On 24 Jun 2005 at 14:23, d. collins wrote: > dhbailey écrit: > >And then there are the long-standing issues such as EPS export on the > > Windows side of things. If the developers haven't been able to fix > >it in the previous how many versions, what makes you think they've > >learned how for this version? > > I don't think it's a question of "being able to fix it" or not, but a > question of priorities. MM probably figures that "textured paper" will > bring them more new clients than they will lose with their broken EPS.
But "textured paper" is incredibly easy to implement (you just change the background of your main editing windows to use an image instead of a color), while EPS export is dependent on factors outside Finale. > If Sibelius, and many other Windows programs, manage to export EPS, > certainly this can't be out of reach of MM's developers if they had > any intention of doing so in the past five or six years. As Robert and > others pointed out, we're unfortunately not their main concern. I don't mean to defend the decision to leave EPS broken -- it baffles me, too. But comparing it to a throwaway feature like "textured paper," which I would actually use (because I'm currently experiencing eye-strain and having a non-white background would be helpful for that) is not really fair. In programming there are some things that are basically cosmetic features and that makes them easy to implement. But cosmetics do have a role to play in both usability and in setting the impression that users take away from the program. How many times have I noticed the difference in commitment of clients to my projects for them when I've done two different things: 1. for the first demo, used the program as is, in its half-completed state, OR 2. taken #1 and added on a few cosmetics, like an attractive graphical splash screen, and put up something of a Potemkin village UI in front of the components that have already been created. In the case of #1, they often doubt whether they're getting what they paid for, whereas with #2, they are often enthusiastic. Of course, the downside of #2 is that they sometimes think that the job is done at that point and can't understand why it's taking me so long to get the thing finished. Nonetheless, appearance is very important, even if it doesn't really matter to those of us concentrating on functionality. -- 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
