Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Craig Parmerlee schrieb: On 8 Jul 2005 at 9:18, Johannes Gebauer wrote: I think they are going to have to abandon the yearly upgrades. I think it's a really bad business practice in the first place, because it places a schedule on development that is artificial -- a software development schedule should be determined by the goals of the projects currently on the table for implementation/revision/fixing. Craig, could you please be more careful with your quote attributions? This is not my quote, this is a quote from David Fenton. This does make me wonder whether David's worries about the list archives being mirrored by some other webpage was in fact correct. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Craig Parmerlee wrote: [snip] As users who have a vested interest in Finale surviving, we cannot solve the software problems for them. But we can buy upgrades to help them fund the continued development. Anybody who cares enough to post messages on an Internet board really shouldn't be complaining about paying a hundred bucks a year to keep the thing going. I don't see your logic here -- what does our posting to a discussion group of users helping users (since the program is harder to master without such help) have to do with how much discretionary money we have available to spend to keep a corporation afloat? With your major release every 60 days, what sort of marketing model does your product have? Annual subscription, pay a hefty fee every 60 days, pay for the product once and get the major releases for free? What sort of product is it -- a product that a major corporation uses across the corporation, a product that a single user would purchase? How many developpers are working on your product, that you can push a major release out the door every 2 months? Finale is primarily a single-user product where many of the users are hobbyists who can't take the expenditures in Finale (or other music software and hardware) as tax deductions. I was just speaking to a band director at a public school yesterday who was bemoaning the release of Finale2006. His comment -- I just bought Finale2005 a year ago! And now they want me to upgrade? I ordered it, but it's the last one I'll be buying for a while. Sure we have a right to complain, sure we should be voicing our upset. The whole marketplace thing is a partnership, and partnerships only work when both partners (all partners) get what they feel to be fair returns for their investment in the partnership. We put in the money and the suggestions for new features and the requests for bug-fixes. Finale puts in the development time and produces the product. When either partner feels the equality of the partnership has been broken, they are faced with a dilemma -- they can continue the partnership, hoping things will rectify themselves and a perceived slight will be a one-off occurence, or they can dissolve the partnership, feeling that things are irrevocably skewed. But we can still talk about it and try to come to some sort of understanding of why the company seems to be following the path it is. And hope that the company is listening and paying attention. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 21 Jul 2005 at 23:46, Craig Parmerlee wrote: On 8 Jul 2005 at 9:18, Johannes Gebauer wrote: I think they are going to have to abandon the yearly upgrades. I think it's a really bad business practice in the first place, because it places a schedule on development that is artificial -- a software development schedule should be determined by the goals of the projects currently on the table for implementation/revision/fixing. No, Johannes did *not* write those words -- I did! Why is it so hard for people to properly maintain attributions? What kind of email client are you using that doesn't automatically take care of it for you? [] Most code being written today is discarded inside of 3 years, . . . I see absolutely no basis for believing such a statement. Indeed, it's illogical on its face. You mean that code written 3 years ago is now being discarded and replaced with new code. You seem to be suggesting that sometime in the past code was never discarded, or only discarded after some period 3 years, and that recently this has changed. I don't know of any such change. What I do see is a plethora of RAD tools that have entered the market over the last 10 years, as well as a move towards lots of application programming being done for web sites, which seem to be substantially more prone to revision than traditional desktop apps. But I don't know that the code for those websites is being discarded so much as that it's being constantly revised. That would pretty much be the same as every other software development project I've known anything about during the last 10 years or so of my professional life. . . . so I'd definitely not want to see any software vendor do anything less than one major set of enhancements a year. In my business we are delivering a major release every 60 days or so. I don't know what your business is, nor how you define major but it's clearly a very different kind of business than the one MakeMusic is in. The issue with Finale is not the annual cycle. The issue is the quantity of enhancements delivered in that annual package. The sad reality is that these annual enhancements include just a trickle of enhancements that are genuinely useful to the serious composer, arranger, or copyist. It seems to a be a company working at a 1985 pace when most of the software world is working at 2005 speed. . . . I think that last sentence is a steaming pile of BS -- it shows extraordinarily bad attitudes about the goal of software development. It's purpose is not to adapt to some artificial schedule, but to produce the product you want successfully. I know of no application at the level of complexity of Finale that deliverse an upgrade more often than once a year. [] As users who have a vested interest in Finale surviving, we cannot solve the software problems for them. But we can buy upgrades to help them fund the continued development. Anybody who cares enough to post messages on an Internet board really shouldn't be complaining about paying a hundred bucks a year to keep the thing going. Ridiculous! Buying the yearly upgrades trains MakeMusic to think they are meeting the needs of their users, that their yearly upgrade strategy is a good thing. If the upgrade is not worth the money DON'T BUY IT. MakeMusic will get the message. Buying it anyway means you've sacrificed any ability to send them a message about your dissatisfaction with the meager enhancements to the current upgrade. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Craig Parmerlee wrote: First, let me apologize to Johannes for the incorrect quotation line in my earlier message. dhbailey quoted Craig Parmerlee saying: [snip] As users who have a vested interest in Finale surviving, we cannot solve the software problems for them. But we can buy upgrades to help them fund the continued development. Anybody who cares enough to post messages on an Internet board really shouldn't be complaining about paying a hundred bucks a year to keep the thing going. dhbailey wrote: I don't see your logic here -- what does our posting to a discussion group of users helping users (since the program is harder to master without such help) have to do with how much discretionary money we have available to spend to keep a corporation afloat? Craig Parmerlee wrote: Posting to a discussion group is neither here nor there. Complaining about Finale's upgrade policy seems pointless and counter-productive. If one doesn't care about Finale's survival, then why is one here? And if one does care about Finale's survival, surely that is worth more than a measly 100 bucks a year. dhbailey wrote: With your major release every 60 days, what sort of marketing model does your product have? Annual subscription, pay a hefty fee every 60 days, pay for the product once and get the major releases for free? What sort of product is it -- a product that a major corporation uses across the corporation, a product that a single user would purchase? How many developpers are working on your product, that you can push a major release out the door every 2 months? Craig Parmerlee wrote: Our business model is that our users pay us for the RESULTS they achieve with our software. No results -- no payment. Therefore we are all highly motivated to make the software more and more powerful every day. We come in every day with a new set of ideas to make our users more productive. It is my job to make sure this rolls out with some kind of architectural sanity, but basically we think of time to market in terms of days and weeks, never years. Last year, we fought ferociously to get ourselves out of the legacy problem -- advancing our platform 15 years in the course of 12 months. Now we are determined to take full advantage of the productivity that comes when you can get rid of that legacy. It is abundantly clear to me that Finale is still slaving under its legacy. We think of reinventing 5% of our system every MONTH. Finale is