[CC to Coda. If replying to all, consider trimming headers.] At 7:13 AM 09/19/02, Robert Patterson wrote:
>Someone said that the implementation is geeky. It *is* geeky, but (as Mark Lew >eloquently stated) it is very powerful. Sometimes geeky is okay, even if it >requires a little more thought than we'd like. Thank you, Robert, for being so much more succinct than I am. I think you and I are in agreement on this. It seems to me that about 75% of the pitfalls which exist could be fixed fairly easily [*], and many of the rest could be fixed with a little more effort. I don't think that changing the basic format and structure of lyrics serves any good purpose. >The reason I say we must accept it is that the implementation is fundamental. >Lyrics by definition (inside Finale) are assignments from sylabbicized text. >There is no option of an "option". The other option would be text expressions, >or else to glom on some new kind of lyric that is essentially a text >expression. I'd be very interested in hearing from an engraver who does regular work with lyrics on a platform other than Finale. It seems to me that the main complaints here are mostly from people who use lyrics infrequently. As Dennis reminded me, these can be more instructive than input from those of us who are used to the system. Even so, I want to hear about alternate implementations from someone who has lengthy experience with vocal music. Has any other application developed an equally powerful lyric system with a different basis? When I first chose Finale, none of the others were even close. When Sibelius was new and I was contemplating whether to switch, a person who had tried it and whose judgment I trust told me that Sibelius lyrics were considerably less flexible than Finale's. But that was years ago, so maybe things have changed? mdl [*] For example: 1. On any Edit Lyrics edit, check to see if syllables have been added or deleted; if so, increment or decrement any assignment to subsequent syllables. Program option to turn this behavior off. 2. Some sort of visual indicator of what verse/chorus/section is current when in type-in-score. 3. After Mass Copy that includes lyrics, display a warning dialog "Do you want to ...? * duplicate assignments, * create duplicate lyrics * don't copy lyrics at all" Option to make a permanent selection and no longer display warning; place to set this behavior somewhere in the options. 4. Some sort of visual indicator on the screen to explain the four triangles better. 5. Utility which reviews the Edit Lyrics text and deletes any syllable that has no assignment anywhere. (Assignments to subsequent syllables are decremented accordingly.) Another idea worth considering is to implement an entirely separate "Simple Lyrics" system. These would be rudimentary note-attached items which behave like simple one-time expressions. Basic manipulation like position adjustment and text properties exist. Functions related to the underlying text (eg, click assignment, etc) do not. Any syllable with a hyphen has another syllable identified as its "next" syllable; some sort of default routine assigns it to the obvious next syllable in line, but there is a way to change it if necessary. Since most newbies and infrequent users of lyrics will likely prefer this, it can be the default. The current lyric system can be renamed "advanced lyrics" and be a separate option. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
