Re: [Finale] Community consultation; know your tools (was: RTFM, no. It shouldn't be necessary.)
My God man, how do you function in the world? Seriously. I've received a couple of private emails saying that it was a belittling comment. Not in your world. I think that is what ticks me off. You coming off as the be all end all authority here. I think there are some serious holes in your training if you didn't even think about transposing. I was saying, and I believe citing examples, of how it made sense from a prospective of someone who deals with music every day. Or perhaps has training in arranging or composition. Sure, I'm familiar with Finale, but it makes sense regardless. I cited a number of examples of why. All dismissed out of hand. Could it be somewhere else as well? Sure. Maybe. I'm not convinced that it should be somewhere else. But to label someone Stockholm Syndrome for trying to say it makes sense from a music prospective, that is crossing the line. I'll dismiss your arguments as Headinass Syndrome. Perhaps that is why you got to be in the tangle you are in..you dismissed something out of hand, or didn't really read up on something cause you knew it. Yeah. Ok. I still think the Finale documentation is some of the best for software I've seen, and I do refer to it when I can't figure stuff out. And I have yet not to find what I am looking for. David W. Fenton wrote: On 5 Jan 2006 at 23:03, Eric Dannewitz wrote: Look, labeling someone with STOCKHOLM is cordial? It's belittling. . . . I don't see it that way, though I certainly did intend it as a criticism. But not all criticisms are belittling or insulting. In any event, in the timeline I established, I allowed that my own contributions to the discourse had departed from the cordial level by yesterday, which would exclude my assertion that you were sympathizing with your captors. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Community consultation; know your tools (was: RTFM, no. It shouldn't be necessary.)
Might I remind everyone (including David) that consulting a community like this is certainly a way to circumvent bad documentation and/or unintuitive UI? In less than 10 minutes from his original post, three people had responded with the correct information. Additionally, it is a very good idea to know your tools, and to explore them completely detached from any work you'll need to do with them. I've rarely (if ever) used Preserve Original Notes when transposing, but I knew it was there because I've spent a good deal of time pawing through the menus and dialogs of Finale just to know what's in them. You don't think a carpenter's training only involves him (or her) using a saw when he is actually building a table, do you? No; the carpenter-in-training uses the saw to cut random blocks of wood around the shop, just for the practice and to understand the use of his tools. Once the carpenter has reached a level of mastery, his first thought on encountering a problem is not to consult a book, but to remember what he knows through experience. It should be the same with us. If you've been using a tool professionally for any length of time, you should know what it's capable of (for the most part). I'm not claiming to understand every nook and cranny of Finale; I never will, nor do I want to. I'm also not saying that the UI doesn't need a redesign, but users of the current version should be relatively familiar with its workings but willing to ask for help when necessary. To be honest, this whole thread seems to have been started by David's annoyance that others knew better than he how to find a particular feature of the program. Sure it my be bad UI, but that doesn't mean that we should throw up our hands in disgust and refuse to accept the fact that this is the way it is. When consulting the list for assistance, we should take note of the solutions suggested and move on (a bit wiser, hopefully). If there's an easy way to do it of which we weren't previously aware, that does not give us license to rage on and on at each other and at the developers. I'm sorry for the length and I apologize if anybody is offended by these remarks; this reply has just been building up inside me for the last couple of days. Feel free to hit the DELETE key and move on... -- Brad Beyenhof Real-time Finale discussion: http://www.finaleirc.com my blog: http://augmentedfourth.blogspot.com Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. ~ Igor Stravinsky ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Community consultation; know your tools (was: RTFM, no. It shouldn't be necessary.)
On 5 Jan 2006 at 15:04, Brad Beyenhof wrote: Might I remind everyone (including David) that consulting a community like this is certainly a way to circumvent bad documentation and/or unintuitive UI? In less than 10 minutes from his original post, three people had responded with the correct information. Well, sure, but one can't dismiss the shortcomings of Finale's design by using the Finale list. Additionally, it is a very good idea to know your tools, and to explore them completely detached from any work you'll need to do with them. I've rarely (if ever) used Preserve Original Notes when transposing, but I knew it was there because I've spent a good deal of time pawing through the menus and dialogs of Finale just to know what's in them. So have I, but that feature never meant anything to me when I've seen it in the past, if I ever actually consciously noticed it or not. You don't think a carpenter's training only involves him (or her) using a saw when he is actually building a table, do you? No; the carpenter-in-training uses the saw to cut random blocks of wood around the shop, just for the practice and to understand the use of his tools. Once the carpenter has reached a level of mastery, his first thought on encountering a problem is not to consult a book, but to remember what he knows through experience. I went through all the menus that seemed to be applicable to the task (my first thought, like Dennis points out, was the canonic utility plugins), and then I hunted through the documentation under all the headings that came to mind. Unable to find an answer, I posted to the list. It should be the same with us. If you've been using a tool professionally for any length of time, you should know what it's capable of (for the most part). . . . What does professional mean in this context? I'm not a professional engraver, nor a professional musician. But I think I use Finale at a professional level, in terms of the depth of knowledge, because I've done so much work with it over the last 15 years. . . . I'm not claiming to understand every nook and cranny of Finale; I never will, nor do I want to. I'm also not saying that the UI doesn't need a redesign, but users of the current version should be relatively familiar with its workings but willing to ask for help when necessary. I think I am familiar, and, obviously, I *did* ask. And, yes, I got my answer. Along