reinventimg one percent of its system every YEAR. Two entirely different worlds. Imagine how motivated Finale would be if they got a percentage of the publishing royalties for everything produced with Finale (i.e. my business model). If that were Finale's business model, I dare say we wouldn't be seeing new skins and cute sound fonts. We would be seeing a real dedication to maximizing the productivity of the composers, arrangers, and copyists. dhbailey wrote: Sure we have a right to complain, sure we should be voicing our upset. The whole marketplace thing is a partnership, and partnerships only work when both partners (all partners) get what they feel to be fair returns for their investment in the partnership. We put in the money and the suggestions for new features and the requests for bug-fixes. Finale puts in the development time and produces the product. When either partner feels the equality of the partnership has been broken, they are faced with a dilemma -- they can continue the partnership, hoping things will rectify themselves and a perceived slight will be a one-off occurence, or they can dissolve the partnership, feeling that things are irrevocably skewed. But we can still talk about it and try to come to some sort of understanding of why the company seems to be following the path it is. And hope that the company is listening and paying attention. Craig Parmerlee wrote: Yes. I agree completely. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 22 Jul 2005 at 18:03, Craig Parmerlee wrote: Last year, we fought ferociously to get ourselves out of the legacy problem -- advancing our platform 15 years in the course of 12 months. Now we are determined to take full advantage of the productivity that comes when you can get rid of that legacy. It is abundantly clear to me that Finale is still slaving under its legacy. We think of reinventing 5% of our system every MONTH. Finale is reinventimg one percent of its system every YEAR. Two entirely different worlds. I don't know who we is, nor what kind of software it is you're talking about, or how big a customer base you have, and how restrictive you are on the environments and platforms your software supports, but I do know that good code doesn't rust. If it's well- designed and implemented well, it can last a very long time. And Netscape is a perfect example of what can go wrong by throwing out everything and starting over. Things You Should Never Do http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog69.html -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:03 PM, Craig Parmerlee wrote: Posting to a discussion group is neither here nor there. Complaining about Finale's upgrade policy seems pointless and counter-productive. If one doesn't care about Finale's survival, then why is one here? Caring about Finale's survival isn't the only reason to be here. I care about tools for engraving. Since Finale is a good one, I'm interested in understanding how best to use it and in helping others achieve the same. That doesn't necessarily translate to a desire to keep the company alive. And if one does care about Finale's survival, surely that is worth more than a measly 100 bucks a year. For many of us, 100 bucks is not measly. My gross income last year was about $7,000. Does that mean I care less about Finale? Show some perspective. Not everyone here is the same. Anyway, my solution to the upgrade problem is simple. I just choose not to upgrade until it's worth it to me. Easy. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Mark D Lew wrote: For many of us, 100 bucks is not measly. My gross income last year was about $7,000. Does that mean I care less about Finale? Show some perspective. Not everyone here is the same. And I thought *I* was cutting it thin! Here's wishing business to you!! Anyway, my solution to the upgrade problem is simple. I just choose not to upgrade until it's worth it to me. Easy. Agreed. cd ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
David W. Fenton wrote: On 22 Jul 2005 at 18:03, Craig Parmerlee wrote: Last year, we fought ferociously to get ourselves out of the legacy problem -- advancing our platform 15 years in the course of 12 months. Now we are determined to take full advantage of the productivity that comes when you can get rid of that legacy. It is abundantly clear to me that Finale is still slaving under its legacy. We think of reinventing 5% of our system every MONTH. Finale is reinventimg one percent of its system every YEAR. Two entirely different worlds. I don't know who we is, nor what kind of software it is you're talking about, or how big a customer base you have, and how restrictive you are on the environments and platforms your software supports, but I do know that good code doesn't rust. If it's well- designed and implemented well, it can last a very long time. You seem to missing the point. You are talking about longevity. I am talking about innovation. Yes, of course bits do not deteriorate. Software written in 1990 can be preserved indefinitely. However the changing world around that software makes it less and less relevant every day. There are many software vendors using the cash cow model -- Microsoft office might be a great example. And if they can get away with minimal innovation and still produce a nice revenue stream, more power to them. That is Microsoft in a nutshell. However, the success of many software ventures today depends on an ability to sustain a rapid pace of innovation. Ebay/Paypal, eHarmony, SideStep and Carfax may be good examples here. These are companies that succeed by innovation and their ability to sustain rapid delivery of desirable features. These companies most certainly do not operate on a big annual release mental model. They are introducing valuable capability continuously -- just as soon as they can get it ready for market. The software world you are describing is the mindset of the 1980s that still traps a lot of companies. When one is laboring under a heavy burden of legacy code, there may not be many alternatives. As I see it, Finale is unable to deliver rapid innovation, but they also have lack the strength to operate a cash cow model. As a person who has at least a dozen Finale releases on the shelf, I get no pleasure in observing that. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Mark D Lew wrote: [snip] out-of-the-box settings are like, since I always use my own. Maybe they suck. If so, MakeMusic could accomplish a lot without touching the program at all and just making some decent templates. You know, you may have just said a mouthful with that remark! If Finale would make include some templates which are predefined for various house-styles (Henle, BreitkopfHaertel, BooseyHawkes, G.Schirmer, Schott, Carl Fischer, Southern Music, Rubank, whatever) with libraries which include more common dynamic marks, more common tempo marks, all the common expression marks such as rit., accel., full words as well as abbreviations, slur settings, tie-end settings, beaming conventions, they could go a long way to improving a lot about Finale which leaves beginners looking at not-so-great output and veteran Finale users having to scramble to make their own such templates. Then for programming, all they would need to do to improve this area would be to add a Change Underlying Template feature which would make use of whatever code Patterson's Copy Settings plug-in (I think it is his plug-in) used and whatever else would be necessary to open a new template and copy _everything_ exactly as it is in the original file, but with the new settings of the new template. That would go a long way to equalizing Sibelius' House Styles and the ease with which they can be changed, as well as helping veteran Finale users who find that they need to change major aspects of a project while in the middle. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
dhbailey wrote: If Finale would make include some templates which are predefined for various house-styles (Henle, BreitkopfHaertel, BooseyHawkes, G.Schirmer, Schott, Carl Fischer, Southern Music, Rubank, whatever) with libraries which include more common dynamic marks, more common tempo marks, all the common expression marks such as rit., accel., full words as well as abbreviations, slur settings, tie-end settings, beaming conventions, they could go a long way to improving a lot about Finale which leaves beginners looking at not-so-great output and veteran Finale users having to scramble to make their own such templates. However, the various publishers cited may wish not to have their house styles duplicated. There was a site which had certain settings defined which I understand was pulled down at the demand of a publisher because the results were too close to the house style of that publisher. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
