Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
David W. Fenton wrote: My point is that simple optimization (i.e., removing blank staves from a systen) should happen automatically if you have optimization turned on for the passage of music represented on a system (while I understand that Johannes has a use for optimization being stored in absolute systems, I think that's a different kind of issue that comes about because of the way one is forced to create parts in Finale -- if they were all stored in the same file instead of in separate files, his issue would likely go away, since you'd have a score layout and a part layout, all stored in a single file; but that's another issue where I think Finale is confusing and less than ideal). In my case this has nothing to do with parts at all. The reason I need to optimize out parts which have got music in them has to do with doubling parts. For instance, in some situations the first and second violins play identical parts, and for space reasons I just want to show one of them, but the other one needs to have the music in it both for later part extraction but also because the decision to optimize out the second violin part is made at a later stage and needs to be reversible. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
David, Optimization in Finale allows to remove blank staves _and_ makes the vertical spacing of each system independent from the global setting. It has *all* to do with the vertical spacing. You can optimize without removing empty staves. Unless I am missing something here it is you who hasn't understood the concept of optimization in Finale. The meaning of the word in this particular context is pretty much besides the point. But if anything to optimize means to make individual staves more optimal, and that could well mean increasing the space between staves. Johannes David W. Fenton wrote: On 3 Mar 2005 at 17:28, Mark D Lew wrote: It's just that I would have worded it to say that removal of empty staves is what needs to be separated from optimization. The meaning of the word optimization would then be associated with something that is not remotely related to the concept the word represents. You optimize in Finale in order to optimize the usage of space on the page, by eliminating blank staves, so you can fit more systems in fewer pages. This has *zilch* to do with vertical positioning of staves within systems. So, I think you have a completely backwards conception of what optimization actually is -- optimization *is* removing blank staves, and the part that you use of it is something else entirely that has nothing to do with optimizing space on the page (though you might reduce spacing between staves in order to fit more systems on one page; but you could also *increase* spacing in order to avoid overlap of extreme elements, and that is the opposite of optimizing). -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
I appreciate all the feedback and ideas, everyone, thank you. I've worked with 2005 for the last day now, and already see many dramatic improvements, and appreciated the returned control over the end product. So it is back to Finale for me. I've also written a blog entry on this topic (Finale vs. Sibelius) on my website, would be interested in your feedback: http://www.jefferycotton.net/info.asp?pgs=blogentryblbe=10 (The entry is entitled Sex in the Concert Hall -- which has nothing to do with Finale, alas.) Jeffery - Jeffery Cotton President Wired Musician, Inc. http://www.wiredmusician.net see my own website at http://www.jefferycotton.net - -Original Message- ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 4, 2005, at 5:32 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've also written a blog entry on this topic (Finale vs. Sibelius) on my website, would be interested in your feedback: Very nicely put, but for my money (all 0$ of it!) I would have liked more detail than just hairpin openings, particularly any details that might pertain to the accurate and readable, and not much else crowd. These are the ones I have to convince when talking about notation programs. BTW, in your second-last line in the blog, about getting out of Cassis, did you mean to write Maybe I can find that hansom cab driver again or did you really find him handsome? I wouldn't have been confused at all except for a previous line about Sibelius being the knockout bombshell in the tight dress talk about your mixed messages! No complaints from my end either way I am only interested in the idea that you want to express being clearly put across. 8-) Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
Thanks, Christopher -- I didn't want to go into too much detail about Sibelius' inadequacies in the blog, but as I do have to complete one piece I'm working on now in Sibelius (I'm too far along to start over now) it might be worth keeping a list of these things and posting them later. No, a hansom cab from Cassis to Marseille for 10 ten miles of southern French mountains would NOT be a good solution. I'm afraid I meant handsome (you can read the relevant blog entry here, and all will become clear: http://www.jefferycotton.net/info.asp?pgs=blogentryblbe=8). I didn't mean to cause confusion, but I doubt that the hot stud in leather chaps who can't spell 'hairpin' would have been quite as clear in its meaning -- to the majority anyway. Jeffery - Jeffery Cotton President Wired Musician, Inc. http://www.wiredmusician.net http://www.wiredmusician.net see my own website at http://www.jefferycotton.net http://www.jefferycotton.net - -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Christopher Smith Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 1:45 PM To: finale@shsu.edu Subject: Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison On Mar 4, 2005, at 5:32 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've also written a blog entry on this topic (Finale vs. Sibelius) on my website, would be interested in your feedback: Very nicely put, but for my money (all 0$ of it!) I would have liked more detail than just hairpin openings, particularly any details that might pertain to the accurate and readable, and not much else crowd. These are the ones I have to convince when talking about notation programs. BTW, in your second-last line in the blog, about getting out of Cassis, did you mean to write Maybe I can find that hansom cab driver again or did you really find him handsome? I wouldn't have been confused at all except for a previous line about Sibelius being the knockout bombshell in the tight dress talk about your mixed messages! No complaints from my end either way I am only interested in the idea that you want to express being clearly put across. 8-) Christopher ___ 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
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've also written a blog entry on this topic (Finale vs. Sibelius) on my website, would be interested in your feedback: http://www.jefferycotton.net/info.asp?pgs=blogentryblbe=10 I hope you've also found the Interviews on the Finale Tips site. Those should give you many other aspects of what Finale is today. http://www.finaletips.nu/ Best regards, Jari Williamsson ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 3 Mar 2005 at 19:37, Mark D Lew wrote: On Mar 3, 2005, at 6:40 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: Do you currently have to define default vertical spacing for systems on a per-system basis? No, of course not -- there are default settings already. The default setting for the system I describe would be that the default vertical spacing for a measure would be equal to the system margins. If you reduced the vertical spacing for all the measures in a system, the system margins could then automatically contract. If you increased the vertical spacing for a selected block of measures, it would cause the system margins to expand to accommodate it. I don't understand this paragraph. The default vertical spacing for any system is the global positions set up in scroll view (ie, what I think of as the unoptimized' spacing). I have no idea what you mean by system margins. Maybe I do things differently, or maybe this is another semantic thing. We're talking past each other. I'm talking about system spacing and you're talking about spacing between staves within a system. Both are pre-defined when you go into page view, so, there's no reason that measure margins would not also be pre-defined by the same mechanism as system margins. Say you had only one measure in a system that needed expanded vertical space. In the current situation, you adjust the vertical spacing for the system to accommodate the measure that is the extreme case. If that measure gets moved to another system, you have to start over, changing two systems. If, on the other hand, you set the vertical spacing for that one measure, if it got moved to another system, the target system would then expand accordingly, and the original system would contract back to the defaults (or to the next smallest setting in the measures in that system). OK, that makes sense. I'm in the habit of doing all my layout adjustments only after layout is set, so the change wouldn't really benefit me much, but I can see how it would be a great help to people who make large changes to a piece after layout has already been set. You never change your mind? I usually lay out a piece onscreen, then print it and then make adjustments to the layout because of problems I couldn't perceive onscreen. I doubt that Finale would want to have that AND the ability to adjust by system. If so, and the change is made, then whenever I have page-specific adjustments I'd have to do them indirectly by simply selecting all the measures in that system and adjusting accordingly. But that would be all right. At that point, I won't be changing the layout anyway, so it all comes out the same. I don't see why you couldn't have both. You have a very strange definition of the word. Optimization means REMOVING BLANK SYSTEMS. Read the optimization dialog box -- it says