Finale Forum

Is anyone aware of a tool in Finale for creating harp fingering brackets (or alternatively some kind of work around)? These brackets are much the same as the ‘double ended bracket’ found in the ‘Smart Shape Tools’ except that the angle of the horizontal portion of the bracket can be altered so that it does not have to default to being parallel to the lines of the staff (that is, in much the same way as the angle of note beams can be altered in Finale).

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks — Peadar.

Go into the custom line dialog, duplicate the bracket you want, and edit it. Uncheck “keep horizontal” and you will be good to go.

Thank you, Miker, for your reply to my dilemma. I’m not sure whether I’ve gone by the route you’ve suggested or not. Here are the steps I took:
‘Option-clinking’ the ‘Custom Line Tool’ in the ‘Smart Shapes’ window brought up the ‘Smart Line Selection’ window. I duplicated the plain line option and clicking the ‘edit’ button brought up the ‘Smart Line Designer’ window. I edited the line by adding descending hooks at each end to form a bracket. I left the ‘Horizontal’ check-box unchecked so that the angle of the line could be altered.
The resulting tool is close to what I’m after except that whatever angle I set the line at, the ‘hooks’ are always set at 90 degrees to the line, whereas the effect I’m after has the ‘hooks’ set vertically, independent of the angle of the line (much the same as the angles of note beams can be altered while the note stems remain vertical).
I can’t find a setting in the ‘Smart Line Designer’ to overcome this problem.

the only thing I can think of is a couple of expressions. You can create them with lines. If you click the box to Allow Horizontal Stretching, you can even move them around, although too much change in the angle does strange things to the legs.

Try it, though. I surprised myself!

Peadar Mac, can you post an image of what you want to achieve, with fingerings?

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We’ve tried that, Motet. He wants the hooks to remain vertical, not perpendicular to the line. That’s why I suggested the shape expression, instead. The drawback to that is that the length of the hook changes, as you move the angle or scaling of the shape. It can be worked around, by using a few different “starting” drawings.

Ah, OK.

Here's a workaround. I don't doubt that there might be better ones, but this is what came to mind: The bracket is defined like this in the tuplet definition window: The hooks may be elongated, remaining vertical, in the same tuplet definition window.

Like this? I used a vertical line character for "Left Start" and "Right End" and fiddled with "Position."

I just drew the 3 lines in Shape Designer. Blow it up to 400 or even 800%, to get the verticals attached to the angled line.

But, as always, whatever works for you!

But if you have many to apply, woudn't that be tedious?

miker wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 01, 2020 5:52 pm

… I just drew the 3 lines in Shape Designer. Blow it up to 400 or even 800%, to get the verticals attached to the angled line …

In the Shape Designer there is also a Multiline Tool.

Use the Multiline Tool, and the 3 line segments will automatically be attached to each other.

But it sounds like Peadar wants to be able to adjust the angle and have the ends stay vertical (see the picture). I think my idea is the easiest--only one SmartShape needed (or two, if you want both up- and down-pointing versions).

My way does that, too. The only problem, like I said, is that if you change the angle too far, the hooks change length. That’s why I suggested a few of them, at various angles. Choose the closest one to what you need, and adjust from there. You only have to create them, once.

Ah. Somehow I thought you were suggesting applying three different lines each time. Seems good, then.

Here are the left and right positions for the Times-New-Roman-12-point | start and end character, for what it's worth. The one with the negative number is the left side.

And the prize goes to . . . .

Firstly, thank you very much miker, motet, Peter, and Anders for all your considered solutions to my problem. Motet’s attachment with the hand-drawn brackets are the kind of thing that I’m striving for.

I’ve tried through each of your suggestions and Anders’ suggested ‘work-around’ of employing the ‘tuplet definitions’ settings seems to give the most flexible solution to my problem, with the added advantages that, as well as being able to alter the angle of the horizontal line of the bracket independent of the vertical ‘hooks’, I can also invert the bracket and have control over the lengths of the hooks — exactly what I’m after. Give the man a cigar!

But thank you all. I genuinely appreciate the time and effort you’ve all invested into this one!

Best wishes to you all,

Peader

mike, motet, Peter, and Anders…

Here’s an example of a series of finger placement brackets for harp which I’ve done by manipulating the ‘tuplet definitions’ settings as suggested by Anders. In the definitions box I set the value for the first two settings at ‘1’ so that the bracket would be ‘attached’ to the initial note selected without altering the values of the following notes in the bar. The ‘Number’ setting is set to ‘nothing’. The ‘Break Slur or Bracket’ box is unchecked, and the ‘Match Length of Hooks’ box is also unchecked.
Success!

Thank you all again.

Peadar

Since the tuplet bracket's purpose is to bracket notes, that seems like a clever solution. Looks like you can use "Set Default" in the Tuplet tool to make things easier if you're doing several in a row.

Sorry for maybe being ignorant, but can't just a bracket do the job?

That's a possibility. You do have to uncheck "Make horizontal" each time. The hooks are rather small, though, and I don't see any way to edit that shape. The ones you can edit via the custom line tool maintain a 90-degree angle between line and hook, which the O.P. didn't want. Do you know how to edit that shape?

Octo,
The bracket has the hooks at 90 degrees to the line. (It goes without saying that you would make the hooks longer, and uncheck “horizontal.”) So, if you tilt the line, the hooks will remain at 90 degrees. The OP wants the hooks to stay vertical, regardless of the tilt of the lines.

That one does keep the hooks vertical. But I don't see any way to make the hooks longer.

That's done in Smart Shape Options.

Zuill

I used -72 EVPUs. That’s the same as the repeat bracket.