On 14 Oct 2006 at 23:44, shirling & neueweise wrote: > From: "David W. Fenton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Score (like Finale and possibly like Sibelius) > >has a community of plugin developmers? Score > >(like Finale) has a public plugin development > >API? > > i'm not a programmer: i don't completely > understand the distinction between a programme > and a plugin, both for me are simply tools (of > varying complexity) that are external to the > built-in functionality of the programme, this is > what i was referring to, sorry if it was unclear.
Then why do you care who makes the plugin, the Finale programmers or someone else? My point is that Finale is the best in regard to providing an open development interface for extending the basic functionality of the program as it ships from the manufacturer. This makes it much more versatile than either Sibelius (whose plugin architecture is not as open as Finale's, if I understand correctly) or Score (which has no plugin architecture at all, if I'm not mistaken). > >The shortcomings I was referring to were UI and > >basic structural problems (like being entirely > >page-based, tied to a single font and having no > >capability for printing to anything but > >Postscript printers). > > true. there are a few choices for text fonts > however. But the music font is hardwired, and I've always found the open notehead to be much too small. > for most users this is not an issue > either, the average users of finale/sibelius only > use times new roman (jazz scores excepted of > course) or bookman/palatino. But the average Finale/Sibelius user would never be able to get *anything* done with Score, because the UI is so old-fashioned. Mac users wouldn't be able to use it all, of course. One of my main arguments is that Score's design and UI means that it can never be widely used by anyone but the most dedicated engravers and computer users. > for me this > limitation is a serious problem, because i have > developed my own fonts for most graphic > notational details. i have to admit though, the > dynamics in score, which are vector diagrammes > rather than fonts (!), look wonderful. they > have an elegance of character that possibly no > digital font used in finale/sibelius is capable > of emulating. Are you saying that f and p in Score are not drawn with fonts? That's very weird. And of course, all Finale/Sibelius font output is vector-based, in any event, because scalable fonts are being used. Finale has never used bit-mapped fonts, ever, and certainly neither has Sibelius. So, your point makes no sense to me at all. > >But the UI is so horrid, almost lacking entirely. > > yes, of course. the windows emulation is unusable for proofing. Or for much of anything. > >Last time I heard, the only MIDI interface was an add-on (for MIDI > >keyboard input) and didn't work very well. Of course, last I heard > >anything about Score was 10 or 15 years ago. > > yeah MIDI is seriously problematic; however, the > programme is not built - or seen as by its users > - as a compositional assistant. That's not the point of providing MIDI input. 90% of my Finale work is not composition, but the scoring up from parts of 17th-, 18th- and early 19th-century music available only in parts. MIDI input is the method I use to get the notes and rhythms into Finale, and it's extremely fast. > the people i > spoke with all consider the composing of the > piece to be the job of the composer, not of the > person doing the score. This is a false point, as it assumes that only composers would use MIDI input. That's just not true at all. One of the reasons I can't use Sibelius is because it's MIDI input is too unwieldy for me, whereas in Finale I can fly through a piece very quickly. Score offers substantially less than Sibelius in that regard. And MIDI input really ought to be a default feature of any music notation program, seems to me. It is *music* we're printing, after all. > i have to admit i > totally agree with this: despite my knowledge of > finale and familiarity woith working on a > computer, i actually compose on paper, and enter > the score when i can no longer read through the > layers of information on the MS. at least two > similar editing stages usually follow. > certainly this process would be a nightmare in > score because of how it deals with layout, but i > am still able to make a totally clean readable > hand-written score without recourse to a computer > when needed. so i would be able to, if i had to, > prepare a "finished" MS for the person (me) > preparing the score, in score. For me, this is all completely off-base, as the composition/engraving distinction has no correlation at all with whether or not MIDI entry is helpful. > >Score has always been good, especially with drawing slurs and ties. > > except that they are ALWAYS symmetrical, whcih is > much more of a problem with the kinds of > notational situations i come across than > traditional (or pop or film) music. I haven't looked that closely. Surely they can't *always* be symmetrical, such as in a situation where a slur starts on one staff and ends on another. > > > there are a number of similar examples... > >> virtually everything i saw today (and most of the work i have done > >> as well) could be done on any of the three programmes to the same > >> level of quality - if you have the eye and patience for it. > >> however, because of the differences in the various programmes, > >> certain tasks take far more time to do in one or another > >> programme. > > > >Specifics on that would be interesting. > > text on an angle is a joke in score and will > always remain exactly as you position it. That makes no sense to me given Score's ability to do independent staves/notation on a single page. > anything with heavy graphics can typically be > best done in score, somewhat better in sibelius, > and only with much cussing in finale. I've seen some pretty incredible stuff out of Score, yes. But I thought the graphics tool upgrade in Finale took care of the basics for that way back in the 90s. > in sibelius and score you have to have enough > staves for all situations which will occur in > each instrumental group: vln I using 1 stave > (tutti), 2 or 3 stave divisi, solo vlnI