nothing about vertical spacing of staves within systems. I'm using Fin Mac 2k2. My optimization dialog box says this: Optimizing can remove empty staves from Page View AND/OR make staves in specified systems independently adjustable. In other words, Finale thinks that both functions are part of optimization. In fact, the AND/OR is not quite accurate. While it is possible to optimize without removing empty staves, it is not possible to optimize without making staves independently adjustable. I've quoted verbatim from the dialog box. If your version of Finale says something different, that could explain our disagreement about the meaning of the term. The Windows dialog is the same, but there are no settings in the dialog that have anything whatsoever to do with vertical staff spacing -- all the settings have to do with showing/hiding systems. The way I see it is that this is the tail wagging the dog, because without having grafted the vertical spacing feature onto optimization, there'd be no logical reason to have the ability to optimize without hiding systems. That is, if as I suggest, all systems in page view had two handles (as happens currently after optimization), then there would no longer be any relationship between vertical staff spacing and the process of optimization, and the ability to uncheck Remove Empty Staves would then serve no function whatsoever, since right now, all it does is turn on the ability to space staves vertically (if it's unchecked). I understand your point of view that changing inter-system spacing is part of optimizing your layout for the pages, but I think it's a mistake in the design of Finale, as it means that, in cases where you *don't* want staves hidden if empty, you have to turn on optimization before you can adjust vertical spacing. I think that's a ridiculous requirement. I believe this would satisfy both us, yes? Pretty much. But I still like the idea of vertical spacing travelling with the measure, not being permanently anchored to an absolute system position. I'd be OK with
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 4 Mar 2005 at 9:50, Johannes Gebauer wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: My point is that simple optimization (i.e., removing blank staves from a systen) should happen automatically if you have optimization turned on for the passage of music represented on a system (while I understand that Johannes has a use for optimization being stored in absolute systems, I think that's a different kind of issue that comes about because of the way one is forced to create parts in Finale -- if they were all stored in the same file instead of in separate files, his issue would likely go away, since you'd have a score layout and a part layout, all stored in a single file; but that's another issue where I think Finale is confusing and less than ideal). In my case this has nothing to do with parts at all. The reason I need to optimize out parts which have got music in them has to do with doubling parts. For instance, in some situations the first and second violins play identical parts, and for space reasons I just want to show one of them, but the other one needs to have the music in it both for later part extraction but also because the decision to optimize out the second violin part is made at a later stage and needs to be reversible. Well, again, if layout of score and parts all happened in a single score, both having settings that could be controlled independently (instead of parts inheriting all the settings from the score, with a few exceptions), then it wouldn't be a problem. Again, I'm not advocating the removal of present functionality, just a rationalization of default behavior. As I just said in another message, in many aspects Finale seems to me to be designed more to handle the exceptions well than to do normal tasks easily. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 4, 2005, at 12:22 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: OK, that makes sense. I'm in the habit of doing all my layout adjustments only after layout is set, so the change wouldn't really benefit me much, but I can see how it would be a great help to people who make large changes to a piece after layout has already been set. You never change your mind? I usually lay out a piece onscreen, then print it and then make adjustments to the layout because of problems I couldn't perceive onscreen. When I print a rough draft to visualize layout, it's generally before I've adjusted the spacing of staves within systems. That is, I'm looking at a printout that has unoptimized systems (um, my definition of unoptimized, I mean) and I'm just visualizing what the spacing needs will be. Later I'll make further adjustments, but it's rare that it includes changing any system breaks. That is, if as I suggest, all systems in page view had two handles (as happens currently after optimization), then there would no longer be any relationship between vertical staff spacing and the process of optimization, and the ability to uncheck Remove Empty Staves would then serve no function whatsoever, since right now, all it does is turn on the ability to space staves vertically (if it's unchecked). As I mentioned before, I agree with you about separating the functions. Our only difference is that I'm accustomed to using the word optimizing for the other half of the conjoined function. I understand your point of view that changing inter-system spacing is part of optimizing your layout for the pages, but I think it's a mistake in the design of Finale, as it means that, in cases where you *don't* want staves hidden if empty, you have to turn on optimization before you can adjust vertical spacing. I think that's a ridiculous requirement. I personally have no use for a system with only one handle. If there were a function that acted to restore any system to its scroll view defaults, that should pretty much take care of anyone who ever has use for the my-definition half of remove optimization. There very well might be better conceptual ways to implement this than what I've described, but I think my point is clear: the way Finale works requires more work than it need have, as it requires you to think of systems as empty slots that the music pours into, and that the slots have their own characteristics (vertical spacing, hidden staves) that are independent of what music is displayed in them. Now, yes, we can all think of unusual situations where this can actually be turned to advantage, but it is still antithetical to the most obvious way of thinking about how it should happen (in my opinion). Spacing of systems and hidden blank staves should be determined by the content of the music, not by which system slot the measures end up in. Well, this is a larger matter than just splitting the two optimization functions or having vertical-spacing requirements attached to measures. I think you can see how the numbered system as an item to which qualities are attached is pretty fundamental to its data structure, in terms of drawing the page and so forth. I'm not saying that couldn't be changed, mind you, I'm just saying that it's a rather large reworking of Finale's definition that's going to be a lot more programming work with a lot more cans of worms opened along the way. I agree that pouring into system slots sometimes makes things awkward, and I can see how those problems would be compounded for someone who makes system-based adjustments and then later makes a large addition or deletion which bumps a lot of music into different systems. But at the same time, I don't think you can let go of systems as fundamental units, because many things really do depend on the system context and not just the music within its measures. Changing divisis from one staff to two really does happen at a system break. I really do decide whether to leave a blank vocal staff showing or remove it depending on the vertical density of the page as a whole. There are certain decisions that can only be made within the context of the completely laid out page. I still don't understand what you mean by system margins. In Page View, click on the handle in the upper left of the system and from the context menu choose EDIT MARGINS. That's what I'm talking about -- the margins of the system. Ah! How funny. I use that dialog all the time but somehow I never paid any attention to the name of it. I leave that window open at all times, so that it automatically shows whenever I go to the Page Layout tool. As I said above, you were talking about spacing between staves within a system, I was talking about spacing between whole systems, and the solution I described only solved that problem. I see no reason (other than increasing complexity of UI and onscreen representation of the margins) that my ideas couldn't be applied within between staves within a
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
David W. Fenton wrote: In my case this has nothing to do with parts at all. The reason I need to optimize out parts which have got music in them has to do with doubling parts. For instance, in some situations the first and second violins play identical parts, and for space reasons I just want to show one of them, but the other one needs to have the music in it both for later part extraction but also because the decision to optimize out the second violin part is made at a later stage and needs to be reversible. Well, again, if layout of score and parts all happened in a single score, both having settings that could be controlled independently (instead of parts inheriting all the settings from the score, with a few exceptions), then it wouldn't be a problem. I still don't see how parts-within-the-score would solve this problem. But whatever the case I actually like the current idea of optimization. Yes, there could be more automatic updating, but I would like any development time here going into automatic vertical spacing. Whether this has to be invoked or is updated automatically is actually a pretty minor point in terms of time savings - at least for the way I do my work. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 4, 2005, at 3:08 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: Whether this has to be invoked or is updated automatically is actually a pretty minor point in terms of time savings - at least for the way I do my work. Yep. Especially if all the systems are pre-optimized in the template. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
