Jumped in the deep end with 2007 with an on-going project (you
fool)...and wished I hadn't. I don't know what others have discovered
but it is far too bug ridden for me to use yet. I lost a LOT of time.
Here are a few of the problems I found and will notify MM in due
course. If others find the same please heckle otherwise we'll never
get a solid workable version.
Linked Parts:
Had some fun with this trying to get an old template file into shape.
Not easy. It didn't help that acrobat reader couldn't read chapter 37
'Creating Parts' having gone through the usual help index, but using
Preview did the job. It is useful to read this chapter through before
ploughing in there as there are a few things you are advised to do
before setting it all up.
What I did find was a bug or a very confusing contradiction in the
page setup for parts dialogue. The parameters setup here never came
out true to form in the parts and the margins spacings always
reverted to a strange 0.08cms making the systems vey close together.
It seems that you need to go into a part, call up the system edit
dialogue and change them there and then select all the parts to
change from that setting. Seems arse about face to me, why have a
page setup for parts at all if it doesn't kick in properly. Even more
annoying is that you can't even extract the parts based on your
presets, they all came out with the same ridiculously small margins.
Still, I figured out the work around, but it's not exactly intuitive
stuff.
Group names are going to be fun also.
Next problems arose with some extracted parts:
Drag a smart shape and the page goes blank, also when changing layers
in page view in a part or when deleting an articulation.
Articulations and staff expressions in score didn't come out in
extracted parts and no, this wasn't because they were attached to
another stave, I checked (I'm a long time Finale user since v2.0 so I
know most of the usual pitfalls).
Staff Optimization updates only on redraw command. This is really
frustating and one wonders to begin with if anything has actually
happened after implementing it. This will confuse many.
System adjustments in parts don't update when 'Apply' is clicked but
will do when _another_ tool is selected or the dialogue is exited.
This will confuse the hell out of newbies, well it did me also.
Select 'Special tools' tool and the page goes blank except for the
measure you are editing. This is really annoying and means you can
only view one measure at a time (+ a lot of tiny handles all over the
screen)
All this 'blanking out' goes away when the layer menu (bottom left of
screen) shuts down, i.e. goes blank and also becomes in-operable.
This little menu disappearance used to happen on previous versions
after changing layer a lot. I never use the bottom left drop down
menu or the main menu for changing layers as there is a keystroke
which is much faster, but this is a long standing bug that is now
causing more problems. I can't tell you how long it took trying to
edit a part.
Message bar bug is still there: Elect to not show, and it just
continues to show up at odd moments, then disappears but leave you
short of your top staff view because it has blanked off that part of
the screen. Wonderful! Just like an old friend.
Plugins: Doesn't recognize Patterson Beams settings, in fact when the
plugin is applied all the stems and beams that drop below the notes
get shortened up to the centre staff line regardless of position or
note and the ones that have beams or stems extending upwards from the
note head go to all different heights, none of which look satisfactory.
Jumps forward a section after exiting speedy entry frame (in scroll
view), you'll love it!
Staff expressions are not true to position after moving, i.e. they
move again upon redraw screen
Enharmonic spelling is now 2 drop down menus away from base, thanks a
lot MM - and doesn't there need to be a FINALE shortcut for this.
Yes, I can hear everyone say "get quickkeys" but surely this is a
basic event in music notation for everyone and certainly comes way
above a lot of other key commands already installed.
Slurs and articulations in older documents appeared far away from the
notes, 2-3 cms and all needed to be reset.
The new look is great on the eyes, just as it was in 2006 and
thankfully is a little faster than 2006 which I found unbearable.
So, that's a few impressions after 3 days of work. I'm not big on he
GPO or MIDI things as I use hardware but it all seemed to playback
fine, so there's something pro to be said there. I can see the idea
behind the linked parts and it does work but there is a lot left
behind the scenes to fix. Unfortunately, we don't all just open up a
pre-prepared MM wizard file and bang in a few notes which I'm sure
works fine. After all Finale is a now mature application and should
be addressing these issues before it is released. I just wish they'd
forget the annual deadline and get the thing sorted out first.
Back to 2005 for me for the meantime which is very stable, almost as
good as 2004!
Jonathan
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