Should I upgrade to 26?

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bvstudios
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Post by bvstudios » Fri May 24, 2019 4:21 pm

Well, after a little back and forth with Support, I think all is well. When re-installing the entire finale 26 simply did not help, someone at Support suggested that I could simply just uninstall the GIFF component, then reinstall GIFF, reboot and see what happened.

Not only did that fix the GIFF issue, it also magically repaired a similar issue I was having with my Garritan World. So it appears that in my case at least, the issue was somehow tied to the GIFF portion of the update to 26.

At any rate, all is well, and I am getting back on track.
K M Frye
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Post by Anders Hedelin » Fri May 24, 2019 5:04 pm

During most of Finale's history it wasn't possible to open a newer file in an older version. I remember being rather annoyed at that time, not long ago, by this "greed" of MM's. Now, having seen the lease disease spreading among other software companies, and the feeble development of Finale, I'm more worried about MM giving away the need to upgrade, in stead of financing further growth and development.
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motet
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Post by motet » Fri May 24, 2019 6:15 pm

I wonder what percent of upgraders did so in order to be able to open newer documents.

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ebiggs1
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Post by ebiggs1 » Fri May 24, 2019 6:22 pm

"...there is an option to not remove manual adjustments when opening in v26,..."
I guess I just am not familiar with that. When you open a 26.1 with 25.5 doesn't it leave the articulations as they are? And, when you do the same from 25.5 to 26.1? I don't really see anything else that would be different between the two except maybe the articulations. Best to be safe though.
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motet
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Post by motet » Fri May 24, 2019 6:47 pm

ebiggs1 wrote:When you open a 26.1 with 25.5 doesn't it leave the articulations as they are?
Read the Scoring Notes link above. There is indeed an option to leave them alone, but it then messes with the articulation definitions themselves anyway to make them stackable, so if you then edit something, save the file, and re-open it in an older version there's a problem.

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zuill
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Post by zuill » Fri May 24, 2019 7:12 pm

I just confirmed that with a simple test. What a mess. Didn't they think these things through? I would hope they would fix this in v26.2, but I'm not holding my breath. To say that v25 can open v26 files might be true, but with this "bug", that is not really the truth. Going from v25 to 2014.5 is much smoother. This new feature makes files incompatible, in my opinion, with v25, 2014.5 or 2014. Somehow, they failed to fully test this.

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motet
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Post by motet » Fri May 24, 2019 7:30 pm

Rothman quotes Mark Adler as saying they debated the matter extensively. Better would have been to put an "old articulations" flag in the file and have the new software behave in the old way if set.

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zuill
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Post by zuill » Fri May 24, 2019 7:59 pm

They have a way to Export to 2012 format. Why not to v25 format?

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ebiggs1
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Post by ebiggs1 » Fri May 24, 2019 8:25 pm

"Read the Scoring Notes link above."
It is a moot point to me as I don't ever see me doing it. I was just curious why others were. Both me and the school are on 26 and that is my main most concern. I deleted 25.5 when I installed 26.1. I do keep a copy of 2014.5 on a different desktop but I really don't know why.
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MikeHalloran
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Post by MikeHalloran » Fri May 24, 2019 9:24 pm

The sluggishness of the Mac version on 5K displays appears to have been resolved with 26. I read a note that this may still affect Windows users on hi-res monitors but can't confirm one way or the other.

There are some nice tweaks in 26.1. Nothing earth-shattering or major that I have found.
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michelp
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Post by michelp » Fri May 24, 2019 10:07 pm

ebiggs1 wrote: I do keep a copy of 2014.5 on a different desktop but I really don't know why.
I kept it too (besides 25.5), for the reason that it is the last version which has the Movie Window.
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motet
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Post by motet » Fri May 24, 2019 11:01 pm

I would upgrade just for fixing "Do you want to save the file?" when closing an unedited file, surely the simplest of bugs to fix.

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Post by Anders Hedelin » Sat May 25, 2019 2:14 am

motet wrote:I wonder what percent of upgraders did so in order to be able to open newer documents.
I don't know about percentages either. But aren't you also concerned with MM's lack of interest in profit AND development?
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motet
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Post by motet » Sat May 25, 2019 4:34 am

Absolutely.

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zuill
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Post by zuill » Sat May 25, 2019 4:36 am

motet wrote:I would upgrade just for fixing "Do you want to save the file?" when closing an unedited file, surely the simplest of bugs to fix.
One would think. Finale 26.1 still prompts you to save, even if you just open a file to look at it.