staff, > gli altri staff... so far that's 8 staves, and > you don't even want to know what that means for > compiling parts in score... finale + TGTools > deals with this excellently (if not perfectly), > because you can redefine each staff/group bracket > on an individual basis. in score, the staves > are considered numbers (001 from the bottom staff > up in each document), and the text at the > beginning of the staff is only a text element. And in Score, the comparison is far, far worse, as you have no flexibility whatsoever. Can Score even generate parts from an engraved score at all? I honestly don't know. > you can't change the vertical order or the > horizontal positioning of the articulations in > sibelius, so when you need such things, you have > to define them in a different category - symbols > (but of course!). And in Score? > dynamic/text placement is fabulous (not perfect, > but really great) in finale since the massive > upgrade of the text expression tool and > transposing more or less works (you still have to > adjust hairpins in such cases); in sibelius the > texts are placed horizontally according to the > metrical position in the measure and vertically > according to the staff, not the note. so after > transposing more adjustments are necessary in > sibelius than in finale. Can you transpose something already entered in Score? I thought not, but perhaps I'm wrong? > you can't reorder the articulations in the > sibelius toolpad, and there are a limited number > of articulations (as well as some other > elements), so you have to define extra > artculations as symbols (which of course react > differently than articulations). And Score? > sibelius automatically changes the beam height > when tremoli are added (but it seems you can't > change the tremolo symbol or the font used for > it... i'm presently looking into this if anyone > has the answer). And Score? > sibelius has house styles; you can copy and > transfer setting in finale; score is totally > definable, and you can search and replace text > (code) for some changes... not all. I've always thought Sibelius's house styles were the best way to do this. But in Score, is there a way to apply a changed style to multiple pages of a score? I don't believe there is -- you'd have to change each page individually, no? (again, it's been a long time since I looked at Score and never did as much with it as I've done even with Sibelius, so I could be completely wrong on all of this) > setting different staff types, clefs notehead > types for individual notes takes seconds in > score, since everything is considered on an X-Y > grid. try setting 8 different and > non-overlapping staff styles in a single measure > in finale and you're bound to strangle your > goldfish. yeah of course, partial measures blah > blah blah, you can do it to some extent, but > there are situations which you cannot resolve, > but i've never been able to figure out exactly > why to report it. This one I don't quite understand. It seems to me that Score's ability to set things very preciselly with it's XY grid is great when you need that, but there isn't any corresponding UI for less granular settings. In other words, to make a change to default positioning you have to go to tweaking numbers and then printing to see if it's correct (as the onscreen display is not accurate enough). > >... it's not possible to be a casual Score user. > >It's just got no obvious user interface. You've > >got to know the keyboard shortcuts and how they > >interact with the mouse clicks or you'll never > >get anywhere. And you've got to know how to lay > >out the score before you start. > > for all but your last comment, i think this is > also true of anyone who wants to work efficiently > with finale/sibelius. i use mouse-click for > menus as little as possible, preferring key > combos built into the OS, the programme and iKeys. Well, no, I don't think it's true at all. Anyone who understands music and has used a computer can open Finale and Sibelius and create a printable score. It will look *terrible*, probably, but they will be able to get something out of it. That is simply not true at all with Score -- you won't be able to do anything until you've learned a lot of details about the non-obvious UI. That said, those who used Score often observed that on ease of learning it was terrible, but on ease of use, it excelled. But that was also an observation made in the bad old days of Finale 2.x and 3.x, and before Sibelius even existed. [] > > >and since finale is not developed by musicians... > > sorry, poorly-phrased. although musicians may be > involved in the development of the programme, and > persons may be consulted who are musicians, and > people on this list have also certainly had > modest to moderate impact on development > decisions, "musicians" are not those who make the > PRIMARY decisions about the development of finale. And they are for Sibelius? And they are for Score? >From where I sit, having musicians make the decisions for Score hasn't gotten anybody anything, given that it's basically a completely moribund program. > >In other words, a 200-year-old tradition that doesn't reflect the > >capabilities the computer brings to the process. > > well, the other side of this is that a lot was > lost in the early years of computer engraving > that finale and sibelius are still catching up > on, but was implemented in score right from the > start. typographical control for one, quality > output is another. and many of the plugins > developed for finale simply hide its > insufficiencies to create output which reflects, > respects and possibly builds upon this 200-year > old tradition. What I've never understood is what the magic is that allows Score and Lilypond (supposedly) to produce such excellent output while the programs with good user interfaces don't do the same thing. What's so secret about the algorithms involved that Finale and Sibelius's programmers can't figure it out? I suspect that there's two things operating: 1. they have to accommodate substantially more engraving styles that Score was designed for, AND 2. they didn't start out from a goal of implementing a single engraving style to begin with. > have you noticed how many errors there are