with a RTFM. My understanding that this whole discussion was not really about my original question but about the RTFM response. I will note that I responded cordially to that hostile response and asked for an explanation of exactly what logical path could have led me to the correct answer, but received no answer. To be honest, this whole thread seems to have been started by David's annoyance that others knew better than he how to find a particular feature of the program. . . . Excuse me? If you'll review the record, you'll see that I didn't get annoyed until individuals started defending Finale's shortcomings. Indeed, I was quite cordial in my response to the RTFM post. What I replied was this: I *did* read the manual. I didn't know what to look for. How would *you* find it in the manual, if you didn't already know that it was part of transposition? So far as I can see the individual whose response was RTFM did not answer my question. In retrospect, I am puzzled as to exactly why I did *not* follow the reference to transposition in the index under DOUBLING, since that's the first topic I looked under. Perhaps it's because I thought that it would be a reference to something else. In any event, it did not fit my mental map of what I was trying to do sufficiently to look to me as a path worth following. Knowing now that the feature is under transposition and understanding *why* it is there, it seems obvious to have followed that reference. But at the time, it clearly didn't make sufficient sense to me for it to look like an answer to my problem at all. . . . Sure it my be bad UI, but that doesn't mean that we should throw up our hands in disgust and refuse to accept the fact that this is the way it is. . . . Well, then, it's a good thing that nobody is doing that. . . . When consulting the list for assistance, we should take note of the solutions suggested and move on (a bit wiser, hopefully). . . . I'm not the one who took the discussion to the unpleasant side. That was done by the person who expressed hostility by saying RTFM, yet, can't be bothered now to follow up on my reasonable and cordial question as to how I could have gotten to the correct answer that way. . . . If there's an easy way to do it of which we weren't previously aware, that does not give us license to rage on and on at each other and at the developers. Who is raging at each other or at the developers? I may be annoyed at someone's responses today, but I think his reaction to
Re: [Finale] Community consultation; know your tools (was: RTFM, no. It shouldn't be necessary.)
On 1/5/06, David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 5 Jan 2006 at 15:04, Brad Beyenhof wrote: To be honest, this whole thread seems to have been started by David's annoyance that others knew better than he how to find a particular feature of the program. . . . Excuse me? If you'll review the record, you'll see that I didn't get annoyed until individuals started defending Finale's shortcomings. Indeed, I was quite cordial in my response to the RTFM post. I apologize for this; it was a misremembering on my own part (and, in fact, mainly bein annoyed with some of the posters in the thread... particularly by some overtly hostile swearing). . . . If there's an easy way to do it of which we weren't previously aware, that does not give us license to rage on and on at each other and at the developers. Who is raging at each other or at the developers? I may be annoyed at someone's responses today, but I think his reaction to *me* is an order of magnitude more hostile than anything I raised in responses to his posts. This comment was in no way related to you, David. I refer again to the uncordial conduct displayed by others who took the usual intelligent discourse in this forum and fouled it up with unnecessary hateful language. Why are you responding in this fashion to what seems to me to have been a perfectly genial discussion until this afternoon when *someone else* chose to push the level of discourse into the trenches? I don't know what you mean by in this fashion, but please note that I included a disclaimer to the effect that I was merely venting my frustrations with the unyielding back-and-forth certain list members were having. I was not pointing a finger at you, David (except in one sentence for which I have apologized above), but merely being appalled at the hostility being demonstrated by certain list members that is in no way warranted in this sort of forum. Again, I apologize for any offense; my previous message was fairly hastily written and I got one of my more important facts wrong. The fact still remains that the level of disagreement has surely gotten out of hand through the course of the thread, and it is this that has made me as exasperated as I currently am. -- Brad Beyenhof Real-time Finale discussion: http://www.finaleirc.com my blog: http://augmentedfourth.blogspot.com Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. ~ Igor Stravinsky ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Community consultation; know your tools (was: RTFM, no. It shouldn't be necessary.)
Look, labeling someone with STOCKHOLM is cordial? It's belittling. It makes sense from a MUSIC prospective. That is what I was arguing. And I was dismissed as having Stockholm syndrome. By some guy who isn't even a musician. He can say he thinks the interface sucks to high hell. Good. Fine. I'm not standing for being belittled by some idiot who missed OCTAVE and DOUBLE in the index. I stand by my statements. Brad Beyenhof wrote: This comment was in no way related to you, David. I refer again to the uncordial conduct displayed by others who took the usual intelligent discourse in this forum and fouled it up with unnecessary hateful language. Why are you responding in this fashion to what seems to me to have been a perfectly genial discussion until this afternoon when *someone else* chose to push the level of discourse into the trenches? I don't know what you mean by in this fashion, but please note that I included a disclaimer to the effect that I was merely venting my frustrations with the unyielding back-and-forth certain list members were having. I was not pointing a finger at you, David (except in one sentence for which I have apologized above), but merely being appalled at the hostility being demonstrated by certain list members that is in no way warranted in this sort of forum. Again, I apologize for any offense; my previous message was fairly hastily written and I got one of my more important facts wrong. The fact still remains that the level of disagreement has surely gotten out of hand through the course of the thread, and it is this that has made me as exasperated as I currently am. -- Brad Beyenhof Real-time Finale discussion: http://www.finaleirc.com my blog: http://augmentedfourth.blogspot.com Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. ~ Igor Stravinsky ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
