Finally got round to upgrading from Finale 2002 to 2003, and so thought I'd share my initial opinions (I know some of you have already had this conversation and Jari has discussed it on his tips website, but I've just got my copy!).
Firstly, the interface. While I have to admit some of the new pallettes look fairly good, others are a little more difficult ro read (in particular the "Cool Gray"). I think the new icon for Mass edit is inherently more sensible than a small red truck (much as I love the truck!). Unfortunately, none of the new palettes can be down-sized (though admittedly they'd be even harder to make out if they could), and as someone who likes both the main palette and the advanced tool palette visible at all times in one column up the side of the screen, the "traditional" icons are the only ones which are small enough for me to do this. The ability to set a bitmap for the page background is nice (the "desktop" area, not the page itself), though I would have found the ability to set a bitmap for the actual paper background more useful still, thus making it slightly easier on the eyes (one of the few apparently pointless things I do like about Sibelius). The behaviour of the bitmap is interesting in that if you move with the handgrabber, the bitmap moves, but if you use the scrollbars it stays put. I think it might have been better if it stayed still in both circumstances. The new layout for document options window is in my opinion worth the upgrade alone, it saves so much time for anyone doing any amount of tweaking. Also useful is the ability to set the page layout for score and parts from the options menu. Interesting that in the new Maestro Font default file they have gone for the measure numbers in italics, something I always associate with Sibelius, and which I think looks a bit ugly. A note to anyone upgrading that I noticed Jari hadn't covered in his tips for upgraders: If you intend to use a Maestro Font default file that you have ready prepared from a previous version of Finale, be sure to copy the staff styles as a library from the Fin2k3 into it, otherwise you will miss some of the new preset (and inherently useful) staff styles, such as stemless notes. The addition of the tuplet options to the document options box is a welcome addition as are the new options within this box regarding bracket thickness and horizontal offset, though I would have liked to have seen a vertical offset option for the numbers as well. I would also have liked these options available in the dialog box that opens up when you double-click on an individual tuplet, or choose "Change>tuplets..." from Mass edit. Another slight drawback is that the behaviour of these new options is different from the pre-existing ones in this box, in that any change made in them globally affects all the tuplets in the document immediately as soon as apply or OK is hit, whereas changes to the bracket or ratio, etc. do not affect pre-existing tuplets. This seems somewhat inconsistent to me. The rhyming dictionary is interesting, though I personally have no use for it. As mentioned, the additions to the staff styles is very welcome, especially the option of stemless notes. As someone who spends a lot of time preparing lecture notes , something like this can be a real time-saver. Other than that, there doesn't seem to be an awful lot changed that I can see, though there may be some "under the hood" stuff that I'm not aware of. Overall, I think it was worth the upgrade even if just for the new document options layout, staff styles and the enhanced tuplet options. Colin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- Colin Broom, composer e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.inventionensemble.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