dhbailey schrieb: If Finale would make include some templates which are predefined for various house-styles (Henle, BreitkopfHaertel, BooseyHawkes, G.Schirmer, Schott, Carl Fischer, Southern Music, Rubank, whatever) with libraries which include more common dynamic marks, more common tempo marks, all the common expression marks such as rit., accel., full words as well as abbreviations, slur settings, tie-end settings, beaming conventions, they could go a long way to improving a lot about Finale which leaves beginners looking at not-so-great output and veteran Finale users having to scramble to make their own such templates. Then for programming, all they would need to do to improve this area would be to add a Change Underlying Template feature which would make use of whatever code Patterson's Copy Settings plug-in (I think it is his plug-in) used and whatever else would be necessary to open a new template and copy _everything_ exactly as it is in the original file, but with the new settings of the new template. Well, it would require one addition: Custom text fields in the File Info, which can be used as text inserts. That's what I have been saying for years. The extra fields in the file info, plus a plugin which can transfer all the music easily to a new template, that's all that is needed. (The reason that it needs those extra fields: Otherwise you cannot include Titles, copyright notices, etc in the house style, and that would not go far enough.) Johannes That would go a long way to equalizing Sibelius' House Styles and the ease with which they can be changed, as well as helping veteran Finale users who find that they need to change major aspects of a project while in the middle. -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Noel Stoutenburg wrote: dhbailey wrote: If Finale would make include some templates which are predefined for various house-styles (Henle, BreitkopfHaertel, BooseyHawkes, G.Schirmer, Schott, Carl Fischer, Southern Music, Rubank, whatever) with libraries which include more common dynamic marks, more common tempo marks, all the common expression marks such as rit., accel., full words as well as abbreviations, slur settings, tie-end settings, beaming conventions, they could go a long way to improving a lot about Finale which leaves beginners looking at not-so-great output and veteran Finale users having to scramble to make their own such templates. However, the various publishers cited may wish not to have their house styles duplicated. There was a site which had certain settings defined which I understand was pulled down at the demand of a publisher because the results were too close to the house style of that publisher. They could get around that by simply not labeling the templates so specifically. BHg could be the German Breitkopf and Haertel, and BHe could be the English Boosey Hawkes. I didn't think look-and-feel could be patented/copyrighted/trademarked. Of course, none of us little folks have pockets deep enough to withstand a legal challenge so the actual legality of such a demand is nothing we could fight in court. And for the older houses all we'd have to do is to duplicate the appearance of public domain works. Oh well, it's a thought! -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
At 9:18 AM -0400 7/11/05, dhbailey wrote: I didn't think look-and-feel could be patented/copyrighted/trademarked. Under U.S. law it can't. European law may be different in this aspect, judging from comments that have been made from our friends across the pond. 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]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On Jul 9, 2005, at 2:14 AM, Lon Price wrote: 1. Virtually every slur has to be tweaked. If I change the music spacing I can pretty much count on slurs going haywire, being drawn at an ungodly height, for instance, and colliding with all manner of notational elements--ties, accidentals, expressions, etc. But even when I let Finale do the spacing, slurs still get drawn at ungodly heights. Transposing the music makes slurs go nuts too. Slurs are imperfect but they're not that bad. You should be able to get good results on 90%+ slurs with decent settings. I don't even know what out-of-the-box settings are like, since I always use my own. Maybe they suck. If so, MakeMusic could accomplish a lot without touching the program at all and just making some decent templates. If you don't want to think about slur settings, you ought to be able to copy them outright from someone else. Didn't somebody publish a basic Finale template somewhere? mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On Jul 8, 2005, at 11:07 AM, John Howell wrote:Ummm, save you the time and knowledge base needed to create your template? I, for one, don't speak EPVU or whatever the heck it is! It's my son who investigated Sibelius, not me, but my understanding from him is that the House Styles give you instantly available setups, but that the program also gives you the ability to change the default settings in those setups. I may be wrong, but that's a BIG time saver, especially since when Sibelius first became available for U.S. platforms the default settings in Finale were absolutely dreadful. (And yes, I've been on the list long enough to have seen the discussion of "nobody's presets are going to give me exactly what I want, so I'm going to have to tweak everything anyway." That's a valid argument for a professional engraver. It is NOT a valid argument for the average Finale user, who just wants to get his music printed and IS going to use the default settings.Time and knowledge base indeed. I'm one of those people who are sick of tweaking, and would like for the default settings to be at least close to usable. I'm working on a book of pieces for flute and piano for my students, and I find that I'm having to do a lot of tweaking to get things to look right:1. Virtually every slur has to be tweaked. If I change the music spacing I can pretty much count on slurs going haywire, being drawn at an ungodly height, for instance, and colliding with all manner of notational elements--ties, accidentals, expressions, etc. But even when I let Finale do the spacing, slurs still get drawn at ungodly heights. Transposing the music makes slurs go nuts too.2. Same with tuplets. I thought these had been improved, but when I do a simple group of quarter triplets, using Speedy note entry, the bracket is almost never the right height, requiring more tweaking. Then if I transpose the part, I have to tweak tuplets all over again.3. Where is the freaking Maestro Default file, and how do I tweak that so that I don't get a one-inch left margin on a file created from the Setup Wizard? I thought I'd located it in the Components folder, so I tweaked the page layout settings for both score and parts to get rid of the one-inch left margin. Then, lo and behold, the next time I used the Setup Wizard I still got one-inch left margins. I have templates made for a lot of situations, but not every situation, so I need to use the Setup Wizard occasionally, as I suspect most average users do. Why is it such a mystery where this default file is located, and why is it so hard to preset things the way I want in Finale? Wouldn't House Styles eliminate this problem?4. I spent a lot of time creating an extensive instrument list, called Lon's Orchestra, that covers just about every instrument I'll ever need to use in Finale. I got tired of having to load my instrument library into every file created with the Setup Wizard, so while I was tweaking page layout settings, I also loaded my instrument list into this supposed Maestro Default file. That didn't work either. The next time I used the Setup Wizard my instrument list was not there.These are the types of complains I've heard from people who have tried Finale in the past, but moved on to some other notation program, usually Sibelius. I tried looking in the manual for answers to the above stated problems, but gave up in frustration, because I guess I just don't know where to look--and that's after looking in the Table of Contents and the Index. If I don't know exactly how something is worded, I can't find it in the manual. I remember having to ask you guys when I first bought Finale how to beam across staves, because I couldn't find it in the manual. I didn't know that it was called "cross-staff beaming." (I just tried looking in Finale QuickHelp for "beaming across staves," and was directed to the Mass Mover tool.)BTW, I ordered the $199 "cross-grade" of Sibelius last night, and, yes, I've already preordered Finale 2006, so I'm not necessarily jumping ship, but I'm close. These issues have been bugging me for the entire five + years that I've been using Finale.Lon Lon Price, Los Angeles [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hometown.aol.com/txstnr/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Lon Price schrieb: Time and knowledge base indeed. I'm one of those people who are sick of tweaking, and would like for the default settings to be at least close to usable. I'm working on a book of pieces for flute and piano for my students, and I find that I'm having to do a lot of tweaking to get things to look right: 1. Virtually every slur has to be tweaked. If I change the music spacing I can pretty much count on slurs going haywire, being drawn at an ungodly height, for instance, and colliding with all manner of notational elements--ties, accidentals, expressions, etc. But even when I let Finale do the spacing, slurs still get drawn at ungodly heights. Transposing the music makes slurs go nuts too. Which version of Finale, pre or post Engraver slurs. If you are using a recent version it sounds to me like your font annotation has gone crazy, or your Engraver slur settings are wrong. There are problems with Engraver slurs, but it sounds you are having addtional problems. 