Hi Johannes, There's no reason why Finale couldn't have automatically updating optimization with the option to do a manual override. You had to do a manual override anyway to hide staves containing notes. It would be easy for Finale to keep track of which staves have been manually hidden/shown and leave those untouched when doing an automatic optimization update. - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY On 03 Mar 2005, at 2:44 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: I also think that staff optimization should not be something that you have to remove and then re-apply. If you insert new measures, or insert data in previously empty measures (or you clear/hide previously populated measures), if you've got optimization turned on, it should automatically cause the system to re-optimize. I think it's crazy that the optimization information is stored with the absolute system rather than as a global setting that automatically updates the optimization when conditions change to warrant it. Just for the record, I just had to optimize many parts out of the score, which weren't empty at all. This was possible because the optimization information is stored with the absolute system, and is in fact manually accessable. I do not wish this to be changed, simply because the way it works is ideal for the work I do. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ 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
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
I was merely commenting to what David said: I think it's crazy that the optimization information is stored with the absolute system rather than as a global setting that automatically updates the optimization when conditions change to warrant it. It is precisely the fact that the optimization information is is stored with the absolute system rather than globally which makes it so flexible. I am not against an automatic function with manual override, although I don't think I'd need or use it (because undoubtedly it will again slow down Finale, as most of these automatic update routines do). Johannes Darcy James Argue wrote: Hi Johannes, There's no reason why Finale couldn't have automatically updating optimization with the option to do a manual override. You had to do a manual override anyway to hide staves containing notes. It would be easy for Finale to keep track of which staves have been manually hidden/shown and leave those untouched when doing an automatic optimization update. - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY On 03 Mar 2005, at 2:44 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: I also think that staff optimization should not be something that you have to remove and then re-apply. If you insert new measures, or insert data in previously empty measures (or you clear/hide previously populated measures), if you've got optimization turned on, it should automatically cause the system to re-optimize. I think it's crazy that the optimization information is stored with the absolute system rather than as a global setting that automatically updates the optimization when conditions change to warrant it. Just for the record, I just had to optimize many parts out of the score, which weren't empty at all. This was possible because the optimization information is stored with the absolute system, and is in fact manually accessable. I do not wish this to be changed, simply because the way it works is ideal for the work I do. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ 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 -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 2, 2005, at 10:35 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 2 Mar 2005 at 20:18, Christopher Smith wrote: disappearing measures, I've never seen that. What is that? I have occasionally seen measures APPEAR to vanish, but that is usually because I had a multi-measure rest where I later entered notes, and forgot to turn off the rest. Well, that does strike me as the kind of problem that no intelligent application should allow to happen. Notes in measures should automatically break multi-measure rests, without the user being required to do anything. I'm not sure I want ANOTHER automatic sweep through a subroutine slowing down the performance of the program, like Auto Update Layout, Auto Update Hyphens and Smart Word Extensions and the like. Especially given how often this problem (if it is one) would show up. I've only seen it myself a couple of times, and I am a heavy user who revises works constantly. I also think that staff optimization should not be something that you have to remove and then re-apply. If you insert new measures, or insert data in previously empty measures (or you clear/hide previously populated measures), if you've got optimization turned on, it should automatically cause the system to re-optimize. I Re-optimize to what parameters? There's a whole window of options there for that process. I don't want to be asked every time, and I don't want Finale choosing the parameters for me. I would rather do it myself. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
disappearing measures, I've never seen that. What is that? I have occasionally seen measures APPEAR to vanish, but that is usually because I had a multi-measure rest where I later entered notes, and forgot to turn off the rest. That was a typo (although I have seen the measures with music"hidden" inside a multiple rest before) I should have said disappearing systems. A while back I was doing a string quartet score, for example, with two systems per page. After completing all the horizontal layout and editing,I set the top and bottom margins for all pages in an appropriate spot and the did Page Layout/Space Systems Evenly..., whereby Finale pushes the top system to the top of the page and the bottom system to the bottom of the page. What I discovered was that occasionally the bottom system would simply go missing, so page x would e.g. be system 10 and 11, page y would be system 12 with no bottom system, and page z would be sytem 14 and 15. So system 13 simply disappeared. If I looked in scroll view the music was still all there, just not in page view. Once I saw this I realized it was happening very frequently. Again, this was Finale 2002. Jeffery www.jefferycotton.net ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
Jeremy, Unless I've very much misunderstood your explanation, it sounds like something a simple Update Layout will fix. You can even turn on Automatic Update Layout, if you like. (BTW, since there has been discussion of the sluggishness caused by Automatic Update Layout, Automatic Word Extensions, etc -- in my opinion, it's ridiculous that Finale does not handle these simple tasks automatically *and* quickly, especially on today's hardware. It's enormously frustrating that Finale seems to keep getting *slower* even as the hardware keeps getting faster. Updating the layout automatically ought not to be a hugely processor-intensive task, and I really wish Coda would take a year off the constant upgrade cycle and work *exclusively* on making the program run more efficiently.) - Darcy - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brooklyn, NY On 03 Mar 2005, at 10:49 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: disappearing measures, I've never seen that. What is that? I have occasionally seen measures APPEAR to vanish, but that is usually because I had a multi-measure rest where I later entered notes, and forgot to turn off the rest. That was a typo (although I have seen the measures with musichidden inside a multiple rest before) I should have said disappearing systems. A while back I was doing a string quartet score, for example, with two systems per page. After completing all the horizontal layout and editing,I set the top and bottom margins for all pages in an appropriate spot and the did Page Layout/Space Systems Evenly..., whereby Finale pushes the top system to the top of the page and the bottom system to the bottom of the page. What I discovered was that occasionally the bottom system would simply go missing, so page x would e.g. be system 10 and 11, page y would be system 12 with no bottom system, and page z would be sytem 14 and 15. So system 13 simply disappeared. If I looked in scroll view the music was still all there, just not in page view. Once I saw this I realized it was happening very frequently. Again, this was Finale 2002. Jeffery www.jefferycotton.net ___ 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
