[Finale] Weird behavior -- Finale 2002b

[BillSincl]

I have already alerted the people at Coda Music about this. Convincing them it's something worth investigating, well that's another matter. They are reluctant to change anything, even to go from "incorrect" to "correct." They said they don't want to tick off their users, although I would think that fixing a problem should make their customers happy. At least it would make me more confident of their product.

What I am wondering about is whether the MAC version (mis)behaves the same way as my Windows version. To test this, set up two measures in A flat with 8 quarter notes that are B flats. Now go into the "speedy entry" tool, and change the first quarter notes of each measure to B natural using the + key, which is supposed to raise ONLY ONE note to B natural. What happens is that it puts a natural before the quarter note, but then does NOT put a flat before the second quarter note. This has the immediate effect of changing all the pitches. However, when you play it back, it did what it was supposed to, namely raise the pitch of just the first one. So now it plays back inconsistent with the notation.

Now I used the "hide/show courtesy accidentals" (*) key on the natural, and it makes the natural disappear, which is also wrong, since the natural is NOT a courtesy accidental. It is needed there to change the pitch, not for clarification purposes. This further causes an inconsistency with what is played, because now when the natural disappears, the implication is all the notes are B flats again. Once again, it has no effect on the played pitches.

One of the people at Coda said," Well the natural is still there, you've hidden it." Why would you ever want that in any practical situation? Are we in the business of playing tricks on musicians? Certainly hiding UNNECCESARY accidentals is OK, though, but the software has to be smart enough to know the difference.

I'm sure they have some very bright and experienced people on their staff, but the ones I deal with sometimes -- well, I have to shake my head and feel sorry for them.