2. Same with tuplets. I thought these had been improved, but when I do a simple group of quarter triplets, using Speedy note entry, the bracket is almost never the right height, requiring more tweaking. Then if I transpose the part, I have to tweak tuplets all over again. 3. Where is the freaking Maestro Default file, and how do I tweak that so that I don't get a one-inch left margin on a file created from the Setup Wizard? The setup wizard uses the pagesizes.txt file for margins, so the ones in the default file get overlooked. Change the pagesizes.txt file, look it up in the appendix of the manual. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Noel Stoutenburg wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: I honestly don't think MakeMusic is big enough to run their development projects in that manner. It basically means running multiple codebases at the same time, and forking them before you've finished implementing the features in a previous version. Well, I didn't think of it in terms of multiple codebases, so much as the development process being more involved,. and taking longer than most on the list seem to think. I suspect the 2006 codebase was substantially closed sometime late last summer or last autumn, and that some people began working at that point on the 2007 codebase. My hunch is that someone at Makemusic! already knows the 2007 update feature list with 85 percent confidence. I further suspect that if someone submitted a brand new idea that did not yet appear in any form on MakeMusic!'s to do list, and they felt it was so compelling that it had to be included, that it might well be Fin 2k8 or even 2k9 before it made it to light. I agree that the planning stages may be a version or 2 ahead of the programming stages. This might explain why in the past a bug has appeared and then been squashed in a maintenance release, only to resurface in the next upgrade, needing to be squashed in THAT maintenance release. The newer upgrade having worked with the original gold code for the previous version before that bug was squashed. Interesting! I can also see such a planning-ahead need because there may be some programming skills needed to be gained for certain things or at least negotiations with 3rd-parties to include their software, and I'm sure that doesn't happen overnight. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On Jul 9, 2005, at 5:14 AM, Lon Price wrote: 1. Virtually every> slur has to be tweaked. If I change the music spacing I can pretty much count on slurs going haywire, being drawn at an ungodly height, for instance, and colliding with all manner of notational elements--ties, accidentals, expressions, etc. But even when I let Finale do the spacing, slurs still get drawn at ungodly heights. Transposing the music makes slurs go nuts too. Yeah, I know of this. Darcy recently posted a fix for some it; when the slur arches too high when avoiding an accidental – Darcy talking here: In Smart Slur Options, change the Initial adjustment from Stretch to Lift, and enter a reasonable value for Maximum Lift (l use 9 pt., but YMMV). This won't fix everything, but it will help. 2. Same with tuplets. I thought these had been improved, but when I do a simple group of quarter triplets, using Speedy note entry, the bracket is almost never the right height, requiring more tweaking. Then if I transpose the part, I have to tweak tuplets all over again. In Document Options>Tuplets, screw around with the vertical height under Default Position. Try both fields; Tuplet and Shape (bracket). This might improve the number of tuplets you have to adjust. 3. Where is the freaking Maestro Default file, and how do I tweak that> so that I don't get a one-inch left margin on a file created from the Setup Wizard? I thought I'd located it in the Components folder, so I tweaked the page layout settings for both score and parts to get rid of the one-inch left margin. Then, lo and behold, the next time I used the Setup Wizard I still got one-inch left margins. I have templates made for a lot of situations, but not every> situation, so I need to use the Setup Wizard occasionally, as I suspect most average> users do. Why is it such a mystery where this default file is located, and why is it so hard to preset things the way I want in Finale? Wouldn't House Styles eliminate this problem? That IS the default file, but in order to have Finale recognise it (on a PC) you have to save it as a template. There might be some settings that don't get saved. I have noticed, for example as you do, that the left margin gets set to one inch no matter what I do. This might just be a bug, or it might be an oversight. To get around this, you might open a one-staff file (I have drums in mine, as the Setup Wizard doesn't use my drum map settings) and add staves to it using Staff Tool, Staff Menu>Add new staves using Setup Wizard. You don't get the page automatically formatted as you do when you start from zero, but all the instruments show up correctly, and you get to inherit ALL your settings. When I asked MakeMusic about this, they told me that the Setup Wizard was never intended to be used by pros, who were expected to have thier own templates that they tweaked to their own standards. But they DID add more pro features to the Setup Wizard in the last version. Ask about this one to be included, and if they get enough requests, they will include it. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On Jul 9, 2005, at 2:55 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:Which version of Finale, pre or post Engraver slurs. If you are using a recent version it sounds to me like your font annotation has gone crazy, or your Engraver slur settings are wrong. There are problems with Engraver slurs, but it sounds you are having addtional problems.I'm using FinMac 2005b. If my Engraver slur settings are wrong, what should they be, and how do I change them? Would that be Smart Slur Options? What should the numbers be? I haven't changed anything in there, so what I'm saying is I'm getting what I'm getting by default. The setup wizard uses the pagesizes.txt file for margins, so the ones in the default file get overlooked. Change the pagesizes.txt file, look it up in the appendix of the manual.The appendix was no help. I found the file in the Components folder. This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy about Finale. Sure, it's a powerful program, but trying to figure things out, especially when you're under the gun, can be very frustrating.Now, how do I get my instrument library to load in a file created with Setup Wizard?Thanks for your help,Lon Lon Price, Los Angeles [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hometown.aol.com/txstnr/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Lon Price schrieb: On Jul 9, 2005, at 2:55 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: Which version of Finale, pre or post Engraver slurs. If you are using a recent version it sounds to me like your font annotation has gone crazy, or your Engraver slur settings are wrong. There are problems with Engraver slurs, but it sounds you are having addtional problems. I'm using FinMac 2005b. If my Engraver slur settings are wrong, what should they be, and how do I change them? Would that be Smart Slur Options? What should the numbers be? I haven't changed anything in there, so what I'm saying is I'm getting what I'm getting by default. Can you send me an example of slurs not being as you want them? Unless it is font annotation I can probably tell you which settings might work. However, the font annotation problem has not been ruled out yet. If that is the problem I won't actually see it here. Do you use any other music fonts than the ones Finale comes with? If that is the case you will have to create font annotation for them yourself. The setup wizard uses the pagesizes.txt file for margins, so the ones in the default file get overlooked. Change the pagesizes.txt file, look it up in the appendix of the manual. The appendix was no help. I found the file in the Components folder. This is the kind of thing that drives me crazy about Finale. Sure, it's a powerful program, but trying to figure things out, especially when you're under the gun, can be very frustrating. I agree that it is hard to find, but here is what the manual has to say (Appendix A-20): Configuring Pagesizes.txt The Setup Wizard, the Page Layout Tool and other parts of Finale use the pagesizes.txt file to determine the page size and margins of the score. You can edit this file to get a custom page size and margin. Make sure you save the file as text only. [Page Sizes] This section contains the page size name, Width and Height (followed by a semicolon), Top Margin, Bottom Margin, Left Margin, Right Margin, and a Left Margin for single-instrument documents. The Top and Bottom margins are assumed to be negative; there is no need to put in the minus sign. Ex. Letter = 8.5, 11; .5, .5, 1, .5, .75 Now, how do I get my instrument library to load in a file created with Setup Wizard? I have no idea, actually, playback has never been one of my main concerns... Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 09/07/05, Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Lon Price schrieb: Now, how do I get my instrument library to load in a file created with Setup Wizard? I have no idea, actually, playback has never been one of my main concerns... The default settings for instruments can be changed by editing the instruments.txt file. I don't know the particulars as I've never cared *that* much, but I do know that you can modify the defaults chosen by the Setup Wizard through the settings in that file. -- Brad Beyenhof [EMAIL PROTECTED] my blog: http://augmentedfourth.blogspot.com Life would be so much easier if only (3/2)^12=(2/1)^7. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