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 3 Mar 2005 at 8:44, Johannes Gebauer wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: I also think that staff optimization should not be something that you have to remove and then re-apply. If you insert new measures, or insert data in previously empty measures (or you clear/hide previously populated measures), if you've got optimization turned on, it should automatically cause the system to re-optimize. I think it's crazy that the optimization information is stored with the absolute system rather than as a global setting that automatically updates the optimization when conditions change to warrant it. Just for the record, I just had to optimize many parts out of the score, which weren't empty at all. This was possible because the optimization information is stored with the absolute system, and is in fact manually accessable. I do not wish this to be changed, simply because the way it works is ideal for the work I do. What if it were an option to do it the old way, or what I consider the common sense way (as I described)? -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 3 Mar 2005 at 11:40, Johannes Gebauer wrote: I am not against an automatic function with manual override, although I don't think I'd need or use it (because undoubtedly it will again slow down Finale, as most of these automatic update routines do). What if there were an option to set it to only update on Ctrl-U? Keep in mind that it certainly wouldn't take anything like the processing power that automatic music spacing takes up, as there are not nearly as many objects to be calculated (you only need to check if the frames in a system are empty/holding only non-visible music). Also, automatic music spacing was such an annoyance because it caused the music to jump around while you were entering it. That simply couldn't happen, even if you were entering in page view, precisely because a frame that has been optimized out can't have data entered into it (it's not visible). And how many people do any major entry in page view, anyway (other than editing)? I don't see it as a practical problem, even if it weren't settable to be part of the Ctrl-U update (which I'd probably prefer, myself). -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 3 Mar 2005 at 7:06, Christopher Smith wrote: On Mar 2, 2005, at 10:35 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 2 Mar 2005 at 20:18, Christopher Smith wrote: disappearing measures, I've never seen that. What is that? I have occasionally seen measures APPEAR to vanish, but that is usually because I had a multi-measure rest where I later entered notes, and forgot to turn off the rest. Well, that does strike me as the kind of problem that no intelligent application should allow to happen. Notes in measures should automatically break multi-measure rests, without the user being required to do anything. I'm not sure I want ANOTHER automatic sweep through a subroutine slowing down the performance of the program, like Auto Update Layout, Auto Update Hyphens and Smart Word Extensions and the like. . . . All of those can be turned off, right? So why do you assume that automatic breaking of multi-measure rests would not also have the option to turn it off? Or, as I suggested with automatic optimization in a response to Johannes, perhaps a setting to have it occur with Ctrl-U. . . . Especially given how often this problem (if it is one) would show up. I've only seen it myself a couple of times, and I am a heavy user who revises works constantly. Multi-measure rests only appear in page view. Since you can see or edit the measures the multi-measure rests represent, the change of layout would happen when you switch from scroll view to page view. So, there wouldn't be any need for a process constantly running to check for multi-measure rests -- the code to do that would need to fire only at the point where you switch from scroll to page view. And it would be nice if it would fire with a Ctrl-U, as well, I think, especially for cases where you remove existing data and want rests combined. On the other hand, that raises some problems, and might be better left as a manual process because you probably wouldn't want it automatically combining two multi-measure rests (e.g., if you had an 8-mm rest followed by a measure of music followed by another 8-mm rest -- you probably wouldn't want the two rests combined with the new empty measure into a 17-mm rest). You could have a behavior where if there's a multi-measure rest on *one* end of the measure you empty, that the empty measure would then automatically combine with the adjacent rest, but then there'd be different behaviors for different contexts, so that's probably not a good idea (at least not as a default behavior). So, probably the creation of *new* multi-measure rests after music has been removed should probably not happen automatically while editing in page view, since there's too many cases where it will simply guess wrong because of all the ambiguities involved. Overall, I'd think the multi-measure rest re-calculation should have a setting to turn it off, but then should be controllable where it fires. I think it should fire with the switch from scroll to page view and on Ctrl-U. I also think that staff optimization should not be something that you have to remove and then re-apply. If you insert new measures, or insert data in previously empty measures (or you clear/hide previously populated measures), if you've got optimization turned on, it should automatically cause the system to re-optimize. I Re-optimize to what parameters? There's a whole window of options there for that process. I don't want to be asked every time, and I don't want Finale choosing the parameters for me. I would rather do it myself. Well, as in all these suggestions, I'm not suggesting that the behavior be changed by completely eliminating the old way. Others have already outlined how that could work. Automatic optimization would happen according to the settings in the Staff System Optimization dialog box, just as they do now. It's just that you wouldn't have to invoke the dialog to make it happen, nor un- optimize and re-optimize when you change the layout. And it would be nice to be able to lock optimizations to absolute systems, as Johannes suggested, which is rather similar to the way you can lock systems already (it's not too much of a different concept). I still think these are two examples where Finale doesn't behave with common sense, and it's precisely these kinds of things that cause people to prefer programs like Sibelius, which behave according to one version of common sense but then prohibit you from making it behave any other way. If Finale retained user control, but also incorporated common sense by default, who could complain? Honestly, I'd *never* need to know anything about the optimization dialog if Finale did it automatically, or much of anything about breaking/combining multi-measure rests (though I certainly do believe these should correspond to musical phrase divisions and large sectional boundaries, which isn't something that can happen automatically). Why should I need to
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
Although I can see that it may be useful to some, it wouldn't be useful to me, so I am not interested (but I don't object). However, something I'd much rather see is automatic vertical staff spacing. ;-) Johannes David W. Fenton wrote: On 3 Mar 2005 at 11:40, Johannes Gebauer wrote: I am not against an automatic function with manual override, although I don't think I'd need or use it (because undoubtedly it will again slow down Finale, as most of these automatic update routines do). What if there were an option to set it to only update on Ctrl-U? Keep in mind that it certainly wouldn't take anything like the processing power that automatic music spacing takes up, as there are not nearly as many objects to be calculated (you only need to check if the frames in a system are empty/holding only non-visible music). Also, automatic music spacing was such an annoyance because it caused the music to jump around while you were entering it. That simply couldn't happen, even if you were entering in page view, precisely because a frame that has been optimized out can't have data entered into it (it's not visible). And how many people do any major entry in page view, anyway (other than editing)? I don't see it as a practical problem, even if it weren't settable to be part of the Ctrl-U update (which I'd probably prefer, myself). -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 2, 2005, at 11:44 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: Just for the record, I just had to optimize many parts out of the score, which weren't empty at all. This was possible because the optimization information is stored with the absolute system, and is in fact manually accessable. I do not wish this to be changed, simply because the way it works is ideal for the work I do. For what it's worth, I also will occasionally choose to optimize out a system which has music in it. I would be disappointed if this possibility were taken away. I have no problem with some sort of warning or changeable default that helps newbies avoid getting confused by disappearing music without reducing the functionality for everyone else. Some on this thread seem to be discussing optimization as if it were only the matter of making staves disappear in systems where they are empty. I don't see how optimization can be separated from the matter of specifying vertical positions for staves which vary from system to system. I use this constantly, because the vertical height of a piano accompaniment varies throughout the piece. A constant distance from voice staff to piano-treble staff is unacceptable because I don't want markings running into the lyrics on some staves, but neither do I want large unnecessary gaps of white space on others. Of course, this is layout-dependent, and if you later make changes to the piece which alter the layout, you're going to have to redo all the system optimization values. This isn't a bug in the software; it's inherent in the nature of the task. Maybe some day Finale will cook up a function to look for vertical collisions and provide vertical positions for staves accordingly, and perhaps it will even do a consistently good job of it. Until that happens, I don't see how optimization can be taken away from the user and handed over to the software. