Noel wrote: > and I would say in my defense that since I did not begin with > Finale until 2k, I do not even have a user's manual from which to > provide a first or second page.
You didn't get a little tutorial book with your copy of Finale? My first version of Finale was 2002, and that certainly came with a little tutorial book. Have they even stopped shipping *that* nowadays?! (Aren't you entitled to at least *some* documentation for your 300 bucks?!) > My problem with the MusicXML solution is a philosophical one. I > want my software (whether word processors, spreadsheets, or in this > case, notation programs) to have a native capability to store data > in a file whose has a file formats are published; I don't want to > go have to take recourse to a third party plug in to store my data > in a public data format, however good it might be. That's fair enough, I suppose. Perhaps I'm just a pragmatist at heart and not easily swayed by philosophy, but it seems to me that if a third-party format is already supported by other applications (like MusicXML is), so that no especial effort has to be entered into in order to get access to my data (I know I'd much rather be able to use my data right away should something happen to Finale, rather than have to wait n months or years while some clever guy knocks up a program that can turn my ETF files into something I can actually, you know, work with again), and if it's sufficient to convey the data in such a way that no critical information is lost (like, I imagine, MusicXML is, at least for my purposes), then it's good enough. It just doesn't seem like a good argument to me. What good is an ETF file, published format or not, if there's no application that can open and/or edit them? (I know Sibelius can open ETF files, but I hear it doesn't always do a good job, particularly on files from newer versions of Finale.) > Sibelius is a privately held firm, and while financial information > might be available from some source (Dun and Bradstreet, or it's UK > equivalent?) I found MakeMusic!'s financial information in a matter > of seconds, and was unable to find any significnat financial > information on Sibelius with the expenditure of a couple of orders > of magnitude more time. That's true. I don't know how you'd go about finding out the state of Sibelius's finances. But I find it a bit amusing that you're comforted by knowing that the company that makes Finale has lost money every year for, like, the last 10 years straight ;^) Best, -Will -- _______________________________________________ NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at once. http://datingsearch.lycos.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