At 07:34 PM 7/7/2005, you wrote: Change all of those settings at once in a pre-existing file, simply by choosing a different house style? I don't know -- I'm guessing. It's the only implementation of such a thing that would make any sense to me. Yes, that;s the way it's designed to work. Once you have made all the settings to any of a large number of parameters available in a house style, you can then Export this style to a file, and give it a unique name. Sib gives it a .lib extension. Then, when working on another score in which you want to use that House Style, you simply Import that file, and its settings are then applied to the new score. Of course you're not locked into it - you can modify them, and if you wish save those modifications as yet another House Style. You can also include other style domains besides Engraving Rules' , like fonts, text styles, note heads, etc., and you can include custom keyboard shortcuts in that - for example for some score you might need a custom text style for stage directions - you can specify its size and attributes and then assign a kbd shortcut to it. (If the shortcut you want is already used you have the option of overriding it.) Another feature I put in a House Style for when I do work for others is a kbd shortcut for a highlight - literally a yellow block in a selection which i use as a proofing guide - highlit sections need to be checked with the composer. Not a terribly profound example, but the point is you can do it with just about anything. Ken ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
David W. Fenton schrieb: I guess my point is that the kind of restructuring I'm calling for here would go much further to making it possible to manage house styles than any of the things you mentioned. Except it won't happen. I'm not certain about that. The Finale developers are computer programmers. They understand better than *you* do the advantages of non-duplication of data, of sub-classing, of object-oriented programming. My bet is that they'd love to have the luxury to be turned loose on Finale and rework its data structures in order to support the kinds of UI and feature requests I've been talking about. But the realities of business don't allow them to pull a Netscape (and, of course, they shouldn't do that, anyway: David, I am absolutely certain it won't happen. Not unless the way MakeMusic has been working the last few years will change radically. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
I think you are somewhat missing the point. It's not about supporting any kind of style element, it is about switching between different house styles. In Sibelius I understand you can switch between house styles at the click of the mouse, while in Finale try doing this. In Sibelius this also includes the position of texts etc on the page. That's where things get really dirty in Finale. Johannes Noel Stoutenburg schrieb: Johannes Gebauer wrote: While we are on about it: House styles is another area where Sibelius is far superior to Finale. In my considerations of Sibelius, the closed, proprietary way they treat the data file structure is such an early consideration, that I'm not reached the point of understanding exactly what a house style is. Intuitively, this would reaonsably include what fonts to use, details of spacing, of line widths, of beaming methods, of shape and spacing, of ties and slurs. But I can create a Finale template document which has the line thicknesses, and staff and system spacings, and font selections, and even additional insert items as reserved text blocks, and which pre-loads designated libraries. What can a Sibelius House Style do that one cannot do with a Finale template? ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Johannes Gebauer wrote: While we are on about it: House styles is another area where Sibelius is far superior to Finale. In my considerations of Sibelius, the closed, proprietary way they treat the data file structure is such an early consideration, that I'm not reached the point of understanding exactly what a house style is. Intuitively, this would reaonsably include what fonts to use, details of spacing, of line widths, of beaming methods, of shape and spacing, of ties and slurs. But I can create a Finale template document which has the line thicknesses, and staff and system spacings, and font selections, and even additional insert items as reserved text blocks, and which pre-loads designated libraries. What can a Sibelius House Style do that one cannot do with a Finale template? You can create a document using one Sibelius House Style and then later on simply change the House Style to a different one and the necessary items will alter in the file you've already created. In Finale to do that, you need to create the file in one template, then open the second template with the different style and then try to copy all of your musical data from the first file to the new template. And we all know how wonderful Finale is at copying all the musical details between files. :-) (not!) Sibelius' House Styles removes the necessity to copy music from one template to another template simply to duplicate the appearance of another file. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Johannes Gebauer wrote: [snip] David, I am absolutely certain it won't happen. Not unless the way MakeMusic has been working the last few years will change radically. Johannes We've already been told on this list that unless whatever engraving changes are requested can demonstrably be shown to attract new customers (in other words, to be requested by non-users, to whom it seems MakeMusic pays more attention than it does to long-time users), we haven't a snowball's chance in hell of seeing them implemented. I'm sure the next version of Finale will have more easily implemented changing of skins like Winamp and other audio playes use. They're probably working on a major update to micnotator and possibly expanding the available harmonies available in that auto-harmonizing plug-in. Maybe they'll even figure out a way to get Band-in-a-Box styles to generate entire songs for us, becoming effectively the super-notation-module for PGMusic. I'll be they're working hard on giving us differently colored noteheads to satisfy the educational market which works with boom-whacker music. And probably working on the ability to mix audio tracks with our notation tracks in the mixer and get them all to play back simultaneously with an expanded version of GPO (maybe they'll actually include the jazz instruments for which we currently have to pay extra?) Any number of upgrades to attract those who like chrome bumpers and are attracted to shiny things. I agree with Johannes that things such as house styles (or Finale style-sheets or whatever they want to call them) which can be altered, saved, and then can be applied to any Finale file for instantaneous appearance changes without having to copy the music to a new template are not things that seem to be on MakeMusic's radar as being helpful in generating more sales. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