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 3 Mar 2005 at 15:22, Mark D Lew wrote: On Mar 2, 2005, at 11:44 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote: Just for the record, I just had to optimize many parts out of the score, which weren't empty at all. This was possible because the optimization information is stored with the absolute system, and is in fact manually accessable. I do not wish this to be changed, simply because the way it works is ideal for the work I do. For what it's worth, I also will occasionally choose to optimize out a system which has music in it. I would be disappointed if this possibility were taken away. I have no problem with some sort of warning or changeable default that helps newbies avoid getting confused by disappearing music without reducing the functionality for everyone else. My point is that simple optimization (i.e., removing blank staves from a systen) should happen automatically if you have optimization turned on for the passage of music represented on a system (while I understand that Johannes has a use for optimization being stored in absolute systems, I think that's a different kind of issue that comes about because of the way one is forced to create parts in Finale -- if they were all stored in the same file instead of in separate files, his issue would likely go away, since you'd have a score layout and a part layout, all stored in a single file; but that's another issue where I think Finale is confusing and less than ideal). My point is not that the way Finale does it now is wrong or unnecessary, but that it's not the common sense way it should work. Adding in the common sense approach in no way implies that you'd be forced to do it that way or that you'd lose the control you currently have over optimization. My common sense optimization would make a best guess and then you'd be able to tweak it to fit special needs. And if your particular pieces had characteristics that made my common sense optimization turn out wrong all the time, then you could simply turn off the common sense optimization and do it the way Finale has always done it. Some on this thread seem to be discussing optimization as if it were only the matter of making staves disappear in systems where they are empty. I don't see how optimization can be separated from the matter of specifying vertical positions for staves which vary from system to system. . . . I think it's wrong of Finale to *not* separate independent vertical positioning of staves within a system from optimization. Why should you need to optimize before you are allowed to move staves vertically within a system? Where's the logic there? It's not how lyrics work -- you don't have to do anything special to vertically reposition a system of lyrics. And the reason for repositioning a staff within a single non- optimized system is exactly the same as for lyrics -- to avoid collisions with other elements, most often notes that are in the ledger line stratosphere or basement, or to allow more room for things that project outside the regular vertical space of a staff. Why shouldn't systems in page view just automatically always have two handles for dragging, rather than only when a system has been optimized? . . . I use this constantly, because the vertical height of a piano accompaniment varies throughout the piece. A constant distance from voice staff to piano-treble staff is unacceptable because I don't want markings running into the lyrics on some staves, but neither do I want large unnecessary gaps of white space on others. Of course, this is layout-dependent, and if you later make changes to the piece which alter the layout, you're going to have to redo all the system optimization values. This isn't a bug in the software; it's inherent in the nature of the task. No, it's not. If the vertical spacing requirements were stored with the frames, instead of with the system, then the vertical spacing could flow with the measures themselves, regardless of what system they end up on. Maybe some day Finale will cook up a function to look for vertical collisions and provide vertical positions for staves accordingly, and perhaps it will even do a consistently good job of it. Until that happens, I don't see how optimization can be taken away from the user and handed over to the software. Optimization and vertical spacing to allow for things that project outside the normal staff space are two separate issues that are intertwined not because of any conceptual necessity, but because that's the way Finale implements it. I see no reason why page view couldn't add top and bottom margins for each measure, and for measures that needed more space, you'd simply increase the top or bottom margin (which would in turn automatically expand the system's top/bottom margin). Then you wouldn't have to worry about re-doing your vertical spacing if your system layout changed. My point here is not really about any specific
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 3, 2005, at 3:49 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: My point is that simple optimization (i.e., removing blank staves from a systen) should happen automatically if you have optimization turned on for the passage of music represented on a system If I'm understanding you correctly, you are suggesting that any system which has been optimized with remove empty systems checked should be marked as such (perhaps it already is; I don't know), and then subsequent layout changes should be monitored so that if music is added to a removed staff in such a system, that staff will be reinstated in the page layout. (And similarly, I assume, if all music is deleted from a non-removed staff.) I'm not sure exactly what events would need to trigger this check. Maybe it's sufficient just to do it with any Update Layout, rather than checking every time a frame is altered by Simple, Speedy, Mass Copy, etc.. If that's what you're suggesting, I think that's a fine idea -- so long as there is some sort of override that allows me to remove a non-empty staff when I want to. (while I understand that Johannes has a use for optimization being stored in absolute systems, I think that's a different kind of issue that comes about because of the way one is forced to create parts in Finale -- if they were all stored in the same file instead of in separate files, his issue would likely go away, since you'd have a score layout and a part layout, all stored in a single file; but that's another issue where I think Finale is confusing and less than ideal). I don't know what Johannes's needs are, but mine have nothing to do with score vs parts. When I use optimization to remove non empty staves is in a large choral piece where the divisis change in such a way that it makes sense to display some sections with the two parts on a single staff and other sections with them on separate staves. When I have a piece like this, it is often most convenient for me to create enough staves in score view that I have one for each part separate AND one for the parts combined. When entering the music, I have a rough idea of where it makes sense to switch from combined to separate, but I don't know exactly where the system break is going to end up. Typically, I'll have a few bars of overlap, where I enter both in score view. Then that gives me the flexibility to twiddle around with it in page view, and once I have the layout settled, I remove the unnecessary staves from each system and it all reads smoothly. There are other ways to achieve the same thing, of course, but I find that the ability to use optimization to remove a non-empty staff facilitates the process, and that's why I don't want that option removed. And if your particular pieces had characteristics that made my common sense optimization turn out wrong all the time, then you could simply turn off the common sense optimization and do it the way Finale has always done it. That's fine with me. I think it's wrong of Finale to *not* separate independent vertical positioning of staves within a system from optimization. Why should you need to optimize before you are allowed to move staves vertically within a system? Where's the logic there? OK, I think I understand now. This is just a matter of semantics. In my mind, the essence of optimization is the fact that an optimized system has its own definition for vertical positioning of staves and a non-optimized takes staff positioning from the scroll view default. From my view, asking why one should need to optimize in order to move staves vertically is nonsensical, since that's exactly what optimization is. The ability to add or remove staves while adding optimization is just a side effect. No doubt this is due to the different natures of our respective work. I mess with vertical position of staves all the time, whereas I rarely have need to remove an empty staff. Indeed, when I apply optimization, I generally leave remove empty staves unchecked, unless I have a specific staff in mind to remove. I actually agree with you that the two features may as well be separate. It's just that I would have worded it to say that removal of empty staves is what needs to be separated from optimization. When I read your messages about making optimization automatic, I thought you were arguing for the computer to apply vertical position of staves automatically. That would be nifty if it could do a good job of it, but I think it's a big step MakeMusic isn't going to take any time soon. In any case, that's a separate discussion from the matter of removing empty staves from page view. And the reason for repositioning a staff within a single non- optimized system is exactly the same as [...] Again, to my ear this sentence is meaningless. If you're repositioning a staff, the system if optimized by definition. Why shouldn't systems in page view just automatically always have two handles for dragging, rather than only
