Numbers Assigned to Expressions

[saxlix1]

Is it possible to reassign the numbers in my Expression Library? I spent a great deal of time rearranging my expressions in my template file today - however, when I upload this library to another file, the expressions are arranged in numerical order (thus eliminating my rearrangement). I have attached a screenshot of my newly arranged library (with a couple of out-of-order numbers circled).

I have never understood what these numbers represent in expressions, so any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Bret
Finale 25
MacOS Ventura

[michelp]

AFAIK the short answer is no. These numbers are generated by Finale when the expressions are created.
If you want to have a library following the order you want and which keeps this order when loaded in another file, the only way I found is to duplicate the expressions one by one in the order you want. That will generate a sequence of consecutive numbers.
Then delete the originals and save the library.
If there is another way, I would be curious to learn it.

[bakkumd]

saxlix1,

The TG Tools V3 plugin set has a text expression sorter - there is a one month free trial period (fully functional).

It DOES re-number your expressions along with a number of other sorting options.

When importing an expression library into a document, I believe the expression numbers are changed to prevent duplicate ID numbers. You may also have noticed that text expressions have their set of ID numbers, and shape expressions have a different set of ID numbers.

Here is a link to the TG tools site: https://www.tgtools.com/index-en.htm. There should be install instructions there also.

Install the plugin, restart Finale, then go to TGTools > Miscellaneous > Text Expression Sorter...

If you delete all existing text expressions prior to importing your custom "master" set, your imported expressions should retain their original numbers. I just tried it with a test library and default document and it appeared to keep the number assignments from the imported library when importing (after deleting all default expressions first).

Also - I did notice that the meta-tool assignments were also sorted - not something I wanted... seems it reversed (sorted) the default assignments and now has pppp as meta-tool 1 and progresses through ffff being 0 (zero).

[motet]

I remember the old days before expression categories when all expressions were in one pile. You could wind up with hundreds in that pile and it was very hard to find things.

[saxlix1]

The TG Tools V3 plugin set has a text expression sorter - there is a one month free trial period (fully functional).

Not exactly what I was looking for, but this was certainly helpful in organizing my numerous text expressions - thanks for the suggestion!

[dtoub]

FYI: I have the full version of TGTools and as best I can tell, it is no longer being developed. Tobias doesn’t respond to emails and TGTools is painfully long in the tooth and antiquated. I’ve used that expression sorter, which can also remove unused expressions, and someone in this forum commented that Tobias had told him or her that it was not reliable and not updated for many years. So I’d exercise caution with TGTools at this point. I still use it, but rarely, and wish the developer would either update it, including removing deprecated functions (lots of it involves optimized scores, which went out years ago with Staff Styles), or just kill it already.