dhbailey schrieb: I agree with Johannes that things such as house styles (or Finale style-sheets or whatever they want to call them) which can be altered, saved, and then can be applied to any Finale file for instantaneous appearance changes without having to copy the music to a new template are not things that seem to be on MakeMusic's radar as being helpful in generating more sales. Although I do for the most part agree with you, the discussion with David was on a slightly different subject: Some time ago I was trying to find a way to change house styles in Finale easily. In the process I discovered there were certain shortcomings (especially I needed more custom fields in the File info to use for text blocks), but altogether only small additions were needed to make this possible, plus a plugin which would do the copying business quickly and efficiently. David argued that house styles would be much more flexible if some of the fundamental basics of Finale's internal workings were redesigned. To which I reply, the much I would like to see this, it simply won't happen. Not the way that MM approaches updates. So I personally think it better to request something that I think may work with much less work on MM's end, than to request something which requires a complete redesign of Finale, which I personally believe won't happen, unless Finale changes owners. On the other hand, I think you (David) are making a very good point, and it mirrors my own concerns. Personally I think that the whole GPO thing, even if it is perhaps welcomed by a larger proportion of Finale users (which I personally doubt), was actually a very easy way for MM to get away with the yearly upgrade process this year. For me the benefit is very limited. I am looking forward to MacOS X improvements, but they should have been in the 2k4 maintenance update. For me 2k6 is mostly a bug fix of 2k4. I really hope that 2k7 is going to be a major update. I hope they will sort out - bugs with Engraver slurs (WYSIWYG!!) - vertical spacing - clefs after the barline (ie key/meter) at the beginning of a system - cue notes via the mirror tool - dynamic part linking in one way or another - house styles in one way or another - a redesign of Speedy (to allow entering artics and slurs from within Speedy) In this order. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
At 9:21 PM -0500 7/7/05, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: What can a Sibelius House Style do that one cannot do with a Finale template? Ummm, save you the time and knowledge base needed to create your template? I, for one, don't speak EPVU or whatever the heck it is! It's my son who investigated Sibelius, not me, but my understanding from him is that the House Styles give you instantly available setups, but that the program also gives you the ability to change the default settings in those setups. I may be wrong, but that's a BIG time saver, especially since when Sibelius first became available for U.S. platforms the default settings in Finale were absolutely dreadful. (And yes, I've been on the list long enough to have seen the discussion of nobody's presets are going to give me exactly what I want, so I'm going to have to tweak everything anyway. That's a valid argument for a professional engraver. It is NOT a valid argument for the average Finale user, who just wants to get his music printed and IS going to use the default settings. Mosaic's single house style was never chageable, but it was never necessary to change it because the people who designed it had the intelligence and the skill to make it acceptable and professional looking for the naive user like me. Yes, I did change the measure spacing from the too-wide default, and to get good page turns, but doing so was trivial. It appears that Finale developers never cared, but Sibelius developers definitely did. I find it amazing that ANY notation program can turn out near-professional product in a field that was developed by monks writing with feathers! 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]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Johannes Gebauer wrote: [snip] David, I am absolutely certain it won't happen. Not unless the way MakeMusic has been working the last few years will change radically. Johannes We've already been told on this list that unless whatever engraving changes are requested can demonstrably be shown to attract new customers (in other words, to be requested by non-users, to whom it seems MakeMusic pays more attention than it does to long-time users), we haven't a snowball's chance in hell of seeing them implemented. Okay, since I was the person talking about something related to this just a day or so ago, I'm going to be so bold as to believe you are talking about what I said. And if this is true, then I'm a little ticked that you are misrepresenting me in this manner. I stated that when you consider the size of the professional engraver market, MakeMusic devotes a disproportionate number of features directly to that market. These are features that benefit this group and few other people. I also stated that when MakeMusic has ideas on the table that can benefit everyone, including the engravers, it's easier for them to justify. Is it so damn hard to believe that this would be true? And is it so shallow to ask that you try to think of ways to benefit yourself as well as the bulk of other Finale users? I in no way suggested that you should ask for features that would help you LESS, but I did suggest you ask for features that would ALSO help other people MORE. I can't understand how it shouldn't be blindingly obvious that features that appeal to both you and everyone else are preferable to the company to features which just benefit you or just benefit everyone else. And how in the world did I say asking for something that primarily benefits the engraver's world has a snowball's chance in hell of being implemented??? If you're upset with the features being included, fine. But don't stretch my words to forward your argument. Tyler Sell on Yahoo! Auctions no fees. Bid on great items. http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Tyler Turner schrieb: I stated that when you consider the size of the professional engraver market, MakeMusic devotes a disproportionate number of features directly to that market. These are features that benefit this group and few other people. I also stated that when MakeMusic has ideas on the table that can benefit everyone, including the engravers, it's easier for them to justify. Is it so damn hard to believe that this would be true? And is it so shallow to ask that you try to think of ways to benefit yourself as well as the bulk of other Finale users? I in no way suggested that you should ask for features that would help you LESS, but I did suggest you ask for features that would ALSO help other people MORE. I can't understand how it shouldn't be blindingly obvious that features that appeal to both you and everyone else are preferable to the company to features which just benefit you or just benefit everyone else. No sorry, I am selfish. I want features that help me and I don't give a damn how many others will benefit from them. The truth is that those features I am interested in will probably mostly benefit the pro engraver, or at least those who primarily engrave, and not playback. Now, it does seem to me that in this field Sibelius is not only catching up but actually passing Finale. If this happens I am out of here quickly. I don'care in the least whether a mass market of amateur composers who want a toy to play (with) their compositions are still attracted to Finale or not. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 8 Jul 2005 at 9:18, Johannes Gebauer wrote: David W. Fenton schrieb: I guess my point is that the kind of restructuring I'm calling for here would go much further to making it possible to manage house styles than any of the things you mentioned. Except it won't happen. I'm not certain about that. The Finale developers are computer programmers. They understand better than *you* do the advantages of non-duplication of data, of sub-classing, of object-oriented programming. My bet is that they'd love to have the luxury to be turned loose on Finale and rework its data structures in order to support the kinds of UI and feature requests I've been talking about. But the realities of business don't allow them to pull a Netscape (and, of course, they shouldn't do that, anyway: David, I am absolutely certain it won't happen. Not unless the way MakeMusic has been working the last few years will change radically. They've changed their ways of doing things before, when outside conditions forced it upon them. If they want to stay in business they are definitely going to have to make changes in their operating practices. If they don't, they'll always be playing catch-up, and thus lose more and more market share. I think they are going to have to abandon the yearly upgrades. I think it's a really bad business practice in the first place, because it places a schedule on development that is artificial -- a software development schedule should be determined by the goals of the projects currently on the table for implementation/revision/fixing. MakeMusic is also now in a situation where their yearly upgrade is coming out at an inoppportune time for schools -- releasing in August and September and October is not a very good time for that. If they took 18-20 months for their next release, they could have the new release out in time for budget considerations for the next school year. After that, they could return to the old schedule, if they liked (though it still doesn't make any sense to me -- some Finale releases, like the upcoming one, seem to me more a matter of we're going to ship, even if there's nothing significant in the upgrade). Secondly, one longer product cycle could give them time to address large-scale architectural issues that might otherwise be impossible in one release cycle. Another alternative would be to release, say, Finale 2007 as nothing but a rewrite of Finale 2006, with no new functions, just fixes to old stuff and the new architecture necessary to make Finale 2008 a major leap forward. While it would be impossible to justify charging the usual full upgrade price, at 1/3 or 1/2, it might be worth it, and produce enough revenue to keep the company operating. It's not like Finale is their only product these days, is it was a decade ago. If MakeMusic does *not* make some major changes, more and more committed Finale users are going to abandon it, just as Sibelius tends to be the program of choice for people just getting into music engraving. So, I don't think it's impossible for them to change. Market conditions have change drastically. They are losing market/mindshare, and with Sibelius 4, they're going to lose even more. If they don't change, they will simply wither and be gone in 5 years. I think that if *I* can see that, MakeMusic's board can see it, too. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
