No, I didn't try using a clip file, because I have absolutely no comprehension of why the hell there are three different methods for copying data.
Two. Clip files are like drag-and-drop, for all practical purposes. Just clefs are different, AFAIK. I don't know why they changed one and not the other.
I began with the question:
First off, why is copying so incredibly complicated?
Part of it has to do with inherent restrictions in the clipboard (system's copy and paste). I suppose you already know what does and doesn't copy when you control c, control v. Not much to do about that, but I take advantage of it to decide what I want copied. This is the first of two copying methods.
This is the second. Drag and drop copies pretty much everything, but most people are using this to copy between staves, or to later bars in the same piece, and so don't want things like clefs to copy (at least not between staves!) I remember early on this was an issue, and they changed the default to go along with what most people were using this for. Shift-clicking to copy large sections and then alt-shift click to accomplish the same thing is just an easier way to accomplish drag-and-drop on large sections.
Clip files do pretty much the same thing, but between files, because the system's clipboard won't copy things that drag and drop will copy. That's all.
Hm, I just tried it. Apparently it only copies clef CHANGES; it won't put the first part of the passage in the default clef of the staff you copied from, but rather in the default clef of the staff you are copying TO. Keys were copied, though. But yes, as I always knew, it ignored my staff lists in the target file for measure-attached expressions.
It's all completely messed up, confusing and, basically, useless.
Everything, absolutely everything, with no exceptions, should be copied unless I've asked for selective copying, It's one thing to copy from one staff to another within a file (where you might very well *not* want clef changes copied, though it seems to me that if the destination staff has the same clef as the source staff that you'd usually want clef changes copied), but entirely another copying from one file to another.
The starting clef is part of the staff attributes. Clef CHANGES are copied as normally as you would expect in a clip file, though they seem to be the exception when you drag-and-drop. But, as I said, this was a conscious decision based on user input. You can set clefs (and everythign you want!) to copy, under Mass Edit>Copy Measure Items> set to ALL, and leave it that way if you want.
But it seems to me that the whole mechanism is hopelessly complicated.
I can't figure out how to do something very simple, just copying data from one file to another.
Funny, I have the same rants about Microsoft Word. I can't figure out the formatting, or how it gets copied when I duplicate things, to save my life. Yet it is the dominant word-processing program on the planet. AppleWorks does everything I ask it to do flawlessly, but noone can read the files I send them.
Add to that the fact that the source of the problem was hidden data of some sort in the instrument definitions, and it's pretty clear that Finale is, overall, a complete mess.
I don't know anything about the instrument definitions. If it is a bug, report it.
Christopher _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
