that the
> Sibelius rep would conveniently ignore those things that are easier and
> faster in Finale? If he wants to keep his job, VERY likely.

The most unbiased head to head comparison I am familar with between Sibelius and
Finale is in Steven Powell's book, _Music Engraving Today_.  While this is
hampered by the fact that it uses out of date versions of both packages--SIB1.4
and FIN 2k1 or 2k2, Powell writes in some detail about the reasons he finds
Finale to be the superior package for engraving purposes.

The book was published right around the time 2k3 and Sib 2.0 were released, and
promised a updated comparison on Powell's website, but last time I check (and
admittedly it has been at least a couple of months ago, the comparison of the
updated versions had still not been published.

Every instance with which I am familiar in which there was supposed to be a head
to head comparison between the two programs, it has been canceled and I have
been led to believe in every case it was because Sibelius pulled out.

ns

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Richard Huggins]

I don't know Sibelius, so keep that in mind, but how likely is it that the
Sibelius rep would conveniently ignore those things that are easier and
faster in Finale? If he wants to keep his job, VERY likely.

One fellow on this list (or perhaps another) once listed (numerically) over
60 reasons why Finale was better than Sibelius. Granted, those were from his
perspective but impressive nonetheless and must reading for those looking
for which program to buy.

My point is, was the Sibelius demonstration impressive not so much for its
content but rather that (1) they got the invitation or (2) they solicited
the invitation as a result of a better push to rope in the education market
(one that Coda must respond to)? Could an impressive Finale demonstration be
put together, *including* similar criticisms of Sibelius that the latter had
of Finale and including Finale's own one-click capabilities? Of course it
could. Shame on Coda if they are lagging in this area, but to selectively
pick those things Sibelius does better (esp. when it's being done by a paid
Sibelius employee) while ignoring those that Finale can do better proves
little.

Richard

> From: Christopher BJ Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> Part of that is a heavy push by Sibelius in the school market. At our
> school we had a visit by a Sibelius specialist who gave an all-day
> workshop, which went a long way to getting over the "getting started"
> blues that so many students have with notation software. I have to
> say, he was very good, very focused, and very critical of the things
> that Finale doesn't do as well as Sibelius that are of interest to my
> students.
> 
> We know Finale can do all these things, but when it is a multi-step
> process in Finale and one click in Sibelius, that makes it more
> attractive to students. And we all know that the software someone
> starts on, they are likely to stick with. It worked for me and
> Macintosh, and me with Cubase on Atari.
> 
> If Coda could supply more usable default files to start with, this
> would ease things in the school market considerably. For example,
> almost everything in Sibelius plays back out correctly of the box. To
> set up Finale so that everything plays back in the same way is a
> week's work. (notably, some things that don't play back correctly in
> Sibelius are bari sax, tenor sax, and any octave-transposing
> instrument.) Just getting all my students on Finale to let items show
> on other layers when using Slash Notation is a major hassle. And
> chord suffixes, sheesh! In Sibelius, chord symbols can be attached to
> virtual beats (like in Encore) without needing to be attached to
> actual measure items. This also is very attractive to students who
> have struggled with the multi-step process to do this in Finale.

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Re: [Finale] putting a "." after 1st and 2nd ending numbers

[David H. Bailey]

You can, but if you don't type anything the 1 and 2 appear automatically 
and he is asking if the periods can be made to appear automatically 
along with the numbers.

I don't think the periods can be automatic.

Crystal Premo wrote:
I would like to change a Finale default behavior:

I want a period (.) after the 1 in a first ending and the 2 in a second
ending.  Is there a way to do this?<<
I almost always use a period there.  Can't you just type it?

Crystal Premo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*  
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David H. Bailey]

Did he tell you that Sibelius can't playback D.C. and D.S.?  Everybody 
in the Sibelius universe seems particularly quiet on that point!



Christopher BJ Smith wrote:
At 12:49 AM -0500 6/07/03, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

At 09:06 AM 6/7/2003 +1000, "Matthew Hindson wrote:

By the way, has Makemusic/Codamusic _ever_ made a profit?


I don't know about "ever" but apparently not recently.

