Hi Allen, Chris,
I'll see what I can add to what Chris has written here -- something to ponder over Thanksgiving turkey, perhaps...
I have now been officially bitten by the File Overwrite bug for the third time. The first time (that I know of) was in FinMac2002, then last year in 2003 (both in System 9.2 for Mac) and now in Fin 2005a running under OSX 10.3.6.
Here's what I did, exactly.
I had opened an older score (apparently this is of some importance), created in 2002 and then edited in 2003, and began to edit some more. I added staves, moved music around, changed notes, dragged various things, changed the title (apparently this is of some importance too), saved it under a new name and then extracted parts using Extract Parts from the File menu.
I'm not sure changing the title is of any importance. I don't remember doing that when I was hurt by this, but I could be mistaken.
But as far as I know, this problem has only occurred after Extracting Parts with "open extracted parts" turned on. Everything else Chris describes sounds about right -- I should add that so far, this problem has *always* involved a parts file overwriting a score file (not the other way around, which would be much less catastrophic).
I left the box checked "open extracted parts" and removed a few words from the file name for the extracted parts, from "Miles Ahead rev 2 score.mus" to "Miles Ah 2" and then left the placeholders for staff name and number intact, so that the first part extracted as "Miles Ah 2 - 001 Flute.mus", for example. I then began checking, formatting and printing parts. My usual routine involves editing the page 2 text blocks to include the instrument name.
[You know, Chirs, Robert Patterson's Copyists Helper does that for you, and it is totally worth it for that feature alone. The other features are good, too, but it's *so* nice to be able to extract parts, invoke Copyists Helper, click "Yes" to "Apply to All Open Documents" and have the Page 2+ text blocks automatically updated to include the instrument name -- it even fills in the *current* instrument name on doubling parts. Of course, this is only viable if we can safely have multiple documents open at once, and unfortunately, it seems this is still a problem.]
I noticed that one part (Vibraphone) had some errors, so I changed it (including staff transposition), printed it, saved it but did not close the window, then went to look for the score window (still open) to make the changes there, too. I completed the changes, re-saved the score, then hit the yellow Minimize button to get it out of my way while I finished the rest of the parts. I closed the Vibraphone window using Command-W, which closed without prompting me (is this unusual? I usually get prompted all the time for unnecessary saves.)
Again, I think this is absolutely key. Every time this has happened to me, Finale did *not* ask if I wanted to save changes. It didn't matter whether I was closing a document window or quitting Finale. In fact, since the "dirty" (unsaved) flag is permanently on (at least, for me) in Fin2005a, I can be almost certain that if Finale didn't prompt me to save changes, then I've just been bitten by the file overwrite bug.
[I should add that this bug doesn't have anything to do with minimizing to the Dock -- I never minimize windows, and I still had this problem.]
The next part up was Bass, and I decided I would use the old bass part, already extracted from the 2003 version in another folder. I went to Finder, found the old bass part, dragged it to desktop without opening it, then went back to Finale. I saw the new bass part still there, so I hit command-W to close the window. At that moment, the HIDDEN window (the score) geni-ed back out of the Dock where it had been minimised, and I got a prompt "Save changes before closing?" Well, that was so weird it got my attention immediately. I noticed that name of the score was the same, but what I was looking at in the window was the VIBRAPHONE part! Somehow the content of the vibes part had been transferred to the Score file while it was minimised.
Again, it didn't have to be minimized for this to happen. Minimized, not minimized, it doesn't matter. The score file just has to be open.
(it occurred to me that I was actually looking at the real vibes part which I had mistakenly minimised, but no, the Dock was empty of other minimised windows. This was the file called "Miles Ahead rev 2 score.mus" and my file called "Miles Ah 2 - 013 Vibraphone.mus" was safely on my hard drive with an appropriate Date Modified.
Right -- the parts file *is* saved correctly when you close it, but *without prompting* -- AND the contents of that file replace the contents of the currently open score file. It's not either/or, it's both.
Needless to say, I did NOT save, but called tech support immediately. After a long conversation, I saved under a new name to send the file to them. I went back to work, but closing the Bass window continued to call up the minimised score document, this time without any changes.
Whoa. Okay, that's *very* interesting -- if you were able to click "Cancel" and get the score file back, that means that the score file was NOT overwritten on your HD because of some fuckup with the file name (which is what I had suspected the problem was). Instead, what seems to be happening is that the entire *contents* of your score file -- "Miles Ahead rev 2 score.mus" -- were replaced by the *contents* of your parts file -- "Miles Ah 2 - 013 Vibraphone.mus" -- but NOT saved to disk immediately. In other words, the action was reversible by electing to NOT "save changes." It might even be undoable.
Brian in tech support says that for now, don't open any more than one window at a time.
[Bangs. Head. Against. Table.]
I just CAN'T work that way. It kills my productivity. There are too many plugins (Patterson Beams, Copyist's Helper) that are only efficient if you apply them to all open documents simultaneously, and then go make a pot of coffee while Finale chugs away. I know it's the only "safe" solution on the table right now, but it's Just. Not. Viable.
The only instances he has of this bug are Darcy's and mine, so if this has ever happened to you, please call it in.
Yes. Please. I *know* we're not the only two people on the list to encounter this problem. I think even some Windows users have run into this.
- Darcy ----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY
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