When David W. Fenton writes: I think they are going to have to abandon the yearly upgrades. I think it's a really bad business practice in the first place, because it places a schedule on development that is artificial -- a software development schedule should be determined by the goals of the projects currently on the table for implementation/revision/fixing. MakeMusic is also now in a situation where their yearly upgrade is coming out at an inoppportune time for schools -- releasing in August and September and October is not a very good time for that. If they took 18-20 months for their next release, and I personally doubt that the upgrade cycle is one that is completed within a year. Rather, I'm guessing that the development cycle is 36 or 48 months, and that a new cycle is started about every 12, so that some group within MakeMusic! already is already working on what is going to be in 2k9, that the list of what will be in 2k8 is already pretty well fixed and design work is substantially completed, and that the programming work on 2k7 is substantially completed, and with the alpha testers. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 8 Jul 2005 at 16:07, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: When David W. Fenton writes: I think they are going to have to abandon the yearly upgrades. I think it's a really bad business practice in the first place, because it places a schedule on development that is artificial -- a software development schedule should be determined by the goals of the projects currently on the table for implementation/revision/fixing. MakeMusic is also now in a situation where their yearly upgrade is coming out at an inoppportune time for schools -- releasing in August and September and October is not a very good time for that. If they took 18-20 months for their next release, and I personally doubt that the upgrade cycle is one that is completed within a year. Rather, I'm guessing that the development cycle is 36 or 48 months, and that a new cycle is started about every 12, so that some group within MakeMusic! already is already working on what is going to be in 2k9, that the list of what will be in 2k8 is already pretty well fixed and design work is substantially completed, and that the programming work on 2k7 is substantially completed, and with the alpha testers. I honestly don't think MakeMusic is big enough to run their development projects in that manner. It basically means running multiple codebases at the same time, and forking them before you've finished implementing the features in a previous version. No smart developer ever does that unless they are planning a major discontinuity in their code base, such as I'm sure Coda did when they switched to the Windows32 API in WinFin97. In that case, they probably had separate codebases running in parallel, as they still needed to be able to distribute both Win16 and Win32 versions (and, of course, the Win16 version of WinFin97 was the only way to get MIDI on Windows NT 4). And I'm sure the same thing happened with the OS X version of Finale. So, I strongly doubt that the codebase for anything beyond Finale 2007 is already begun. Yes, at this point, Finale 2006 is a closed codebase, because they've already announced the feature set, but I strongly doubt they would launch Finale 2008 at this point unless it was basically a new development project. Even big companies don't do that kind of thing absent a major code fork. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Tyler Turner wrote: [snip] If you're upset with the features being included, fine. But don't stretch my words to forward your argument. I publicly apologize if I have misinterpreted Tyler's remarks (which apparently I have done.) I don't mean to put words into anybody's mouth (other than mine) and I appreciate the insights he has shared with us. But given the fluff that MakeMusic has added in the last release and the current one, it is frustrating for many of us. I apologize again if I let my frustrations get in the way of better judgement in interpreting your remarks, Tyler. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
David W. Fenton wrote: I honestly don't think MakeMusic is big enough to run their development projects in that manner. It basically means running multiple codebases at the same time, and forking them before you've finished implementing the features in a previous version. Well, I didn't think of it in terms of multiple codebases, so much as the development process being more involved,. and taking longer than most on the list seem to think. I suspect the 2006 codebase was substantially closed sometime late last summer or last autumn, and that some people began working at that point on the 2007 codebase. My hunch is that someone at Makemusic! already knows the 2007 update feature list with 85 percent confidence. I further suspect that if someone submitted a brand new idea that did not yet appear in any form on MakeMusic!'s to do list, and they felt it was so compelling that it had to be included, that it might well be Fin 2k8 or even 2k9 before it made it to light. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 07 Jul 2005, at 4:24 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: While we are on about it: House styles is another area where Sibelius is far superior to Finale. Several times I have suggested ways how some house style functionality could be added to Finale with as I understand very limited programming effort (as most of it is already in Finale, just not used). All it needs from my perspective: - More fields in the File info, which should all be addable via placeholders. - Better handling of default fonts - a description field for articulations - a set of plugins which can deal with moving the notation data from one template to another, utilizing the above (ie distiguishing standard articulations like staccato etc by their description field), plus the ability to run certain plugins automatically (like Patterson beams). As far as I can see this would open the way for house styles, in a more flexible way than Sibelius offers. All of that would be great. Sibelius has had House Styles for some time now (maybe even since v1.0?) and an alternative solution for Finale is long overdue. - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 7 Jul 2005 at 22:24, Johannes Gebauer wrote: While we are on about it: House styles is another area where Sibelius is far superior to Finale. Several times I have suggested ways how some house style functionality could be added to Finale with as I understand very limited programming effort (as most of it is already in Finale, just not used). All it needs from my perspective: - More fields in the File info, which should all be addable via placeholders. - Better handling of default fonts - a description field for articulations - a set of plugins which can deal with moving the notation data from one template to another, utilizing the above (ie distiguishing standard articulations like staccato etc by their description field), plus the ability to run certain plugins automatically (like Patterson beams). As far as I can see this would open the way for house styles, in a more flexible way than Sibelius offers. I honestly see nothing about any of these suggestions that belongs with what I conceive of as the concept of house styles. However, the concept *does* relate to my suggestion of cascading templates/libraries, where you could maintain a link between a file and it's parent template (or break the link, if you chose) and also maintain a link back to libraries, instead of having the current proliferation of item definitions that make it a mess to manage libraries. Libraries should be stored *outside* the file -- copying them into the file rather breaks the whole concept of library files. And what I'd really want would be two-way editing of linked libraries. What I mean is, if I edit the library, all Finale documents using that library would have their definitions updated automatically (perhaps the next time the file is loaded; perhaps conditionally, with a warning The Articulations library on which this file is