They face a tough confluence of circumstances.


Part of that is a heavy push by Sibelius in the school market. At our 
school we had a visit by a Sibelius specialist who gave an all-day 
workshop, which went a long way to getting over the "getting started" 
blues that so many students have with notation software. I have to say, 
he was very good, very focused, and very critical of the things that 
Finale doesn't do as well as Sibelius that are of interest to my students.

We know Finale can do all these things, but when it is a multi-step 
process in Finale and one click in Sibelius, that makes it more 
attractive to students. And we all know that the software someone starts 
on, they are likely to stick with. It worked for me and Macintosh, and 
me with Cubase on Atari.

If Coda could supply more usable default files to start with, this would 
ease things in the school market considerably. For example, almost 
everything in Sibelius plays back out correctly of the box. To set up 
Finale so that everything plays back in the same way is a week's work. 
(notably, some things that don't play back correctly in Sibelius are 
bari sax, tenor sax, and any octave-transposing instrument.) Just 
getting all my students on Finale to let items show on other layers when 
using Slash Notation is a major hassle. And chord suffixes, sheesh! In 
Sibelius, chord symbols can be attached to virtual beats (like in 
Encore) without needing to be attached to actual measure items. This 
also is very attractive to students who have struggled with the 
multi-step process to do this in Finale.
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David H. Bailey]

I agree that the development will help both platforms and I did not 
intend to sound defensive or aggressive in referring to the platform 
issue -- merely stating an opinion.



Jari Williamsson wrote:
David H. Bailey writes:


Perhaps, given the tardiness in making Finale fully OSX compliant, it is 
the Mac market which is the drag these days.


Avoiding to make this into a OS war issue, I think the OSX development 
will benefit both platforms in the end. Although the rewrite for OSX 
undoubtedly takes a lot of development time, some of the core of Finale 
perhaps gets rewritten, ancient code fragments are thrown out, it gets 
easier to add more "advanced" stuff on both platforms in the future (since 
Mac now have many things that Win32 has had for years, like easy multi-
threaded multitasking, a good set of user controls, etc).

Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] putting a "." after 1st and 2nd ending numbers

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 6:36 AM -0400 6/07/03, Eden - Lawrence D. wrote:
I would like to change a Finale default behavior:

I want a period (.) after the 1 in a first ending and the 2 in a second
ending.  Is there a way to do this?


Easily. When the box comes up asking you what text you want, instead 
of typing "1" type "1."

If you hit OK without typing anything, it will put in a "1" without a 
period. For the second ending, you have to type anyway, so it is no 
hardship to add a period after the "2".
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Re: [Finale] "Bold" barlines?

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 5:02 PM -0700 6/06/03, Brad Beyenhof wrote:
on 6/6/03 4:10 PM, helgesen wrote:

 Win Fin 2003. Is it possible to increase the thickness of all lines in
 Finale? I find, especially when I % reduce pages, systems or staves that I
 lose the 'blackness' in lines- as in note stems, barlines, hairpins, 1st/2nd
 x barlines etc. It's almost that I want "Bold" font- but not quite!
 Cheers, Keith in OZ
Doc Options > Barlines > Thin Line Thickness
Doc Options > Stems > Stem Line Thickness


Yes and there are more than that. Don't forget staff line thickness, 
Smart Shapes (in the Smart Shape menu options), repeat endings, and 
those are just the ones I can remember.
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Christopher BJ Smith]

At 12:49 AM -0500 6/07/03, Craig Parmerlee wrote:
At 09:06 AM 6/7/2003 +1000, "Matthew Hindson wrote:

By the way, has Makemusic/Codamusic _ever_ made a profit?
I don't know about "ever" but apparently not recently.

They face a tough confluence of circumstances.


Part of that is a heavy push by Sibelius in the school market. At our 
school we had a visit by a Sibelius specialist who gave an all-day 
workshop, which went a long way to getting over the "getting started" 
blues that so many students have with notation software. I have to 
say, he was very good, very focused, and very critical of the things 
that Finale doesn't do as well as Sibelius that are of interest to my 
students.