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 3, 2005, at 3:49 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: My point is that simple optimization (i.e., removing blank staves from a systen) should happen automatically if you have optimization turned on for the passage of music represented on a system If I'm understanding you correctly, you are suggesting that any system which has been optimized with remove empty systems checked should be marked as such (perhaps it already is; I don't know), and then subsequent layout changes should be monitored so that if music is added to a removed staff in such a system, that staff will be reinstated in the page layout. (And similarly, I assume, if all music is deleted from a non-removed staff.) I'm not sure exactly what events would need to trigger this check. Maybe it's sufficient just to do it with any Update Layout, rather than checking every time a frame is altered by Simple, Speedy, Mass Copy, etc.. If that's what you're suggesting, I think that's a fine idea -- so long as there is some sort of override that allows me to remove a non-empty staff when I want to. (while I understand that Johannes has a use for optimization being stored in absolute systems, I think that's a different kind of issue that comes about because of the way one is forced to create parts in Finale -- if they were all stored in the same file instead of in separate files, his issue would likely go away, since you'd have a score layout and a part layout, all stored in a single file; but that's another issue where I think Finale is confusing and less than ideal). I don't know what Johannes's needs are, but mine have nothing to do with score vs parts. When I use optimization to remove non empty staves is in a large choral piece where the divisis change in such a way that it makes sense to display some sections with the two parts on a single staff and other sections with them on separate staves. When I have a piece like this, it is often most convenient for me to create enough staves in score view that I have one for each part separate AND one for the parts combined. When entering the music, I have a rough idea of where it makes sense to switch from combined to separate, but I don't know exactly where the system break is going to end up. Typically, I'll have a few bars of overlap, where I enter both in score view. Then that gives me the flexibility to twiddle around with it in page view, and once I have the layout settled, I remove the unnecessary staves from each system and it all reads smoothly. There are other ways to achieve the same thing, of course, but I find that the ability to use optimization to remove a non-empty staff facilitates the process, and that's why I don't want that option removed. And if your particular pieces had characteristics that made my common sense optimization turn out wrong all the time, then you could simply turn off the common sense optimization and do it the way Finale has always done it. That's fine with me. I think it's wrong of Finale to *not* separate independent vertical positioning of staves within a system from optimization. Why should you need to optimize before you are allowed to move staves vertically within a system? Where's the logic there? OK, I think I understand now. This is just a matter of semantics. In my mind, the essence of optimization is the fact that an optimized system has its own definition for vertical positioning of staves and a non-optimized takes staff positioning from the scroll view default. From my view, asking why one should need to optimize in order to move staves vertically is nonsensical, since that's exactly what optimization is. The ability to add or remove staves while adding optimization is just a side effect. No doubt this is due to the different natures of our respective work. I mess with vertical position of staves all the time, whereas I rarely have need to remove an empty staff. Indeed, when I apply optimization, I generally leave remove empty staves unchecked, unless I have a specific staff in mind to remove. I actually agree with you that the two features may as well be separate. It's just that I would have worded it to say that removal of empty staves is what needs to be separated from optimization. When I read your messages about making optimization automatic, I thought you were arguing for the computer to apply vertical position of staves automatically. That would be nifty if it could do a good job of it, but I think it's a big step MakeMusic isn't going to take any time soon. In any case, that's a separate discussion from the matter of removing empty staves from page view. And the reason for repositioning a staff within a single non- optimized system is exactly the same as [...] Again, to my ear this sentence is meaningless. If you're repositioning a staff, the system if optimized by definition. Why shouldn't systems in page view just automatically always have two handles for dragging, rather than only
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 3 Mar 2005 at 17:28, Mark D Lew wrote: It's just that I would have worded it to say that removal of empty staves is what needs to be separated from optimization. The meaning of the word optimization would then be associated with something that is not remotely related to the concept the word represents. You optimize in Finale in order to optimize the usage of space on the page, by eliminating blank staves, so you can fit more systems in fewer pages. This has *zilch* to do with vertical positioning of staves within systems. So, I think you have a completely backwards conception of what optimization actually is -- optimization *is* removing blank staves, and the part that you use of it is something else entirely that has nothing to do with optimizing space on the page (though you might reduce spacing between staves in order to fit more systems on one page; but you could also *increase* spacing in order to avoid overlap of extreme elements, and that is the opposite of optimizing). -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 3 Mar 2005 at 17:28, Mark D Lew wrote: On Mar 3, 2005, at 3:49 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: [] . . . I use this constantly, because the vertical height of a piano accompaniment varies throughout the piece. A constant distance from voice staff to piano-treble staff is unacceptable because I don't want markings running into the lyrics on some staves, but neither do I want large unnecessary gaps of white space on others. Of course, this is layout-dependent, and if you later make changes to the piece which alter the layout, you're going to have to redo all the system optimization values. This isn't a bug in the software; it's inherent in the nature of the task. No, it's not. If the vertical spacing requirements were stored with the frames, instead of with the system, then the vertical spacing could flow with the measures themselves, regardless of what system they end up on. But then I'd have to define my vertical spacing requirements on a measure-per-measure basis. . . . Do you currently have to define default vertical spacing for systems on a per-system basis? No, of course not -- there are default settings already. The default setting for the system I describe would be that the default vertical spacing for a measure would be equal to the system margins. If you reduced the vertical spacing for all the measures in a system, the system margins could then automatically contract. If you increased the vertical spacing for a selected block of measures, it would cause the system margins to expand to accommodate it. And since it was defined per measure, it would travel to any system that this measure migrated to. Say you had only one measure in a system that needed expanded vertical space. In the current situation, you adjust the vertical spacing for the system to accommodate the measure that is the extreme case. If that measure gets moved to another system, you have to start over, changing two systems. If, on the other hand, you set the vertical spacing for that one measure, if it got moved to another system, the target system would then expand accordingly, and the original system would contract back to the defaults (or to the next smallest setting in the measures in that system). . . . I don't want to do that. . . . As I just explained above, you wouldn't have to, any more than you have to manually set system or page margins in Finale right now. . . . How I choose to space a system vertically is dependent on information that is specific to the system, not the measure. For example, if an entire page is crowded vertically, I'm going to be more inclined to tighten each individual system than I would be otherwise. That's layout-dependent, not frame-dependent. If a hairpin continues from m.10 to m.12 and there are high LH notes in m.10 and low RH notes in m.12, then it's going to need more space if m.10 and m.12 are on the same system than it will if the hairpin is split over a system break and I can move half to a different vertical position. That's layout-dependent, not frame-dependent. Well, I'm not advocating eliminating system-oriented spacing adjustments -- I'm just suggesting allowing the storing of spacing requirements connected to measures, which would be much more useful to *me*. Optimization and vertical spacing to allow for things that project outside the normal staff space are two separate issues that are intertwined not because of any conceptual necessity, but because that's the way Finale implements it. Substitute removing empty systems from page view for optimization and I agree. You have a very strange definition of the word. Optimization means REMOVING BLANK SYSTEMS. Read the optimization dialog box -- it says nothing about vertical spacing of staves within systems. I suppose my recommendations along these lines would be this: 1. Every system has a value that specifies staves are movable (ie, use independent vertical values) or unmovable (ie, use vertical values from scroll view). A global setting specifies whether new systems added will be movable or unmovable. Various means in the UI allow the user to change the movable/unmovable value for any individual system, or for all systems at once. 2. The standard default documents have all systems defined as movable. The setting for new systems defaults to movable. That would be just like lyrics. 3. Every systemstaff has a value that specifies does or doesn't show in the page view. Various means in the UI allow the user to change the show/don't show value for any individual systemstaff, or all systems at once. 4. A global setting tells whether the Update Layout procedure should include a check to set any empty systemstaff to don't show and set any non-empty systemstaff to show. By default, this setting will be on. Well, it would be nice to allow overrides for specific systems (though I'd want it to be measure-specific). 5.
