Tuplet Horizontal Number Offsets

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loff56
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2019 11:07 pm
Finale Version: 26.3
Operating System: Mac

Post by loff56 » Mon Nov 04, 2019 5:47 pm

I've been doing a deep dive into Tuplets recently and I think I discovered a bug (well... perhaps I'm not the only one that has discovered it!)

I just sent a ticket in to MakeMusic about this so... we'll see what they say.

It has to do with the Tuplet Horizontal Number Offsets in the Document Options for Tuplets. Here's the report I filed with MakeMusic:

"I've never had a reason to fiddle with the Horizontal Number Offsets in the Doc. Options for Tuplets but I was snooping around there today and noticed that the results are rather buggy. It appears that these offsets are designed to be used on tuplets without shapes to allow the tuplet to look centered over a set of beams instead of centered over the whole width of the noteheads in the group. But changing the upstem offset value also affects tuplets that have a bracket, essentially centering them on the stems instead of the total width of the noteheads which would be wrong since the bracket covers the total width of the noteheads. Furthermore when you flip a tuplet without a bracket from the upstem side so that it now goes below to the notehead side the tuplet continues to use that upstem offset value which makes the tuplet not centered on the total width of the noteheads despite the bracket covering that total width. This seems like a bug to me. These behaviors don't occur with the downstem number offsets. Can anyone at the company confirm this behavior? I'm attaching the file I was using just in case - it's a fairly un-tainted file created as a Default Document from Version 26.1. Oh and I'm on a Mac OSX 10.14.6 (Mojave) so I have NOT updated to Catalina yet."

This absolutely has to be a bug because one value behaves one way and the other value another way, it doesn't make sense.

Generally though, tuplets in Finale need a serious refresh. I get that most things in Finale are "dumb" and won't move out of the way of things, but they managed to do it with slurs and articulations, they could probably do it with tuplets too. In the very least they should get out of the way of each other - nested tuplets when created will overlap each other, it's ridiculous! There's also not really a good way to do nested tuplets in Simple Entry - much easier in Speedy Entry though - and there's no value to set the distance away from the staff lines when the tuplets are set to avoid staff lines.

Anyway, some upgrades to tuplets would be nice!


User avatar
motet
Posts: 8229
Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:33 pm
Finale Version: 2014.5,2011,2005,27
Operating System: Windows

Post by motet » Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:20 pm

I explored this years ago. Though I think the default offsets have been changed, problems persist. See this thread in the old forums (be sure to read through to the end--there are two pages).

https://forum.makemusic.com/default.asp ... 4&g=298259

loff56
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Sep 07, 2019 11:07 pm
Finale Version: 26.3
Operating System: Mac

Post by loff56 » Mon Nov 04, 2019 9:36 pm

Ah, so the issue has been well tread! And evidently hasn't improved in the last 9 years. :-(

(For what it's worth, I did search for this on the new forum but didn't think to search on the old forum).

Anyway... kind of unbelievable that this has never been addressed. There are some other buggy behaviors regarding tuplets that ought to be looked at as well. "The use bottom note" option more or less doesn't seem to do much either. I've read the manual on that point and... yeah... doesn't seem to affect much with it checked or unchecked. Also... in some windows it's called "Enhanced Tuplets" and in other windows it's called "Engraver Tuplets". Ummmm... clearly the proofreader amongst the programmers was asleep at the wheel when they implemented that Enhanced/Engraver algorithm! lol. And as I mentioned it would be nice to be able to adjust the vertical distance between the tuplet and the staff when "Avoid Staff" is selected. Among other things.....

Tuplets could use some TLC!!

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