On 29 May 2009 at 18:16, Allen Fisher wrote: > Oh for the love of...they're NOT removing speedy. I don't know how > these rumors get started...it's like when they would release mac/win > separately and one group or the other would think their platform's > getting dropped because their platform wasn't first.
We're well aware of the fact that MM is working towards promoting Simple over Speedy for new users. Add to that the fact that they are careless enough as to not mention it in their page on all the various methods for entering notes: http://www.finalemusic.com/Finale/features/enteringnotes/default.aspx seems to me to be worth worrying about. The first paragraph says: * Enter notes with your computer keyboard and/or mouse. * Use your MIDI keyboard (or any other MIDI device) in combination with your computer keyboard and mouse to enter notes and chords. * Play a MIDI keyboard and watch your music appear on-screen in real time. * Use Finale´s exclusive MicNotator® to play notes into your microphone with a brass or woodwind instrument. * Scan existing sheet music. * Import MIDI, MusicXML, Smartscore, or Finale family notation files. No other notation software offers this breadth of note entry options. If they are trying to promote Finale on the grounds of versatility of getting notes into your files, why do they leave out one of the main methods, Speedy entry? Then the main articles that go into more detail are Simple, HyperScribe, MicNotator and Scanning. The latter three are not all that useful methods of data entry (although SmartScore Lite does a fairly good job of importing graphics made from PDFs that were produced by notation programs). Speedy is much more versatile and useful than three out of the four methods that they are promoting as such great features. But Speedy is not mentioned. This is not an oversight on their part. This is a conscious decision to write their promotional material in a manner that purposefully avoids any mention whatsoever of Speedy entry. That's VERY clear from the above. What message are we to take away from that? All I can say is that it suggests to me that MM thinks Speedy is not a marketable feature, one that will not get them new users. That's the most charitable explanation, I think. After the Staff Lists fiasco and the Expressions debacle, I don't think it's unreasonable at all to worry that MM will take away important functionality that lots of us have come to depend on. I'm not buying this upgrade (I can't afford it -- I'd love to, since I'm still using WinFin2003, which is fine for my use, but I'd sure love to get the benefit of the numerous great features that have been added since then, not least of which would be linked parts since I'm producing parts for nearly every project I'm working on these days), but I plan to buy other upgrades in the future. But if Speedy is gone, there's really no reason any longer for me to stick with Finale, which has become increasingly buggy over the last few years, according to reports on this list. If Speedy is gone, or folded into Simple in a way that removes its advantages, I'll move to the notation program that is created by people who seem to care about their customers, as opposed to the one that is created by people who seem to not be in control of their development process to the point that they can't fix bugs that have been around for half a decade or more. -- 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