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 3, 2005, at 6:25 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: The meaning of the word optimization would then be associated with something that is not remotely related to the concept the word represents. You optimize in Finale in order to optimize the usage of space on the page, by eliminating blank staves, so you can fit more systems in fewer pages. This has *zilch* to do with vertical positioning of staves within systems. In the loosest sense, anything that improves your document makes it more optimal, but it's such a vague term that it's meaningless in Finale, except by association with what the function actually does. What the function actually does is make staves vertically adjustable within a system. It may or may not also remove blank staves from page view. As we've already noted, you can have an optimized system which does not have the blank staves removed. So, I think you have a completely backwards conception of what optimization actually is -- Right, and I think the same of you. Like I said, our only real disagreement here is just semantics. optimization *is* removing blank staves, and the part that you use of it is something else entirely [...] If Optimization is equivalent to removing blank staves, then how come Remove Empty Staves is an optional checkbox within the Optimization dialog box? So that you have the option of optimizing without optimizing? mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 3 Mar 2005 at 18:51, Mark D Lew wrote: On Mar 3, 2005, at 6:25 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: The meaning of the word optimization would then be associated with something that is not remotely related to the concept the word represents. You optimize in Finale in order to optimize the usage of space on the page, by eliminating blank staves, so you can fit more systems in fewer pages. This has *zilch* to do with vertical positioning of staves within systems. In the loosest sense, anything that improves your document makes it more optimal, but it's such a vague term that it's meaningless in Finale, except by association with what the function actually does. The function is available only in page view, so, you're obviously optimizing the pages in your score. Seems transparent and obvious to me. What the function actually does is make staves vertically adjustable within a system. It may or may not also remove blank staves from page view. As we've already noted, you can have an optimized system which does not have the blank staves removed. Removing blank staves returns a lot more usable space than vertically adjusting spacing within a staff. Look at the optimization dialog box -- there is absolutely nothing there except options that control removal or inclusion of blank staves. Seems pretty definitive and clear to me! So, I think you have a completely backwards conception of what optimization actually is -- Right, and I think the same of you. Like I said, our only real disagreement here is just semantics. optimization *is* removing blank staves, and the part that you use of it is something else entirely [...] If Optimization is equivalent to removing blank staves, then how come Remove Empty Staves is an optional checkbox within the Optimization dialog box? So that you have the option of optimizing without optimizing? Tell me: what are the defaults? -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 3, 2005, at 6:40 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: Do you currently have to define default vertical spacing for systems on a per-system basis? No, of course not -- there are default settings already. The default setting for the system I describe would be that the default vertical spacing for a measure would be equal to the system margins. If you reduced the vertical spacing for all the measures in a system, the system margins could then automatically contract. If you increased the vertical spacing for a selected block of measures, it would cause the system margins to expand to accommodate it. I don't understand this paragraph. The default vertical spacing for any system is the global positions set up in scroll view (ie, what I think of as the unoptimized' spacing). I have no idea what you mean by system margins. Maybe I do things differently, or maybe this is another semantic thing. Say you had only one measure in a system that needed expanded vertical space. In the current situation, you adjust the vertical spacing for the system to accommodate the measure that is the extreme case. If that measure gets moved to another system, you have to start over, changing two systems. If, on the other hand, you set the vertical spacing for that one measure, if it got moved to another system, the target system would then expand accordingly, and the original system would contract back to the defaults (or to the next smallest setting in the measures in that system). OK, that makes sense. I'm in the habit of doing all my layout adjustments only after layout is set, so the change wouldn't really benefit me much, but I can see how it would be a great help to people who make large changes to a piece after layout has already been set. I doubt that Finale would want to have that AND the ability to adjust by system. If so, and the change is made, then whenever I have page-specific adjustments I'd have to do them indirectly by simply selecting all the measures in that system and adjusting accordingly. But that would be all right. At that point, I won't be changing the layout anyway, so it all comes out the same. You have a very strange definition of the word. Optimization means REMOVING BLANK SYSTEMS. Read the optimization dialog box -- it says nothing about vertical spacing of staves within systems. I'm using Fin Mac 2k2. My optimization dialog box says this: Optimizing can remove empty staves from Page View AND/OR make staves in specified systems independently adjustable. In other words, Finale thinks that both functions are part of optimization. In fact, the AND/OR is not quite accurate. While it is possible to optimize without removing empty staves, it is not possible to optimize without making staves independently adjustable. I've quoted verbatim from the dialog box. If your version of Finale says something different, that could explain our disagreement about the meaning of the term. I believe this would satisfy both us, yes? Pretty much. But I still like the idea of vertical spacing travelling with the measure, not being permanently anchored to an absolute system position. I'd be OK with that. Aside from the matter of what to call it, it looks like you and I are in agreement on this. I just don't see why it is conceptually any different than what we have now with the way system margins live inside page margins. I still don't understand what you mean by system margins. . . . Then again, I don't trust Finale to do a decent job of horizontal spacing for any music that includes lyrics, either, which is why I'm always tweaking them. . . . Does it do an OK job for music *without* lyrics? I don't do lyrics all that often, so defaults that got it right on the first try without lyrics would greatly speed up my work. I've got a lot of little minor complaints, but on the general question of how beat spacing lays out the beat chart, I'm mostly pretty happy. I'll occasionally tweak a measure here and there, but most of the time I'm reasonably satisfied with the default music spacing in all but exceptional cases. That's not the case with lyrics, where I find that unattractive spacing is the rule rather than the exception. Unless the accompaniment is consistently denser than the syllables, or the entire layout ends up loose, I just assume that I'm going to end up tweaking a whole lot of beat charts. Mind you, I don't mean this as a criticism of Finale. I think that good spacing of music with lyrics just doesn't lend itself nicely to algorithmic treatment. The TG plug-in makes a good run at it, and it's definitely an improvement over Finale's default, but it still fails to deliver spacing I would consider particularly good. Why would I *ever* suggest taking away the fine control that Finale has always offered? I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't want that. But you did say: I think it's crazy that the optimization information is stored with the absolute system
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 3, 2005, at 7:10 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: Removing blank staves returns a lot more usable space than vertically adjusting spacing within a staff. Taking up space is not the only criterion. An attractively spaced page is more optimal than one in which every system is cramped. To offer a real life example, suppose I've got a piano-vocal piece which normally fits four systems on a page. If there's a system where the voice part is blank, I can either remove the staff or not. If removing it lets me fit five systems, or if the piano part is so thick that even four systems make for a cramped page, then I'll welcome the opportunity to remove the system and improve the page. If, on the other hand, I can only fit four systems in any case but the page is otherwise fairly loose, then it looks stupid to take out the blank voice staff just to have even more white space between the systems. In that case I'd rather leave it in place. My point is that removing a blank system is not necessarily always the optimal thing to do. Tell me: what are the defaults? Defaults are Remove Empty Staves, Keep At Least One Staff, and Whole Document. Note that removing empty staves is an option which can be turned off. Making staves independently adjustable happens regardless of what options you choose. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