We know Finale can do all these things, but when it is a multi-step 
process in Finale and one click in Sibelius, that makes it more 
attractive to students. And we all know that the software someone 
starts on, they are likely to stick with. It worked for me and 
Macintosh, and me with Cubase on Atari.

If Coda could supply more usable default files to start with, this 
would ease things in the school market considerably. For example, 
almost everything in Sibelius plays back out correctly of the box. To 
set up Finale so that everything plays back in the same way is a 
week's work. (notably, some things that don't play back correctly in 
Sibelius are bari sax, tenor sax, and any octave-transposing 
instrument.) Just getting all my students on Finale to let items show 
on other layers when using Slash Notation is a major hassle. And 
chord suffixes, sheesh! In Sibelius, chord symbols can be attached to 
virtual beats (like in Encore) without needing to be attached to 
actual measure items. This also is very attractive to students who 
have struggled with the multi-step process to do this in Finale.
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[Finale] TAN: SoundFonts, QuickTime, and OS X

[John Croft]

I'm using a Roland PC-300 MIDI controller connected by USB to my Mac. 
This setup works fine for all purposes under OS9, including Finale 
input, and for most purposes under OS X as well. The thing is, I would 
like from time to time to be able to use the computer as a sound module 
directly under OS X -- i.e. to play something on the keyboard and to 
hear it from the computer using whatever Soundfont is selected in the 
QuickTime preferences. I've tried a couple of applications (iPiano, 
SynthTest) which basically patch the keyboard directly into QuickTime, 
but they use only the standard QuickTime sounds, regardless of what 
SoundFont is selected in the QT settings. I know the SoundFonts work, 
because QuickTIme Player uses them for playback. I also tried a Max 
patch with a midiin patched straight into a midiout -- but unlike in 
OS9, Max for OS X doesn't seem to recognise QuickTime as an output.

So, does anybody know if it's possible to patch an external MIDI 
keyboard directly into QuickTime, and have it use the selected 
SoundFont? (It would be nice if Apple's "Audio MIDI Setup" utility 
recognised QT as an output, so that you could just patch it in, but it 
doesn't.)

(BTW, I *can* do this by using the Sibelius demo -- but this is 
cumbersome, and of course, it notates everything you play, which I 
don't need.)

Thanks

John




Dr John Croft
Lecturer in Music
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9RQ
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/music/profile145975.html
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Craig Parmerlee]

At 03:07 PM 6/7/2003 +0200, Jari Williamsson wrote:
Craig Parmerlee writes:

> As I suggested earlier, when using an object based storage approach (which
> apparently Finale doesn't) the normal practice would be to store multiple
> versions of the objects so that back level releases would be able to see
> something they recognize.
So when we arrive at Finale2008, each Finale document stores
something like 4 different version of each individual note?
A typical rule is n-2 coverage backwards and n+2 forwards.  Within that 
range, only a small percentage of the objects should be affected.

Since when is storing multiple versions of an object the "normal practice"
for storing object streams? Doesn't sound very OO to me. I thought that
objects normaly was stored with version IDs/tags/numbers, so the running
application can extract as much info as it can process from the object.
Multiple versions is a last resort.  More typically objects simply gain 
more properties throughout their life.  It is no big deal -- the older 
release can usually safely ignore the newer properties.  But if there is a 
radical change to the architecture of an object, then storing multiple 
versions is a successful strategy.

This type of thing is everywhere in the software world, not just in the 
storage of "object oriented" objects.  The best example is HTML.  From the 
very beginning of Mosaic, the browser was designed to parse and discard 
tags it couldn't recognize, then carry one with the set of tags it did 
recognize.  As HTML evolved, they included mechanisms for authors to 
include different sets of HTML with that in mind.  E.G. the NOFRAMES 
section that can allow one HTML file to work whether the browser supported 
frames or not.



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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Craig Parmerlee]

I guess I've owned 6 or 7 releases of Finale.  I can't recall all the 
release numbers.  It certainly isn't a requirement to go back 7 
releases.  But it is normal for a software product -- especially one that 
could be used in a collaborative work environment -- to provide n-2 through 
n+2 compatibility.

