Finale Forum

has any one used the newer notation programs?

I thought Dorico would be an exciting and new approach, and bought it .... Total waste of money, at this point completely useless for me. Although they were certainly trying (and some day it may be good - not soon, though), its customers have paid for a beta version that's not ready for serious work, and are basically working as beta testers to make it workable. I can do anything and everything I need to do with Finale 2014.5 (and I am not an amateur, I usually work with large orchestral scores of contemporary music). And, by the way, I also find no need to upgrade to Finale 25. Nothing drastically improving things for me there either ....

mmike wrote:

has any one used the newer notation programs?

I thought Dorico would be an exciting and new approach, and bought it .... Total waste of money, at this point completely useless for me. Although they were certainly trying (and some day it may be good - not soon, though), its customers have paid for a beta version that's not ready for serious work, and are basically working as beta testers to make it workable.
I agree on Dorico. Someday maybe but not yet for me.

mmike wrote:

I can do anything and everything I need to do with Finale 2014.5 (and I am not an amateur, I usually work with large orchestral scores of contemporary music). And, by the way, I also find no need to upgrade to Finale 25. Nothing drastically improving things for me there either ....

No one is holding a gun to your head.

It's a bit more compelling for Mac users, especially those like I who must remain current for no reasons that have anything to do with Finale. Finale 2012–2014.5 will not install properly and won't work without restrictions on the current Mac OS. Older versions do not work at all.

There will come a point when contemporary versions of Windows will no longer support 32 bit apps. Unlike Apple, Microsoft has not not announced a firm date but it will happen. I know people who are working on it.

No one is holding a gun to your head.

Well, that's a relief ....

MikeHalloran wrote:There will come a point when contemporary versions of Windows will no longer support 32 bit apps. Unlike Apple, Microsoft has not not announced a firm date but it will happen. I know people who are working on it.

Windows still runs 16-bit MS-DOS programs 30 years later, and has compatibility modes for Windows applications going back to Windows 95. The 64-bit Intel architecture supports 32-bit instructions, so there's no real technical reason why Microsoft shouldn't continue to support them. It may be that future versions of Windows will require compatibility mode to run old versions of Finale, but I will be surprised if they abandon 32-bit applications altogether. That Apple has done so really seems more like a matter of philosophy and allocation of programmer resources than any good technical reason. Not that their philosophy is necessarily wrong, but it does seem premature.