inconsistent hairpin ends

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bachelorbob
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Finale Version: 2012d + 25.5
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Post by bachelorbob » Mon Apr 30, 2018 8:52 pm

When a crescendo or decrescendo ('hairpin') is short enough, Finale automatically changes the closed end to a zero-point (infinite) height. This is visibly different from longer hairpins. Does anyone know how to force consistency in Finale 2012c or 25.5? For my aesthetics, I would prefer short hairpins to be just like longer ones, but I'll take both versions being zero-point ends over two different versions.


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zuill
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Post by zuill » Tue May 01, 2018 1:49 am

I think the closed end is affected by the width of the open end. Try changing that and see what happens.

Zuill
Windows 10, Finale 2011-v26.3.1
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bachelorbob
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Post by bachelorbob » Tue May 01, 2018 1:57 am

I never change the width of the open end. Ergo, the closed end of every hairpin should be exactly the same, regardless of the overall length. They are not. I am either missing a setting, which will force consistent behavior, or this is a bug that has spanned many, many years.

Ere Lievonen
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Post by Ere Lievonen » Tue May 01, 2018 9:38 pm

bachelorbob wrote:I never change the width of the open end. Ergo, the closed end of every hairpin should be exactly the same, regardless of the overall length. They are not. I am either missing a setting, which will force consistent behavior, or this is a bug that has spanned many, many years.
As far as I know, this is a bug that has spanned many, many years.
Finale 2010b. Finale user since 1994.
Windows 7 & Mac OS X 10.9.5

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motet
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Post by motet » Tue May 01, 2018 10:19 pm

I think the lines are long skinny rectangles. When the angle of the hairpin is wide, you're seeing the corner of the rectangles. When narrow, the flat ends.

BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Wed May 02, 2018 9:59 am

As motet points out, the fact that the lines have flat ends affects how they appear when they join. Finale can't do 'mitres', which specify the kind of join, regardless. Not so much a bug, as a lack of feature.
However, you may find that the recent feature of setting open widths (surely heights?) for long and short hairpins may make things more consistent, as might adjusting the line thickness. (If you make small hairpins have a smaller end, then the angle will be more similar to that of longer hairpins.)

If you want finer control, you need to save the finished file as a PDF, and then edit in something like Illustrator. (You'll probably find some other things to adjust while you're there. :D )

One advantage of Illustrator is that you can open one page from a multi-page PDF and save it back in place.

bachelorbob
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Post by bachelorbob » Wed May 02, 2018 3:28 pm

I'm not 'buying' any of that. If Finale can/forces square closed ends of a hairpin of a certain length (and longer), but forces zero-point ends of a hairpin just a single EVPU shorter, then it's a bug. One or the other, developers; one or the other. Not both. Better yet, an option to have all hairpins (of any length) be flat ended or zero-point. Only about 15 years overdue.

BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Fri May 04, 2018 8:48 am

You could submit your request to MakeMusic, and it will find its priority on the queue of things that need doing.

Until then, you may like to try altering the parameters suggested for the best results.
Last edited by BuonTempi on Fri May 04, 2018 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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elbsound
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Post by elbsound » Fri May 04, 2018 2:07 pm

Finale is indeed buggy regarding the ending of hairpins. Screen and print/PDF can be different, because there is "skip" in the drawing of hairpins that depends on a few parameters (e.g. width of the hairpin): it jumps between sharp ends and flat ends and described in the thread above.
For the Perfect Layout plugin I have analyzed this and added a function to automatically fix the difference so that print/PDF always looks good (while on screen there may be collisions).

Attached is a photo of Finale hairpins in jazz style (thick lines) increasing in width.
The vertical line is where the anchor point is in Finale. If you scroll down the photo a bit you see the skip in that case is at a hairpin width of 137 EVPU. At that point the hairpin ending is flat, while at 133 EVPU the ending was sharp and far left beyond the anchor point. So to have a dynamic always the same distance to a connected hairpin one needs to know, how far the hairpin goes beyond the anchor point or even stops before it. Then one has to adjust the hairpin anchorpoint and see if by changing the hairpin width the skip point has changed. If so, one has to adjust the width again, until it fits.
hairpin endings.jpg

bachelorbob
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Post by bachelorbob » Sun May 06, 2018 6:14 am

So, having calculated the transition point to a 133-137 EVPU range, is there any method for shutting the transition off? Such as, flat ends on all hairpins above 1 EVPU?

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elbsound
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Post by elbsound » Sun May 06, 2018 7:38 am

No, that's not possible. But it also has to do with simple geometrics:
if you look at image of the hairpins above, you'll see that if the very wide hairpins did not have flat ends, they would have a very long black start which probably would look clumsy.
The bug is that many hairpins don't start at the anchor point: some start before, some afterwards.

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