On Jul 24, 2005, at 7:21 AM, Robert Patterson wrote:
Finale's quality of output is capable of meeting the most rigorous
engraving standards I know of, with only one exception. Finale cannot
produce a proper long slur mark. (Neither can Sibelius, nor any other
program except the now defunct SCORE.)
It's surprising that neither program has set out to correct this. For
several years now it's been the one glaring gap in Finale's ability to
produce professional-looking output. Pretty much anything else you can
kludge one way or another, but with a long slur you're stuck. You're
pretty much forced to raise the endpoints and settle for a long spindly
curve. On several occasions, it has even affected my editorial
decision-making: If a long slur is only marginally important, I'll
sometimes choose to just leave it out, simply because Finale is
incapable of drawing a proper looking one.
Could it be that people have grown so accustomed to seeing curved long
slurs that it's now considered normal and no one minds anymore?
It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to fix. As I understand it,
slurs are current drawn as a Bezier curve (actually, the space enclosed
by two almost-parallel Bezier curves) and the slur tool gives the user
access to the control points. Why not just introduce one more value
that calls for x distance of straight line inserted in the middle of
the slur? The midpoint and slope of the curve(s) is easily calculated.
The program could just calculate the curve as if the control points are
all displaced by a distance of x/2 inward toward the midpoint, split
the curve in half, draw each with the actual endpoints, and then fill
in the middle with a straight line -- pretty much the same thing that
pre-digital engravers with their curve templates did for long slurs for
decades.
The new x value would then be accessible to the user either by direct
input or by a new handle in the slur tool that could be dragged back
and forth for immediate eyeball feedback. Adding this new variable
would actually help with many types of slurs. For example, those short
slurs with a tall slope, you'd be able to put a more attractive curve
on the endpoints than is currently possible. Most important, for those
long slur stretching all the way across the page, you could put in a
big stretch so that each end curves like a short slur with a big
straight passage across the middle, just like it should be.
As an added bonus, there could be a global slur option somewhere that
says if a slur is more than y long, it automatically adds a stretch
value of z. All the templates could come with some sensible value
there, so that the non-power users wouldn't even have to think about
long slurs. They'd come out reasonably nice by default.
I'm the sort of user who likes to fuss over my files a lot anyway, so a
lot of the ease-of-use requests don't make so much difference to me,
since it's something I'm probably going to want to take the time to
tweak anyway. This, on the other hand, would make an enormous
difference. Unlike other failings of Finale where there's some
roundabout kludge or plug-in to help you get it done, for a long slur
there's just no way to do it at all no matter how much time you spend
on it. It forces even the best and most meticulous engraver to put out
an flawed product.
Just as important to MakeMusic, perhaps, would be the marketing hook.
If they would fix long slurs in one of their upgrades they'd once again
be able to claim truthfully that Finale can create professional looking
output that Sibelius et al cannot match.
mdl
P.S. Someone please remind me what the MM feature request email is, so
I can forward this to them.
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