At 02:06 PM 9/19/02 -0800, you wrote:
>- I assume type-in-score still exists. (And if it doesn't, I'm sure many
>will object.) When you use type-in-score to create a lyric, how does Finale
>decide where in the text to create the new syllable? Does it add it to the
>end of the text, or does it insert it in the middle based on where in the
>music you're placing it? If the latter, the hyphens don't work properly.
>If the former, you've left the door open to weirdness, and if the user does
>the "wrong" thing, then the hyphens don't work properly.
I'm not following. Type in score breaks at spaces and hyphens. That is how
it understands new syllables, no? You tell it. Can you re-ask this; I'm
really not understanding the question you're posing. (Keep in mind I'm
answering this question based on Finale's existing destructive lyrics
editing.)
>(For example, I enter four notes and type "hal-le-lu-jah" below them. Then
>I notice the middle two notes are entered wrong. To fix them, suppose I use
>Speedy Entry to delete them, and then re-enter two notes in insert mode.
>Not the only way to do it, of course, but a reasonable possibility. Now I
>see that I have deleted the "le-lu" syllables, so I re-type them. As a
>result, I have lost the hyphen between "lu" and "jah". That's because the
>original "le-lu-" are still in place in the text stream, which now reads
>"hal-le-lu-le-lu-jah".)
No. If the stream is interactive (it's gotta have *some* smarts) and based
on a lyrics "pool", there are at least two useful options.
1. The syllables disappear in both in-score and text stream. You must
retype them. This is not desirable.
2. The syllables change color and 'float' until you rubber-band reassign
them or delete them. Most of the time such corrections will just mean
reassignment.
3. The syllables are part of a slip-editing stream (see later in this post).
If there is still some sort of mirroring feature, a warning box would ask
if the change is to be mirrored, or the mirror is to be broken and the
mirrored content liberated. (This is not necessary in a slip-editing
situation.)
>- Can you use type-in-score to change the text to which a note is attached?
Drag and attach. Those rubber bands again.
>If more than one note is attached to that syllable, would it not change
>the text in all instances?
No. The text is the text, from a pool. Any notes can be assigned to it. You
could even reverse syllables (crossing 'rubber bands' and not changing the
text) or drag-drop reverse syllables in the pool. The interaction of text
and layout in Pagemaker is an interesting example of this, in how blocks of
text can be broken, moved (etc.) and later re-attached, or the slip-editing
features of video editors.
>- Since lyrics are not assigned to notes, when you do Mass Copy, do the
>lyrics not copy at all? Does Finale review the lyric text for assigned
>notes and copy those assignments (ie, with the same result as currently)?
>Or does Finale create new lyrics in the underlying text, and if so, where
>are they placed in the text stream?
There are a few solutions, and I can hear objections to any of them.
Keep in mind that I am always thinking of text as text, and a block of text
as an entry in a text/lyrics "pool" (which would include titles, text
elements, lyrics, etc.), and verses are merely separate blocks of text that
can be broken into smaller segments, combined to make larger ones, or even
broken out as individual words or syllables, if desired. A text block
counter can be shown in the same way the current measure number is shown. A
text block number is in an editing window, and it's shown as a thumbwheel
when I'm in type-into-score mode.
For mass-mover copies, then:
1. The text is not copied, just as some other aspects of the score are not
copied in this process.
2. The copied text is pasted exactly where it appears in the current text
stream. Not desirable to me.
3. The copied text becomes a new text stream (new block number), attached
through a Pagemaker-like re-attach feature. Marginally useful.
4. The copied text 'floats' with the copied version until it's assigned as
a mirror or as an independent state (which can be done at any time).
5. The copied text is merely another dip into the non-destructive editing
database. This is the solution I would welcome.
>- If a note is deleted, should any lyric to which it is attached be deleted
>from the text stream? If no, then that's what results in the extraneous
>"le-lu" in the example above. If yes, then you're liable to mess up a
>person who uses click-assignment, if he deletes a passage of music and it
>destroys a selection of lyrics which he still planned to click-assign
>elsewhere.)