in the > instrument.txt file? most users wouldn't notice, > but the kinds of errors this introduces wouldn't > happen (or at least only rarely) with score > users' output. But that's not because Score has a better intrument.txt file (or something corresponding to it) -- it's because whatever is in Finale's instrument.txt file has to be provided by the Score user from his or her own knowledge. If you don't want to depend on the Finale setup wizards, you can get it right, but if you take shortcuts, you may end up with mistakes made by someone else. I don't see this as something better about Score at all, because it's a feature that Score doesn't even implement at all. How can you compare an implementation with mistakes in it to no implementation at all? Surely the added flexibility of the wizard is better to have than no shortuct tools at all? > > > i.e. the goal has > >> always been high-quality publishing level output (judged by > >> existing plate-publishing standards). the thinking in score > >> reflects this almost exactly, yes the entire layout has to be > >> planned in advance, as was the case with plate engraving. > > > >And that means the spacing algorithms don't have to calculate certain > >kinds of things because the engraver does that calculating. > > yeah, based on standards and individual decisions > informed by contextual understanding of notation, > engraving and graphic design. again, PIs have > been developed to begin to gain back what was > lost in this area, but the users are not gaining > the knowledge that is part of this tradition, > they are gaining tools that allow them to fake > it. however, this is another discussion... Fake it? If the result is the same why does it matter that the computer calculated it instead of a human being? That makes no sense to me at all. The goal is a nicely engraved page, and if the computer can figure it out correctly without the human being needing to know how it's done, I say GREAT! > >Why is it that everyone assumes the purchase of Sibelius by another > >company means that Sibelius will be weakened? Isn't there a certain > >synergy involved there? Why would a company purchase Sibelius and > >then kill it off? > > the brothers apparently (a colleague of mine > follows the forum quite closely) had very strange > reactions on the sibelius forum that have made a > number of its users wary. the buy-out was > initially pumped as a partnership... which it > certainly isn't. also they claimed taht the > next version will not be affected by the > "merger"... well of course not, because the next > version is already more than half-ready probably. > not a word from the brothers on how the "merger" > will affect the next 2, 3, 5 versions, they > haven't even responded to such questions. Well, I've always found the brothers rather creepy and weird, anyway. I don't think it's good to have an application of the complexity of a music notation program controlled so closely by two people. > could be a marketing issue (i'm no economist > either, you should see the shirts i wear!). > company X buys out Y because (and only when) Y > has become a more or less "mature" player; X > doesn't really have to invest in the difficult > and costly stages of development, but simply need > to assure a VERY minimal amount of maintenance > and "improvements" of Y's products and rely on > their own (X's) massive marketing capacity to > assure continuous and increasing income from the > buyout. IBM for many years left Lotus alone as a near-independent unit producing its own software. As Lotus's software products aged, they were eventually folded in with other IBM software products, or phased out entirely. But this took about 10 years, and so far as I know, none of Lotus's customers were left in the lurch without support or an upgrade path. > i too like to maintain belief in the goodwill of > humanity, but come on, seriously, no buyout of > this sort has the good of the user community > anywhere near its top priorities. Perhaps I don't know enough about the details, but wasn't the purchasing company in a business that dovetails very well with music notation software? > >Score has no future. It could very easily be > >completely broken by a shift in the support for > >old-fashioned graphics (it's a DOS program, > >after all, and assumes direct hardware access). > > i'm not sure what you mean here, i have no > understanding of DOS or of programming. there > is a guy who might be the person to take on score > in the future... it is an open question at the > moment; based on discussions with users of score > i would not be so arrogant as to suggest it has > "no future". In its current form, it has no future. It is tied to an OS that no longer ships on modern computers (DOS), though currently backward compatibility with that OS is maintained. Microsoft could inadvertently break Score's ability to run on a new version of Windows, forcing the user to reboot to an old version of DOS. But then the user is faced with graphics card problems in that old DOS doesn't know anything about PCI or AGP or whatever graphics standard is in use today, so perhaps couldn't use the graphics card. It's a significant issue. A Windows version is necessary for Score to have any long-term future, and that's been the case for 15 years now. That there isn't a Windows version after 15 years suggests to me that there never will be, because nobody cares enough about it anymore to justify the investment. > >Finale has improved in so many of the ways that > >bothered me, and because Finale remains a viable > >program. That can't be said for Score, seems to > >me. > > like i said, the programme itself seems to have > already been complete enough for its users that > an update of the programme itself was not > *urgent*, given the programmes developed to > assist it. What programs have been developed to assist Score? This is an area I know nothing about. > >Score is never going to be released as a Windows program. > >Ever. > > i respect your knowledge of and experiences with > PC, david, but seriously think you're wrong on > this one. of course time willl tell. After 15 years there's nothing. I can't seriously see how it will ever happen. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
