Finale Forum

Try this:
In the time signature dialog change the time signature from anything to 4/4. Press ‘more options’ (usually at least twice to get more options presented), uncheck ‘Abbreviate’, check ‘Use a Different Time Signature for Display” and click ‘OK’. The result will be an abbreviated time signature nonetheless.
Hm.

Repeatable as often as you like.

I don't get that behavior in my version, nor do I have to press More Options twice--perhaps a Mac problem. But in Document Options / Time Signatures, you can uncheck "Abbreviate common time."

Jay Emmes wrote:Try this:
In the time signature dialog change the time signature from anything to 4/4. Press ‘more options’ (usually at least twice to get more options presented), uncheck ‘Abbreviate’, check ‘Use a Different Time Signature for Display” and click ‘OK’. The result will be an abbreviated time signature nonetheless.
Hm.

Repeatable as often as you like.

Unfortunately I am unable to reproduce this issue - with my Mac version of Finale v25.3 ?!?

I do not get an abbreviated time signature, but rather 4/4.

Peter, do you have "Abbreviate: Common Time to" and "Cut Time to" checked? If not, please try again with both boxes checked.

In my Document Options I have these checked. This means that I will, by default, get abbreviated time signatures in the Time Signature dialog. Perfect, that's what the application is supposed to do. However, when I overrule this in the Time Signature dialog by unchecking "Abbreviate" there, I should get an unabbreviated time signature, right? Well, I don't. I will have to perform the very ritual twice to once get what the application is supposed to do.

Highly annoying, not in the least because I have to click twice (why?) on "more options" in that very dialog to get to the other options and I very often — not all the time, but very, very often have to at click the stop button (◼︎) in the Playback Controls window at least three times to get Finale to stop playing back.

Jay Emmes wrote:Peter, do you have "Abbreviate: Common Time to" and "Cut Time to" checked? If not, please try again with both boxes checked …

Yes, I do have those checked.
When I wrote my previous post, I had just followed your steps, with both abbreviation options selected in the Document Options.

Jay Emmes wrote:… In my Document Options I have these checked. This means that I will, by default, get abbreviated time signatures in the Time Signature dialog. Perfect, that's what the application is supposed to do. However, when I overrule this in the Time Signature dialog by unchecking "Abbreviate" there, I should get an unabbreviated time signature, right? Well, I don't. I will have to perform the very ritual twice to once get what the application is supposed to do.

Highly annoying, not in the least because I have to click twice (why?) on "more options" in that very dialog to get to the other options and I very often — not all the time, but very, very often have to at click the stop button (◼︎) in the Playback Controls window at least three times to get Finale to stop playing back.

I, too, do not experience your problem of having to click more than once.
This makes me suspect that there is something else going on here, like e. g. some third party system extension or utility that somehow interferes.

Jay Emmes wrote:However, when I overrule this in the Time Signature dialog by unchecking "Abbreviate" there, I should get an unabbreviated time signature, right? Well, I don't. I will have to perform the very ritual twice to once get what the application is supposed to do.

Are you saying if you do it twice you eventually get the unabbreviated time signature?

I suspect Peter is right that some other software in interfering. Do you have a macro program or something like that? If you have other programs running in the background, maybe experiment with stopping those.

Not seeing that here.

I use yKey for all repetitive tasks. But I have used yKey and its predecessor iKey for ages and have not witnessed this annoyance before.

Having to press the stop button more than once (up to four times!) or the 'more options' button exactly twice every time before the bottom panel unfolds, is a problem since version 2014, having to perform the exact same procedure twice to finally get what I want (an unabbreviated time signature) is quite new.
The former can perhaps be explained by some other piece of software 'stealing clicks' from Finale, but the latter cannot. The former has been reported repeatedly on this and the old MakeMusic forum; for the latter I can't find any earlier reports.

Except no one else seems to have the problem, so you might try turning off yKey anyway and see if that's responsible--is it hard to do?

I seem to recall you were using an older OS. Is that still the case? From what I've heard here, the further apart in age Finale and the OS are, the more likely anomalies are to arise.

I run 10.11.6, which isn't really that old. Besides, I'm running this version of the OS since Apple released it and Finale 25.3 since MakeMusic released it and yKey since long before that. The problem has not been present since both met, as far as I'm aware of.

I just ran a test: killed yKey, created a new time signature (4/4), clicked 'more options' (twice, as by default) and told Finale to show a different time signature (4/4 instead of the abbreviation C). Finale displayed C nonetheless.

Ran a test with anything (that I know of) disabled that seems to listen to (perhaps intercepts) keyclicks, with the same result: none whatsoever.

Jay Emmes wrote:I'm running this version of the OS since Apple released it and Finale 25.3 since MakeMusic released it and yKey since long before that. The problem has not been present since both met, as far as I'm aware of.

Do you mean it has been present since they first met? Above you said you had the problem with 2014 as well. But if not, you could try reinstalling Finale, I guess. It sounds pretty annoying all right.

There are two distinct problems mentioned in the previous posts:

• •the abbreviation of time signatures although explicitly unwanted;
  •having to click multiple times on a button for it to work ('more options' in Time Signature dialog and stop button in Playback window)

The abbreviation problem is recent, the multiple click problem is as old as Finale 2014.

I can't replicate the problem with abbreviated signatures, either.

The need to press "More Options" (and Stop) has been reported before, but it's not universal. I have had it, but don't at the moment.

See if a restart improves matters: otherwise, it might be worthwhile investigating what other third-party software is running -- particularly non-visible background processes.

Have you tried deleting the preferences file?

So... you have yKey and these problems. Others of us don't. Is it possible that you changed a routine in yKey that is causing this behavior? That is where I would look.

MikeHalloran wrote:So... you have yKey and these problems. Others of us don't. Is it possible that you changed a routine in yKey that is causing this behavior? That is where I would look.

The problem is not yKey. I have been using yKey since 2006. The problem exists since last week.
I have tested (as reported below) with yKey disabled and the problem persisted.

Tests run with a fresh preferences file:
The problem persists as long as "Abbreviate" is checked in the Document Options' Time Signature panel, regardless of my instructions in the Time Signature tool's dialog. When I uncheck "Abbreviate" in the Document Options all common and cut times in the score change to unabbreviated versions. So, it's either all or nothing, which renders the option to abbreviate in the Time Signature tool's dialog utterly superfluous.

Before you said if you do it twice it eventually works. Now you say it doesn't work at all. Which is it?

Did you happen to install any plug-ins lately? If you did remove them.

motet wrote:Before you said if you do it twice it eventually works. Now you say it doesn't work at all. Which is it?

I don't recall having said anywhere that anything doesn't work at all, only that the problem persists under test circumstances.

When I perform the operation twice I will invariably get the unabbreviated time signature I wanted in the first place. When I don't repeat the action I get an abbreviated time signature, regardless of what I ask Finale to do.
When I delete the preferences file the problem remains, meaning that the problem isn't coming from a corrupt preferences file either.

I have not installed any new plugins and I did run a test without the JW plugins, knowing that there has been reported a problem with a combination of some of these plugins. But the tests were negative.