Used with keyboard shortcuts (and the appropriate Mass Copy options), Mass Copy is no effort whatsoever, beyond the effort required to select the source and target, so I'm not sure what you mean by "a lot of effort". I have Mass Copy hooked to F9. Whenever I press F9 or Shift-F9, Mass Copy appears. If it is already there Shift-F9 updates its source region while F9 pastes. No mousing whatsoever, unless I need to change the Mass Copy check boxes. (The Mass Copy window appears on a different monitor than my music.) These kbd entries are so ingrained that they are completely reflexive for me, along with the TGTools Align/Move keys.
As I've said before, I have no doubt that Fin04 expressions applied with metatools are quicker. All I'm saying is that Fin03 expressions copied with Mass Copy and/or aligned with Align/Move are pretty darn quick too. Quick enough that I can live without the Fin04 expressions and not feel like I am missing something essential.
And I want to make sure that everyone understands the replication feature of Mass Copy, because it may not be obvious. If the target is larger than the source--vertically or horizontally--Mass Copy cyclically replicates the source pattern, irrespective of barlines. This is perhaps its most powerful feature and the way that it adds tremendous value over the native Mass Edit functions of Finale.
I don't have any problem duplicating and editing shape expressions as you described doing with Fin04 expressions. While admittedly not quite as convenient as Fin04, it still is a perfectly acceptable alternative. For me the issue probably doesn't arise nearly as much, because I use a self-created font for combining tempo and metronome indications.
BTW, speaking of measure-attached text blocks. The latest Mass Copy includes a feature to copy these, even between documents. This was not possible within Finale itself.
Johannes Gebauer wrote:
On 11.07.2004 16:10 Uhr, Robert Patterson wrote
Johannes Gebauer wrote:
I don't quite see how MassCopy can help me position all those "f" and "a tempo" indications?
Once you have positioned one, Mass Copy can replicate it as much as you want both horizontally and vertically. Unlike Finale's Mass Edit tool, Mass Copy preserves the vertical position of note-attached expressions, irrespective of the relative vertical position of the source and target notes.
I still cannot quite see how this helps me. Are you refering to large orchestral scores with lots of the same dynamics in different parts? I am mostly working on chamber music, and using MassCopy to place anything just seems a lot of effort to get that forte in the right place. (I am not questioning that this works for you, I just don't understand how.)
Mixing font effects in one expression is a very useful feature. It can be accomplished in Fin03 fairly easily using shape expressions, although admittedly not quite as easily as in Fin04. However, you only have to define such an expression one time.
The whole beauty of the new system is that it is so simple. The problem with mixed-font expressions is that they usually are only required once, at least in detail. Defining a Shape Expression for this purpose is much more work than using a measure attached text block. Or several expressions. But using the new expressions is much faster still. Things like
Adagio cantabile [quarter note]=66
are a breeze, they would not be as a shape expression. I can define one of these, and easily duplicate and change to accomodate
Allegro [half note]=120
That's what makes them so useful to me.
Johannes
-- Robert Patterson
http://RobertGPatterson.com
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