Greetings all, mailing list newbie here. Glad to have found this. The latest version of Finale I am familiar with is 2002, having refused to upgrade beyond that until they fixed some of the basic notational problems in Finale that always seemed to get overlooked -- the eternal problems with tuplet placement, hairpins, disappearing measures, etc --in favor of "composer's assistant" nonsense. As someone who looks at these programs largely as notational tools, I got frustrated. In any case, I stuck it out with 2002 until recently, when I was finally convinced by friends to try Sibelius. I've been working with version 3.1.3 for about 2 months. Certainly things are superior in Sibelius when it comes to the user interface and certain formatting issues (at least in comparison to Finale 2002). But at the end of the day I am most concerned about what comes out of my printer, and Sibelius doesn't even begin to approach the professional look that I can get(after much hair-pulling) out of Finale. And I am frustrated again, because the response in the Sibelius forums is constantly "no, you can't do that (yet)." Anyway: I'm wondering if I can get some feedback on where things stand with Finale 2005 as regards the many problems I am familiar with in F2002, and I'm wondering what the NEW frustrations might be with 2005 (again, as regards notation -- I do not use these programs' composing tools orsound-file generating tools.)At this point I'd considering upgrading if I thought that 2005 was honestly better than 2002. If there is somewhere on the internet where someone has actually documented these things, that would certainly suffice. I don't want to take up too much bandwidth here! ;-) Thanks, Jeffery ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anyway: I'm wondering if I can get some feedback on where things stand with Finale 2005 as regards the many problems I am familiar with in F2002, and I'm wondering what the NEW frustrations might be with 2005 (again, as regards notation -- I do not use these programs' composing tools or sound-file generating tools.) At this point I'd considering upgrading if I thought that 2005 was honestly better than 2002. If there is somewhere on the internet where someone has actually documented these things, that would certainly suffice. I don't want to take up too much bandwidth here! ;-) I have no interest in S~ myself, exactly because of the you can't do that in S~ responses I've seen in various forums over the years which I have been able to do trivially in Finale, so I don't look often. In response to a question about comparisons of Sibelius and Finale, I discovered recently that the MakeMusic! website does show a direct, feature by feature comparison with and unnamed leading competitor, but that Sibelius does not see any particular value of providing the same objective data, instead, seeming to prefer unsubstantiated testimonials. Tuplets and expressions were dramatically redesigned in 2004 and 2005, but beyonhd that, I'd suggest that you prepare a list of questions about areas you formerly found problematical, and post that to this list; it will in no way (at least not to me) be a waste of bandwidth. ns ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If there is somewhere on the internet where someone has actually documented these things, that would certainly suffice. Go to the Finale tips site, click on Other Texts. There you have in-depth reviews of Finale 2002, Finale 2003, Finale 2004 Finale 2005. Best regards, Jari Williamsson ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Greetings all, mailing list newbie here. Glad to have found this. The latest version of Finale I am familiar with is 2002, having refused to upgrade beyond that until they fixed some of the basic notational problems in Finale that always seemed to get overlooked -- the eternal problems with tuplet placement, hairpins, disappearing measures, etc -- in favor of composer's assistant nonsense. As someone who looks at these programs largely as notational tools, I got frustrated. In any case, I stuck it out with 2002 until recently, when I was finally convinced by friends to try Sibelius. I've been working with version 3.1.3 for about 2 months. ... Anyway: I'm wondering if I can get some feedback on where things stand with Finale 2005 as regards the many problems I am familiar with in F2002, and I'm wondering what the NEW frustrations might be with 2005 (again, as regards notation -- I do not use these programs' composing tools or sound-file generating tools.) At this point I'd considering upgrading if I thought that 2005 was honestly better than 2002. I'm in a position similar to you, regarding my requirements. I use Finale as a tool to created scores, and only that. Playback et al is of no interest to me. If 2002 is the last version you've tried, you'll find some important improvements - in particular tuplets are better (but still not great). Browsing this list will show up particular gripes with other tools, such as text blocks etc. The improved Expression tool in 2005 is saving me huge amounts of time - alignments of expressions are now automated (and that automation is fully adjustable), so things that I used to waste time on getting looking 'just so' can now be predetermined. I guess the problem that we 'serious notators' face is that we're a tiny minority of Finale users, and Finale users are one small section of the market for notation software. For MakeMusic to spend time sorting the things we'd like to see improved means taking time away from the development of what appear to us to be frivolous extras, but actually function as selling-points for the software. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
An often-overlooked area of improvement in Finale versions is the interface for plugins. Both Finale 2003 and Finale 2004 included significant improvements that greatly expanded the power of plugins. Finale 2003 allowed plugins to detect and operate on multiple open documents. Finale 2004 offered more accurate means for a plugin to activate Finale's menu commands. This, for example, greatly improved some of TGTools plugins. My biggest reason for moving to Fin03 from Fin02 was plugin power. I can't imagine going back now. A possible *deterrent* to adopting any version of Finale after Fin03 is the copy protection scheme. Mild compared some, it does nevertheless require you to contact Makemusic to register, which will be a problem if Makemusic is no longer there in the future. -- Robert Patterson http://RobertGPatterson.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On Mar 2, 2005, at 4:26 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Greetings all, mailing list newbie here. Glad to have found this. The latest version of Finale I am familiar with is 2002, having refused to upgrade beyond that until they fixed some of the basic notational problems in Finale that always seemed to get overlooked -- the eternal problems with tuplet placement, Tuplets are greatly improved with 2005. Still a couple of small issues with the number placement, especially with large intervals under the tuplet, but tuplets that start with a rest or a low note align WAY better than before. hairpins, What did you see wrong with the hairpins? They behave perfectly well as far as I can see. I use TG Tools plugins to help align everything, so maybe I'm spoiled. Automatic expression placement is new and fantastic as well. disappearing measures, I've never seen that. What is that? I have occasionally seen measures APPEAR to vanish, but that is usually because I had a multi-measure rest where I later entered notes, and forgot to turn off the rest. etc -- in favor of composer's assistant nonsense. As someone who looks at these programs largely as notational tools, I got frustrated. In any case, I stuck it out with 2002 until recently, when I was finally convinced by friends to try Sibelius. I've been working with version 3.1.3 for about 2 months. Certainly things are superior in Sibelius when it comes to the user interface and certain formatting issues (at least in comparison to Finale 2002). But at the end of the day I am most concerned about what comes out of my printer, and Sibelius doesn't even begin to approach the professional look that I can get (after much hair-pulling) out of Finale. And I am frustrated again, because the response in the Sibelius forums is constantly no, you can't do that (yet). Anyway: I'm wondering if I can get some feedback on where things stand with Finale 2005 as regards the many problems I am familiar with in F2002, and I'm wondering what the NEW frustrations might be with 2005 (again, as regards notation -- I do not use these programs' composing tools or sound-file generating tools.) At this point I'd considering upgrading if I thought that 2005 was honestly better than 2002. You sound like a fairly serious user. Many of the issues with Finale's built-in functionality are addressed with 3rd-party plugins, some of which will no doubt make you clap your hands and giggle like a child when you first use them (that was my reaction, in any case). They are definitely worth the shareware price, and the time it will take to learn them, though you can try them out first for free. This list is a great resource as well. Many times when I have been frustrated by some seeming lack of functionality, someone on this list has just the trick to make it doable. If you have specific questions, we can answer them. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
On 2 Mar 2005 at 20:18, Christopher Smith wrote: disappearing measures, I've never seen that. What is that? I have occasionally seen measures APPEAR to vanish, but that is usually because I had a multi-measure rest where I later entered notes, and forgot to turn off the rest. Well, that does strike me as the kind of problem that no intelligent application should allow to happen. Notes in measures should automatically break multi-measure rests, without the user being required to do anything. I also think that staff optimization should not be something that you have to remove and then re-apply. If you insert new measures, or insert data in previously empty measures (or you clear/hide previously populated measures), if you've got optimization turned on, it should automatically cause the system to re-optimize. I think it's crazy that the optimization information is stored with the absolute system rather than as a global setting that automatically updates the optimization when conditions change to warrant it. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale/Sibelius and Finale 2005/Finale 200x comparison
David W. Fenton wrote: I also think that staff optimization should not be something that you have to remove and then re-apply. If you insert new measures, or insert data in previously empty measures (or you clear/hide previously populated measures), if you've got optimization turned on, it should automatically cause the system to re-optimize. I think it's crazy that the optimization information is stored with the absolute system rather than as a global setting that automatically updates the optimization when conditions change to warrant it. Just for the record, I just had to optimize many parts out of the score, which weren't empty at all. This was possible because the optimization information is stored with the absolute system, and is in fact manually accessable. I do not wish this to be changed, simply because the way it works is ideal for the work I do. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