Every release of Finale I have used has supported slurs, 8va and 
practically all the SmartShapes that are used today.  Granted the 
SmartShapes changed the way these are manipulated (and presumably 
stored).  But in an object-oriented environment a successful strategy would 
store the objects BOTH ways and therefore allow the older program to find 
the version of the shapes it can recognize.

It is a moot point because that change is beyond the n-2 range.  In other 
words, if you are introducing Widget2004, then a typical requirement will 
be to be able to save the data in a format that can be read by Widget2002 
and Widget2003, and to assure users that Widget2004 will be able to read 
files created by Widget2005 and Widget2006.

This is the way the rest of the world works.  I get the point that Finale 
is playing by a different set of rules and isn't likely to change.  But it 
is absurd to try to argue that inter-release compatibility is not an 
established expectation throughout the rest of the software 
universe.  Marketing organizations everywhere realize it is not a good idea 
to fragment your user base or to place obstacles in the way of upgrades.

My 2 cents.
CP
At 05:53 AM 6/7/2003 -0400, "David H. Bailey" wrote:
So if a client had only version 3 we would have to avoid using smart shapes?

I have a suggestion for your backwards compatibility -- keep all the 
previous versions on your computer and simply work in the version that 
works for your client.

I find your suggestion that in order for finale to have backward 
compatibility I would have to remember what new features have been added 
since the version I wish to save to, and then to avoid using the features 
that make Finale much easier to use, to be pretty silly.

You want the end user to have to emasculate the program and revert to 
working using techniques we all used to complain about, simply so the 
program can advertise backward compatibility?  Somehow the logic escapes 
me -- in that case it isn't the program which is backwards compatible, but 
rather the end-user which is backwards compatible.

I don't consider the use of smart shapes to insert 8va lines, slurs, 
arpeggio lines, hairpins, etc., to be "making the score look pretty."  I 
find those to be inherent to the very music itself, and to be items that 
many people ended up adding by hand in the earlier versions because they 
were either impossible or extremely difficult.

Are you really suggesting that in order to have backward compatibility we 
have to revert to all that?

Wow!


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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Jari Williamsson]

David H. Bailey writes:

> Perhaps, given the tardiness in making Finale fully OSX compliant, it is 
> the Mac market which is the drag these days.

Avoiding to make this into a OS war issue, I think the OSX development 
will benefit both platforms in the end. Although the rewrite for OSX 
undoubtedly takes a lot of development time, some of the core of Finale 
perhaps gets rewritten, ancient code fragments are thrown out, it gets 
easier to add more "advanced" stuff on both platforms in the future (since 
Mac now have many things that Win32 has had for years, like easy multi-
threaded multitasking, a good set of user controls, etc).


Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Jari Williamsson]

Craig Parmerlee writes:

> As I suggested earlier, when using an object based storage approach (which 
> apparently Finale doesn't) the normal practice would be to store multiple 
> versions of the objects so that back level releases would be able to see 
> something they recognize.

So when we arrive at Finale2008, each Finale document stores 
something like 4 different version of each individual note?

Since when is storing multiple versions of an object the "normal practice" 
for storing object streams? Doesn't sound very OO to me. I thought that 
objects normaly was stored with version IDs/tags/numbers, so the running 
application can extract as much info as it can process from the object.

Anyway, this discussion is useless IMO. As I said earlier, there is a much 
more efficient (both in time and in money) method to provide backward 
compatibility since Fin2003 than to change the file format. Modifying the 
internal object structure of Finale will solve nothing when it comes to plug-
ins for example, that needs to access Enigma database directly. And an 
"Engima emulation layer" would only make things painfully slow.


Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] putting a "." after 1st and 2nd ending numbers

[Crystal Premo]

I would like to change a Finale default behavior:
I want a period (.) after the 1 in a first ending and the 2 in a second
ending.  Is there a way to do this?<<
I almost always use a period there.  Can't you just type it?

Crystal Premo
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[Finale] putting a "." after 1st and 2nd ending numbers

[Eden - Lawrence D.]

