On 6 May 2005 at 9:04, d. collins wrote: > Giz Bowe �crit: > >You can save yourself a bit of trouble by doing this: after you > >delete the content, save the file as a template file (*.ftm). Just > >open this file anytime you start a new piece. If you're making the > >same adjustments when you do your new piece, make the changes to your > >.ftm file, where they will remain forever, or until you tinker with > >them again! > > Actually, that's more trouble than Lee's method, which I happen to use > also. Because you have to make any changes you want to keep to both > files - your current piece, and the template. Instead of just one.
But then you end up in the situation I'm in, which is having files that are carrying old bugs from ancient versions of Finale. At least, that's why I've been told I have trouble with things like Tempo Tool changes not working. All of this shows that the template architecture in Finale is brain- dead and old-fashioned and causes enormous problems and a huge amount of extra work for the user. One thing would ameliorate the problem greatly, to include some kind of export functionality, like Robert Patterson's Settings Scrapbook. I've repeatedly called for a cascading template structure, where every file retained a connection to its original template (of course, as with other programs that use this structure, there has to be a provision made for when the file is moved to a system that lacks the original template). And, of course, cascading templates would need to be an option, not a default. I have been frustrated by the template issue for most of the time I've been using Finale. My usage of Finale has always been in spurts -- I will go for long periods of time, even a year, where I hardly use Finale at all, then come back to it and need to do intensive work. And that's when I get into trouble. For instance, as those of you who read the list regularly may remember, I've been combining single-movement files for multi- movement works into single files and preparing parts from the result. And what I've found is a mess of duplicate articulation and expression definitions, even though I use the method of basing new files on an existing file (almost always, the 2nd movement of any piece was created from a stripped-out copy of the 1st; and the 3rd from the 2nd). It causes an awful lot of extra work, especially when you learn to do things late in the process that would have been ideally done at the beginning. -- 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
