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Finale 2001

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General Board
Title: Finale 2001
Posted By: Daniel Eichenbaum
E-mail: deichenb@umich.edu
Date: 07/31/2000 at 20:08:41

Message:
I just received my copy of the "latest and greatest" from Coda Music, Finale 2001 (Millenium Edition). After having a chance to use thr program, let me weigh in on the annual upgrade issue: should the average user pay another 80 or 100 bucks to upgrade? I do not think Coda has added enough improvements to the program to warrant upgrading to 2001. Here are my reasons why:

The new features in Finale fix a few more bugs but do NOT contribute to the Finale engraving program itself. The three new features they tout most are the web-page publishing, mic-notator, and midi-scan technology. None of the fonts have changed and the program layout, with the exception of a few menu optimizings, are virtually identical to Finale 2000. End results: 2001 behaves like 2000 with the addition of 3 plug-ins specifially aimed at combating Sibelius's move towards we publishing applications. Coda is even releasing a special internet browser plug-in that non-owners of Finale can use to view/print these files posted online (shades of Sibelius's SCORCH plug-in?)

All in all, as someone who uses Finale for its engraving powers, I think the $80 plus shipping I spent on the upgrade was better saved. Anyone else have an opinion on the new version of Finale?

PS: So you can see the "official" list of new features:

(copied from Finale readme.wri on Finale 2001 CD-rom)


New Features in Finale 2001

New area code for Technical Support - (952) 937-9703, FAX (952) 937-9760.
Hear the note as you enter it in Simple or Speedy Entry.
Use the new Space Systems Evenly option in the Page Layout menu to distribute your staff systems on the page with the top and bottom systems lining up on the page margins. If Reflow Systems is checked in Update Layout Options, Space Systems Evenly will reflow the number of systems to find the maximum number that fit on a page and then respace those systems evenly.
Page Breaks are now available in Page Layout. An icon is displayed on the system with a page break set. Just select the system and then the menu item to set or clear a page break.
Insert or delete systems in your music while keeping the rest of your systems intact or reflowing measures across systems and pages.
A new system break icon shows where you've placed a system break with the measure tool.
Now, easily set the distance between a staff system and the staff system above (or the top page margin).
Enhanced system dragging uses plain dragging to move one system and all following systems move. Control-drag to move only the system you are dragging. If this is the last system on a page, it will align the system to the bottom of the page.
Lock the contents of systems as well as the number of measures. Use Fit Music in the Mass Mover menu to set a number of measures in a system and hold their contents as well. When measures are inserts, the measures stay put.
The value for the top system margin is now the distance between the top staff line of the top staff and the dotted line drawn around the system.
Fit Music will treat multi-measure rests as a single measure.
New Selection Tool! Double-click on most items and Finale will switch to the appropriate tool.
Import SmartScore files! Scan files into the SmartScore program, then import the results into Finale. Change the key, change the lyrics, edit like any other notation file.
More Plug-ins are available for Finale 2001. See our website at www.codamusic.com for more information about our developer's kit to write your own.
The plug-ins shipped with Finale 2001 include:
1. . This plug-in allows you to . See .
Open Multiple files at the same time in the File Open dialog box. Shift-click to select additional files.
Click the Lyric Tool and go. Type into Score for lyrics is now set as the default setting in the Lyric menu.
To scroll through layers, just hit __. No need to be in Speedy Entry.
New "How Do I..?" chapter gives you a jump-start into step-by-step instructions in the manual.
Improved Setup Wizard! Even more options to get your score setup quickly and easily, so you can get to work entering the music.
Transpose as you HyperScribe has been added to the HyperScribe Options dialog box. Enter transposed parts easily in real-time with this new option.
Tap the tempo with your mouse! Set the tempo by tapping your mouse in the "Finale is listening
for tempo" dialog box.
Open the last file you were working on when you start Finale. New Startup Action allows you to always open the last file.
Create and edit text blocks in any view. Whether page-attached or measure-attached, you can always edit your text blocks. In addition, the Text and Frame menus have been combined.
Always have a Final barline on the last measure of the piece. As you change your score, the last measure has the final barline.
Font Annonation. Fine-tune the selection area of font characters.
Dockable Playback Controls. Always moving the Playback Controls out of the way? Now just attach them to the top of the screen and they'll never cover up your music.
Staff placement in Scroll View no longer affects staff placement in Page View. Move your staves around in Scroll View to make editing easier without messing up careful layout in Page View.

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