I would like to change a Finale default behavior:

I want a period (.) after the 1 in a first ending and the 2 in a second
ending.  Is there a way to do this?


Larry



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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David H. Bailey]

Wow, you said a mouthful!

I would bet, given the large Windows market, that Windows is what has 
allowed the company to keep going, rather than bringing the company down!

Remember when the Mac version of each new release came out first?  And 
then suddenly (and without fanfare) that changed so the Windows version 
came out first?  Given the larger potential for upgrades, I wouldn't be 
surprised if that was done to provide an earlier cash infusion to keep 
the company going. Finally, I believe they come out either together or 
so close to each other that the cash flow from one isn't paying for the 
other.

It would be very interesting, as you say, to see what the numbers are, 
in a development-vs-income comparison.

Perhaps, given the tardiness in making Finale fully OSX compliant, it is 
the Mac market which is the drag these days.

My hope would be that the company can simply keep going as it has for 
all these years, providing for both markets.  And especially getting the 
OSX version out the door so the Mac market can become active for them again!

But if financial survival is a large factor for the company, that might 
be another reason for each of us to upgrade to a newer version each year 
-- it would serve two purposes: 1) keep the company afloat and 2) we 
would each have the latest version should the company go under.

Anybody remember Encore?  The code was purchased (by g-vox, I believe) 
amid much promise of continued development.  Well Encore was at version 
4.something when Passport went bankrupt.  GVox has finally gotten around 
to releasing a "new version" and it is only version 4.5.4.

So if MakeMusic (I still think that's a stupid name -- Coda Music was a 
much more elegant corporate name) is on truly shaky financial grounds, 
it is NOT a safe assumption that the code would be purchased and 
development would continue.





Philip M. Aker wrote:
On Friday, Jun 6, 2003, at 22:49 America/Vancouver, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

At 09:06 AM 6/7/2003 +1000, "Matthew Hindson wrote:


By the way, has Makemusic/Codamusic _ever_ made a profit?


I don't know about "ever" but apparently not recently.


Maybe it was when they were only releasing products for Macintosh? Be 
interesting to find out if the Windows versions have actually made an 
overall positive contribution to the balance sheet. If it hasn't, 
perhaps it should be dropped. Smaller but profitable is not an unheard 
of corporate strategy in these times of market turmoil.

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[David H. Bailey]

So if a client had only version 3 we would have to avoid using smart 
shapes?

I have a suggestion for your backwards compatibility -- keep all the 
previous versions on your computer and simply work in the version that 
works for your client.

I find your suggestion that in order for finale to have backward 
compatibility I would have to remember what new features have been added 
since the version I wish to save to, and then to avoid using the 
features that make Finale much easier to use, to be pretty silly.

You want the end user to have to emasculate the program and revert to 
working using techniques we all used to complain about, simply so the 
program can advertise backward compatibility?  Somehow the logic escapes 
me -- in that case it isn't the program which is backwards compatible, 
but rather the end-user which is backwards compatible.

I don't consider the use of smart shapes to insert 8va lines, slurs, 
arpeggio lines, hairpins, etc., to be "making the score look pretty."  I 
find those to be inherent to the very music itself, and to be items that 
many people ended up adding by hand in the earlier versions because they 
were either impossible or extremely difficult.

Are you really suggesting that in order to have backward compatibility 
we have to revert to all that?

Wow!



Craig Parmerlee wrote:
As I suggested earlier, when using an object based storage approach 
(which apparently Finale doesn't) the normal practice would be to store 
multiple versions of the objects so that back level releases would be 
able to see something they recognize.

As a user, I'd know that I shouldn't invest a lot of effort during the 
collaboration phase making the score look pretty.  I'd do that work at 
the end of the project in a final typesetting pass.

It is no different with Word, Excel or any other end-user application.  
If you are collaborating electronically, it is up to the user to avoid 
the use of features that are above the "least common dominator" of the 
software in use by the partners.  There really isn't anything new about 
that, as far as I can see.

Regards,
Craig
At 09:21 PM 6/6/2003 -0400, David H. Bailey wrote:

Craig, which items would you leave out of a Finale2003 file when you 
were saving to 2002 format?  To a 3.2 format?

