On 25 Feb 2005 at 10:48, shirling & neueweise wrote: > the similarities in functioning are far greater than the differences,
I disagree with this. The fact that both use blocks of texts is a trivial similarity. Everything *else* about the two is completely different, and *should* remain different. Mixing all text blocks and text expressions into a single dialog makes no sense to me at all for placing either expressions or text blocks into a score (I hardly ever re-use text blocks -- they entered once and that's that, whereas most text expressions get repeatedly re- used throughout a score). But for *editing* all text as a group (e.g., to set fonts for a group of expressions/text blocks), having them all in one dialog *does* sound attractive. So, the ideal world for me would be to have the "all text blocks" dialog added, which would allow selection of multiple text blocks and the application of properties to the selected group, but then to leave the text expression dialog as it is, with the exception of: > and as long as there are two separate tools the possibility that one > will be serviced in a given version and not the other, as happened in > F2004, exists. it's only a small detail, but is nonetheless > indicative of the non-sense of separation of the tools: calling up the > same line spacing dialogue box in the text tool is done with cmd-sh-L > but in the expression tool with cmd-L (mac). That's just a mistake. In a properly designed program, text editing wherever it's needed would use exactly the same UI in all contexts (with features inappropriate for a particular context either absent or disabled). I have no quibble with that idea. But that is subsidiary to the organization of UI for *using* the text blocks, which I don't see any reason major re-organization. Elimination of the distinction between expressions and articulations *is* something that would make sense to me, as long as the different capabilities that presently reside in different tools are all available in the new combined tool. Of course, it does raise a problem for me: in my repertory, "f" for forte is most often used as a dynamic marking (play loud from this point until the next dynamic mark) but also in the same piece can be used as a dynamic mark (this particular note should be accented), where the second type is more like a sforzando. This happens in early Beethoven and in other Viennese music of the period through about the 1820s. If I had a "dynamic f" and an "articulation f" both in the same dialog, there'd have to be some visual method of distinguishing them, or it would be a real pain to use. But I'm definitely against an combination of the text block tool with other tools if the separate tools for using were to be eliminated. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
