On Jul 19, 2005, at 10:37 AM, Don Hart wrote:
Finale's behavior in editing accidentals is weird and inconsistent,
causing
edits to be a lot harder to perform than they should be.
Weird yes, inconsistent no.
Every accidental has an associated horizontal offset value [*]. If
that value is non-zero, Finale will use the value to tell it where to
place the accidental. If that value is zero, Finale will use its own
algorithm to place the accidental.
When using the value, Finale counts to the right from the center of the
note. Since you don't generally want the accidental right on top of
the note, and you generally want it to the left not the right, your
horizontal offset value is going to be negative. -30evpu is typical
for a normal solo accidental, but your exact distance may vary
depending on your settings.
Any note you enter starts with a zero offset for its accidental, so if
you don't edit any of them, Finale will use its algorithm for all
accidental placement. When you use the Special Tool to nudge an
accidental (or drag, or enter the number directly) you are assigning an
offset value. When you nudge it for the first time, the UI is smart
enough to realize that one nudge to the left of zero should not be -1
but rather x-1, where x is whatever had been calculated as the starting
position.
So if your settings are such that an accidental appears at -30evpu by
default, and you nudge it once to the left, you'll have assigned it the
value of -31evpu. If you now nudge it back to the right, you'll set
the value to -30. This is interesting because even though you've put
it right back where it came from, and it appears exactly the same, it
is now coded different -- the difference between a hard-coded -30 and
Finale's algorithm resulting in -30. This can make a difference.
The fact that non-zero value is a specific assignment while a zero
value lets Finale calculate placement has some curious side effects.
If you use the Special Tool to keep nudging your accidental toward the
note, after several nudges you'll bring the value to zero -- assuming
that your scale is such that the original position is evenly divisible
by your nudge increment, which it might not be. When that happens
you'll see the accidental hop back out to its normal position. Then if
you continue nudging, it will hop back on top of the notehead and
continue its journey. You'll see this even more strikingly if you grab
the accidental and slowly drag it back and forth across the notehead:
Whenever it hits the zero position, it blinks to the left.
(In the unlikely event that you really do want to place the accidental
right on top of the notehead at zero offset, you're out of luck,
because you can't do it.)
The reason that this is more than just an amusing Finale party trick is
because it explains the otherwise confusing behavior you see when you
nudge accidentals in a chord. When Finale is faced with several
accidentals on the same entry (ie, chord), it uses its algorithms to
try its best to space them out properly. But when it calculates, it
only considers accidentals which have a zero offset value. Any
accidental with a non-zero value will be ignored.
That means if you've got a chord with four accidentals, and you nudge
or drag one of them to give it a non-zero value, Finale will then place
the other three accidentals as if they were the only ones present,
which might cause them to rearrange themselves. Similarly, if you've
got a chord with two accidentals and you nudge or drag the nearer one,
the other will instantly jump toward the note as if it were the only
one there.
Once you understand this, editing accidentals makes perfect sense.
It's still a little goofy, but it's entirely predictable and
consistent.
Some general techniques: If you know you're going to edit all the
accidentals on the chord anyway, just plan to drag all of them and
ignore whatever hopping they do along the way. If you want to nudge
just some of them, try to start from the outside in, since adjusting
the outside ones usually won't make the inside ones hop. If you've got
an accidental that you want to stay put while you nudge others around
it, nudge it once to the right and once to the left to anchor it in
position.
mdl
[*] Actually this value is attached to the notehead, not to the
accidental -- so if you edit a sharp to a flat and the sharp had been
nudged, the nudge will still apply to the flat.
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