> Mac already has something like this in the far too underused "publish and > subscribe" feature. You can "publish" all or part of a document in one piece > of software and other documents in the same or other software can > "subscribe" to it--for example, you incorporate an Excel spreadsheet into a > word-processing file. If you make a change in the original, it is > automatically updated in every subscriber document on your system. What I'm > proposing would be a slightly slicker implementation that would work both > ways--probably a lot like a FileMaker database, as Brian Appleby says.
Not knowing much about programming but I can imagine that a situation whereby one Finale document is making changes to another in a score and parts situation being the cause of many an error/corrupt file, etc. > Probably yes. I'm not sure why parts need to be separate files. It seems > like most changes could be made to them within the main score. Maybe > heavy-duty engravers require more, but I usually only look at parts files to > check for basic prettiness and easy page turns, and I'm not sure why that > requires a discrete file to implement. In fact, I somewhat detest having to > open a bunch of files, fiddle with the margins, and then hit print, and I'm > all for programs that remove as much of that tedium as possible. [Dreamy unrealistic musing that's never going to happen follows:] The idea of score and parts being linked is interesting and I've thought about this a lot (doesn't Igor have an interesting way of dealing with this? Anyone know how it works?) One could have a separate part view and score view, like a much more advanced version of the special part extraction, whereby you can switch between one part and another and make changes to bars per system, etc. The advantages of this are obvious. The positioning of rehearsal figures in a score seldom suits parts, so maybe an "independent elements" option whereby the linkage for certain things could be switched off could work. I can see a few problems in the implementation however, and I think that linking the score and parts could be at the expense of control over the parts. For example, recently I finished notating a concerto for someone, where the ensemble parts were laid out on A4, but the soloist part I laid out on A3, so there were less page turns, etc. While I can imagine an application having no difficulty dealng with a different page size for score and parts, I think it could get tricky when one desires varying page sizes for individual parts, and you probably wouldn't be able to change one without the other. Additionally, I would think that if a program like Finale (and let's face it, this is never going to happen in Finale) did make files that contained information pertaining to not only the layout of the score but also the layout of all the parts would result in massive file sizes. (Which brings up an interesting point, what are the file sizes of Igor like? Someone mentioned to me they were rather large). Still, it's a nice idea, in theory. Colin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- Colin Broom, composer e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.inventionensemble.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------- _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