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motet
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Post by motet » Sat May 25, 2019 5:26 am

I was just bitten by this today, saving unnecessarily. Some people may say (and have said to me here), "What's the big deal? Just remember if you've modified it and don't save if you haven't!", or, "Just save every time--no harm done!"; but perhaps I have a short attention span, and I want the file modification time to reflect when I really modified it. I also want to keep the one-version-ago .bakx file as it was. I was able to restore .musx and .bakx from backup, but still.

Old versions of Finale didn't have this problem. Just about every other editing-type program I know of gets it right. It's very simple to implement: the program sets a flag somewhere in the program or the file when it's opened, then clears the flag whenever you make a change. When it comes time to close the file, if the flag is still set, it can close it without warning.

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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Sat May 25, 2019 5:18 pm

I noticed that the new version of NotePerformer does not seem to be compatible with any versions of Finale prior to 26? At least, in the system requirements it specifies Finale 26.

I'm seriously debating getting Fin26, only to be able to use NotePerformer... I'm trying to move away from my reliance on my old libraries, for which I must keep Finale 2012 perpetually installed for playback (and DAMN that version was glitchy for playback).
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Perotinus
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Post by Perotinus » Sat May 25, 2019 6:38 pm

zuill wrote:They have a way to Export to 2012 format. Why not to v25 format?

Zuill
Zuill, If I understand your response above correctly, I just opened and saved a file in v26 and then opened v25 and opened the same file with no problem, no export/import function necessary. I probably can't do this any farther back (such as v26 to Fin2014), but opening in the previous version is directly manageable.

Is this what you were referring to?
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Post by ebiggs1 » Sat May 25, 2019 7:59 pm

"I'm seriously debating getting Fin26, only to be able to use NotePerformer..."
Can I assume you would recommend NotePerformer? I have considered it but not pulled the trigger.
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Sat May 25, 2019 8:12 pm

ebiggs1 wrote:
"I'm seriously debating getting Fin26, only to be able to use NotePerformer..."
Can I assume you would recommend NotePerformer? I have considered it but not pulled the trigger.
I would have tried the demo, but like I said, it says "system requirements: Finale 26".
I haven't tried it yet, but from the samples I've heard, it certainly seems to sound good.

Though like all budget sample libraries, the weakness seems to be the strings.
The brass sound great.
User of Finale since version 3.0 on Windows.
Now using a mix of Finale 2012, Finale 25, and 26.1
GPO, Garritan Solo Stradivari violin, Gofriller Solo Cello.
XSamples Chamber Ensemble.
Absolute convert to NotePerformer3.

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ebiggs1
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Post by ebiggs1 » Sat May 25, 2019 8:20 pm

I guess I just want somebody to say it's good go buy it. I just don't want to be first!
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bvstudios
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Post by bvstudios » Sat May 25, 2019 8:44 pm

ebiggs1 wrote:I guess I just want somebody to say it's good go buy it. I just don't want to be first!
Well it isn't BAD. More of an incremental update.

Once I got the GIFF instruments sorted out, it seems to be okay. And the GIFF problem may just be me..
K M Frye
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ebiggs1
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Post by ebiggs1 » Sat May 25, 2019 9:01 pm

Do you mean 26 or NotePerformer? 26 is a buy, all the way. I am not sure about NotePerformer yet.
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bvstudios
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Post by bvstudios » Sat May 25, 2019 9:18 pm

ebiggs1 wrote:Do you mean 26 or NotePerformer? 26 is a buy, all the way. I am not sure about NotePerformer yet.
Sorry- I thought you were asking about Finale 26.
K M Frye
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zuill
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Post by zuill » Sat May 25, 2019 9:48 pm

Perotinus wrote:
zuill wrote:They have a way to Export to 2012 format. Why not to v25 format?

Zuill
Zuill, If I understand your response above correctly, I just opened and saved a file in v26 and then opened v25 and opened the same file with no problem, no export/import function necessary. I probably can't do this any farther back (such as v26 to Fin2014), but opening in the previous version is directly manageable.

Is this what you were referring to?
The incompatibility has to do with stacked articulations. If you create a file in 25 with more than one articulation stacked on a note, and you adjust the positions of the articulations to look correct, then save and open the same file in 26, regardless of which option you choose when opening the v25 file in v26, if you save it in 26 and re-open in 25, the articulation positioning is lost from the original 25 file. This can be disastrous if the file has a lot of those.

Zuill
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"When all is said and done, more is said than done."

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