understanding spacing?

[blj]

Hi Forum,
I work with hi complex chords - lots of accidentals and clusters, making spacing issues,
When I, in speedy or in special tools move the input to the place i want it (not always but sometimes) moves back to the from finale decided position.
I have in the documents options, under pref./ Music spacing, marked the > Manual Positioning> incorporate.
What do I miss???

yours
B

[Peter Thomsen]

… When I, in speedy or in special tools move the input to the place i want it (not always but sometimes) moves back to the from finale decided position … What do I miss??? …

Probably the program option Automatic Music Spacing is selected (in Preferences - Edit).

[blj]

Super, that works, thanks Peter

[BuonTempi]

That's something I've never understood in 25 years or so. By default, Automatic Music Spacing is on, and it is surely a core function of Finale to ... space music automatically.

The manual says:

If you decide to turn off Automatic Music Spacing, the spacing is linear; in other words, a whole note gets exactly the same horizontal space as four quarter notes. Furthermore, this newly-entered music may contain collisions between lyric syllables, overlapping chord symbols, and crowded 32nd notes.

So why would you want that? The manual also says:

Choose Clear from the drop-down list to remove all manual adjustments while spacing the music.
Choose Ignore from the drop-down list to have Finale space the music as if it weren’t manually positioned; after spacing, Finale adds the positioning to its result.
Finally, choose Incorporate to include any manual adjustments into Finale’s calculations while spacing the music.

That is pretty clear that manual adjustments should remain in place for all but the first option -- while Finale is (automatically) spacing the music.

Nowhere does it mention that you have to turn off AMS for any manual adjustments to hold. And if that's true, then it means you can't get Finale to automatically space music, once you've made a single manual adjustment!

I have no idea whether this system is working as designed, or riddled with bugs, but it surely can't be optimal.

[John Ruggero]

I've never been able to get to the bottom of this either. Sometimes the manual adjustments hold and sometimes not. As a result, I use AMS the first time only, turn it off for manual adjustments and never use AMS again for that file. I use Note Spacing and JW Note Spacing on selected areas of the file where I want new automatic spacing. From what I understand, this is what many users do.

But never turn off Automatic Update Layout. That way leads to madness.

[BuonTempi]

I seem to remember there was some outrage when MM moved the AMS preference from being a document setting to an application one. (Or was that something else?)

If you need to change the AMS status depending on the phase of the document's creation, then it makes no sense to be an application pref. At best, you should be able to assign a key command to it.

[Anders Hedelin]

I seem to remember there was some outrage when MM moved the AMS preference from being a document setting to an application one. (Or was that something else?)

If you need to change the AMS status depending on the phase of the document's creation, then it makes no sense to be an application pref. At best, you should be able to assign a key command to it.

In the good old days when we all (?) believed that posting our ideas of a better Finale on the Requests forum would make a difference, I recall asking for AMS to be document- and not program-related. Needless to say, nothing ever happened with that.

To paraphrase what John said: Turning ALU off, and forgetting to turn AMS off, both lead to sadness. After repeated mistakes without getting it, to madness.

[motet]

I do what John does and agree AMS should be a document setting.

Then there's the I'll-conceived Multimeasure Rests/Update automatically. There would be no need for this option at all if changing the score affected the mm rest in the part in question only, instead of every damn part. As it is, I have to turn that option off and then try to remember to fix the mm rest manually when needed, which is of course risky.