There's no question that an arbitrary choice is made here. From my
viewpoint, if you like click-assignment, then a text pool is the way to go.
Think of it somewhat like slip-editing (aka "non-destructive editing") in
an audio or video editor. The original never disappears (unless it is
deleted or edited from within the pool), but parts of it are assigned as
needed. So the notes can be assigned to the text in any way suitable, and
in any order, just as a slip-edited clip can be used hundreds of times,
with any part of its contents.
If you really screw up and need to edit the master text in the pool, you
have the same issue you'll have with any media pool -- you gotta go back
and fix stuff. But Robert, I think, said that planning is a big part of it.
When I video edit, I am pretty careful with my pool not to get the clips
damaged before I place them in the pool! Likewise for audio takes -- all
the post-processing in the world won't save somebody who sang the wrong
word and I didn't notice it. I just have to go back and re-edit it, and
everything that uses it is affected.
Frankly, I couldn't live without slip editing in Sonar or Video Factory,
for example, and some of the destructive editing in Sonar's predecessors
was a tricky as Finale lyrics. With the advent of slip editing, the whole
issue of assignment to position disappears.
>Why make the drastic data
>structure change if it makes little or no difference in dealing with the
>existing problems?
I'm suggesting these do solve quite a few existing problems. Make the text
an element that is dipped into as needed. Let's say it has the features of
hyphen and space defining syllables, with a (visual) nonbreaking space and
hyphen pair as needed. Once you have that database, it's usable once, many
times, or in any order, a piece at a time.
That way, assignments like italics, bold, font sizes, colors, etc., etc.,
can be made as post-processing decisions, so to speak, without ever
affecting the blocks in the lyrics pool.
>The fundamental issue here is that if there is an underlying ordered text
>and type-in-score exists, then any time type-in-score adds a lyric, the
>user has not in any way specified where it belongs in the text stream.
Except as a new text block, at which point it sets up a data element of its
own, a new member of the pool, or whatever term you want to use to describe
it. Some default behavior has to be chosen here.
>Thus the program has to take its best guess based on the context. Likewise,
>if type-in-score is used to delete a lyric, the program has to guess
>whether it should be deleted from the underlying text entirely, or left
>there but without assignment.
Using Finale's current ("old") paradigm, yes. Using the idea of
non-destructive editing, no. The only time it is a true deletion is if it's
deleted from the pool or the pool contents are seriously edited. The lack
of planning can be damaging here to anyone's time and patience (if you've
every tried to edit in Graphire Music Press, you know what I mean.)
There are compromises. Adding a missing syllable in type-into-score mode
would have to have some default condition on what happens. Everything would
have to have a default condition when acted upon, and the most likely
choice to my mind would be successful editors of complex assignment data,
thus my reliance on audio/video slip editing as a good example.
>Since
>different users will have different intentions, there is no way it can get
>it "right" 100% of the time. This is a consequence of the fact that, by
>using type-in-score, the user never specifies where he wants the text to be
>in the underlying text.
It would require some non-Finale thinking to get past this. I hope I've
explained enough of the concept of a 'lyrics pool' and non-destructive
editing without having to dig deeper into the level of actually realizing
some code! That I can't do anymore!
>Sure, but if the text gets out of order, through type-in-score
>manipulations, then the hyphens don't work anymore. Like in my
>"hal-le-lu-jah" example above.
Non-destructive editing from a text pool (with floating, assignable
elements, etc., etc.) fixes this.
>Again, you're assuming the lyrics stay contiguous as intended. The problem
>is that they don't.
They don't have to. Two conditions need to be met:
1. You can't destructively edit lyrics except in a specified text window
within the text pool.
2. All ownership needs to be shown (including elements which have
disappeared, or elements which are floated awaiting assignment).
Features like "resort staves" can then be applied to the assignment stage,
as in "resort lyrics". Lots of stuff becomes possible, and editing becomes
easy and you can be as messy as you like.
Dennis
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