How would the program be able to deliver any sort of file that would 
be usable in 3.2 (pre-smart-shape days) when it was filled with 
smart-shapes?  How useful would that be?  Lyric extensions?

How useful would a file be if you spent 100 hours entering an 
orchestral score in 2003 only to find that you have to redo almost 
that entire 100 hours of work because none of your slurs were saved 
and no hairpins and no arpeggio lines, and on and on and on?

These are not insignificant items which have been added on with each 
new release, and to omit any of them would render backwards 
compatibility less than useless.

You can petition them for backwards compatibility if you like -- I'm 
still hoping they can finally get midi file import and hyperscribe 
working properly!

Maybe you could come up with a list of what you would be willing to 
see omitted from a 2003 file to achieve backwards compatibility and 
have the file open in finale 3.2, and then we could have a better idea 
of what you are suggesting.



Craig Parmerlee wrote:

At 07:11 PM 6/6/2003 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote:

On 5 Jun 2003 at 23:19, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> Coda is possibly the only vendor of a
> major software product that does not provide backwards compatibility.
It depends on the product category. It is very common with database
programs to *not* have backward compatibility, or only limited
backward compatibility.


I don't mean to be pedantic, but all the DB systems I am familiar 
with provide the means for inter-release compatibility forward AND 
backward.
This includes DB2, Oracle, Access, Paradox, and rBase, to name a few.
For backward compatibility, with any of these systems, you have the 
ability to build your data base in a prior format that is recognized 
by earlier versions.  That may prevent you from using the latest 
features with your new DB.  It is a trade-off of flexibility versus 
new function.  But the key point is that the user gets to make that 
decision.
Also, end-user database products like Paradox and Access allow SaveAs 
to a multitude of formats, so it is easy to use those products on 
collaborative projects.

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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Darcy James Argue]

On Saturday, June 7, 2003, at 04:06  AM, Philip M. Aker wrote:

On Friday, Jun 6, 2003, at 22:49 America/Vancouver, Craig Parmerlee 
wrote:

At 09:06 AM 6/7/2003 +1000, "Matthew Hindson wrote:

By the way, has Makemusic/Codamusic _ever_ made a profit?

I don't know about "ever" but apparently not recently.
Maybe it was when they were only releasing products for Macintosh? Be 
interesting to find out if the Windows versions have actually made an 
overall positive contribution to the balance sheet. If it hasn't, 
perhaps it should be dropped. Smaller but profitable is not an unheard 
of corporate strategy in these times of market turmoil.
Ho boy.  Let the flame wars begin.

No, just kidding.  All you Windows users, pretend Philip didn't say 
that.

[grin]

- Darcy

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No one likes us
I don't know why
We may not be perfect
But heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let's drop the Big One and see what happens
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Re: [Finale] New Finale release

[Philip M. Aker]

On Friday, Jun 6, 2003, at 22:49 America/Vancouver, Craig Parmerlee 
wrote:

At 09:06 AM 6/7/2003 +1000, "Matthew Hindson wrote:

By the way, has Makemusic/Codamusic _ever_ made a profit?

I don't know about "ever" but apparently not recently.
Maybe it was when they were only releasing products for Macintosh? Be 
interesting to find out if the Windows versions have actually made an 
overall positive contribution to the balance sheet. If it hasn't, 
perhaps it should be dropped. Smaller but profitable is not an unheard 
of corporate strategy in these times of market turmoil.

Philip Aker
http://www.aker.ca
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Re: [Finale] Re: Backwards compatibility

[Jari Williamsson]

Richard Huggins writes:

> If anyone happens to know the inner workings at Coda, I'd be interested to
> know if any or all of the programmers are musicians to the extent that it is
> helpful to what they do? Or are there some are and some aren't? Or are there
> musicians who are giving the programmers objectives and then the programmers
> reduce it down to programming concepts they understand? Or would being a
> musician actually not be very important?

In the job ads (when seeking new developers) that Coda occasionally 
puts on their web site, good musical/notational knowledge has always 
been listed as one of the requirements.


Best regards,

Jari Williamsson
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