based has been updated. Would you like to import those updates? YES | NO | SHOW ME THE UPDATES SO I CAN CHOOSE WHICH ONES TO IMPORT). Likewise, a change in a document that is to an item that is stored in a library should have the option of pushing the change you make up into the parent library. This kind of thing would make my life much easier by allowing me to keep all my files consistent without having to replicate edits in multiple files (in combination with running Robert's Settings Scrapbook plugin, which can't copy everything). But, none of this would really work well until expressions/articulations/etc. (the items that are library-based) were altered to be sub-classed, where you could create instantiations of a parent object with different characteristics. A perfect example of this is bowing marks. Rather than having a set of four, one for notes without articulations and one for notes with them, you'd have one parent definition, then a second definition that is a child of the original bow mark, but has different vertical spacing parameters. If you then altered, say, the font size of the original, the child mark would automatically inherit that. This would not preclude the actual copying to a new articulation definition, as is the case now -- it would simply allow one to have multiple related items that shared the common properties. For me, this would be most useful for the stroke articulation. I presently have to maintain a set of 6 of these, since the stroke is used as both a stacatto and as an accent. I want the appearance to be identical, but I want the performance effect to be different (one shortens duration, the other increases velocity). I also need a version of each that shows onscreen but doesn't print, and a version that prints but does not have a playback effect. Then I also need editorial versions of all of these (with brackets). If there were sub-classing of these, I could organize them either around appearance or around performance effect, then base the child definitions on the basic definition, but with different properties. Depending on what you could override, I could have a single definition as the parent for all, and then make the adjustments all based on the original. It makes more sense to me to have two performance-based definitions and then have those have multiple manifestations. Sounds complicated, but I don't think it must be in the implementation -- it's really not much different than simply replacing the existing copy button with copy to new definition for one button (that work the same as it does now) and a new button that says copy to linked definition (obviously there'd need to be work on terminology to make it more transparent and less geeky!). Or, you could have the existing copy functionality work the same as it does now, and have a checkbox that controls whether the new item is linked to its parent or not (and a program option that allows you to set the default behavior for this; probably most people would want it to be unlinked, so that it would work exactly the same
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
David W. Fenton schrieb: I honestly see nothing about any of these suggestions that belongs with what I conceive of as the concept of house styles. I don't for a minute doubt that, but believe me, I thought this through some time ago, and it is pretty much all that is needed. The reason I suggest it this way is the fact that it requires very little for a big improvement, and with very little extra functionality or data structures in the main Finale application and file format. I guess my point is that the kind of restructuring I'm calling for here would go much further to making it possible to manage house styles than any of the things you mentioned. Except it won't happen. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 7 Jul 2005 at 17:23, Darcy James Argue wrote: On 07 Jul 2005, at 4:24 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: While we are on about it: House styles is another area where Sibelius is far superior to Finale. Several times I have suggested ways how some house style functionality could be added to Finale with as I understand very limited programming effort (as most of it is already in Finale, just not used). All it needs from my perspective: - More fields in the File info, which should all be addable via placeholders. - Better handling of default fonts - a description field for articulations - a set of plugins which can deal with moving the notation data from one template to another, utilizing the above (ie distiguishing standard articulations like staccato etc by their description field), plus the ability to run certain plugins automatically (like Patterson beams). As far as I can see this would open the way for house styles, in a more flexible way than Sibelius offers. All of that would be great. Sibelius has had House Styles for some time now (maybe even since v1.0?) and an alternative solution for Finale is long overdue. But aren't Sibelius's house styles the source of at least part of its inflexibility? I'm all for house styles in Finale, but implementing them in a way that retains the flexibility that Finale excels at would require quite a big of re-jiggering, seems to me. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 8 Jul 2005 at 1:04, Johannes Gebauer wrote: David W. Fenton schrieb: I honestly see nothing about any of these suggestions that belongs with what I conceive of as the concept of house styles. I don't for a minute doubt that, but believe me, I thought this through some time ago, and it is pretty much all that is needed. The reason I suggest it this way is the fact that it requires very little for a big improvement, and with very little extra functionality or data structures in the main Finale application and file format. I didn't mean to discount your suggestions -- all of them have merit. I just don't see the relationship to house styles. I guess my point is that the kind of restructuring I'm calling for here would go much further to making it possible to manage house styles than any of the things you mentioned. Except it won't happen. I'm not certain about that. The Finale developers are computer programmers. They understand better than *you* do the advantages of non-duplication of data, of sub-classing, of object-oriented programming. My bet is that they'd love to have the luxury to be turned loose on Finale and rework its data structures in order to support the kinds of UI and feature requests I've been talking about. But the realities of business don't allow them to pull a Netscape (and, of course, they shouldn't do that, anyway: Things You Should Never Do http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog69.html where you means software developers. Don't be daunted by that -- Joel Spolsky is a superb writer, and the article is amusing even to non-programmers) And I think that implementing dyanmic parts will *require it*. So, I see it as a first step towards a new Finale that works the way a modern database program ought to work. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
Johannes Gebauer wrote: While we are on about it: House styles is another area where Sibelius is far superior to Finale. In my considerations of Sibelius, the closed, proprietary way they treat the data file structure is such an early consideration, that I'm not reached the point of understanding exactly what a house style is. Intuitively, this would reaonsably include what fonts to use, details of spacing, of line widths, of beaming methods, of shape and spacing, of ties and slurs. But I can create a Finale template document which has the line thicknesses, and staff and system spacings, and font selections, and even additional insert items as reserved text blocks, and which pre-loads designated libraries. What can a Sibelius House Style do that one cannot do with a Finale template? ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has
On 7 Jul 2005 at 21:21, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Johannes Gebauer wrote: While we are on about it: House styles is another area where Sibelius is far superior to Finale. In my considerations of Sibelius, the closed, proprietary way they treat the data file structure is such an early consideration, that I'm not reached the point of understanding exactly what a house style is. Intuitively, this would reaonsably include what fonts to use, details of spacing, of line widths, of beaming methods, of shape and spacing, of ties and slurs. But I can create a Finale template document which has the line thicknesses, and staff and system spacings, and font selections, and even additional insert items as reserved text blocks, and which pre-loads designated libraries. What can a Sibelius House Style do that one cannot do with a Finale template? Change all of those settings at once in a pre-existing file, simply by choosing a different house style? I don't know -- I'm guessing. It's the only implementation of such a thing that would make any sense to me. Sort of like a stylesheet in a word processor or an HTML page. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
