A feature request submitted to MM

[David Ward]

This is something I've been meaning to submit to MM for ages and have just now done so (in the proper Zendesk place - EDIT: or not the proper place, as it's turned out).

“This is primarily a feature request as I still find the page format dialogue convoluted and obscure after 22 years of using Finale. If I understand things correctly, to get the actual height (in points for convenient calculation, which I later convert to millimetres) of the staves with which I'll be working in my chosen page size, I multiply 24 points by the ‘resultant system scaling %’. If (as usual) I am working in a notional A4 page size, I then multiply by the 4th root of 2 to get the stave height when printed in B4 or by the square root of 2 to get the stave height when printed in A3. Surely Finale should be making these calculations for me? Should there not be a dialogue which does this near-enough instantly, and which allows one to switch back and forth between various identically proportioned international A and B sizes at will while assessing potential stave heights for a Finale file when printed? I think I can be reasonably confident that the computer's arithmetic would be safer than mine, and that such arithmetic is just the sort of thing at which computers are really rather efficient (unlike me). David Ward”

I wonder if there'll be any response.

[David Ward]

Ah! MM technical support have told me, if I have understood correctly, that I did NOT ask this in the proper Zendesk place. Apparently it should not be a technical support matter, but instead it should be raised in the ‘The Finale Feature Request Community’. I've had a look at that, but the approach feels alien to me (voting and all that). I find no longer being expected to make a feature request directly to technical support rather discouraging.

I can cope with the arithmetic when I have to, so I probably won't bother with the ‘Feature Request Community’.

[BuonTempi]

I agree that the Page Format dialog, like so many others, is a mess. (As is the Feature Request system!)

The actual 'resultant' size of the staff, after scaling and scaling, should be displayed in the dialog. I'm not convinced that it needs to show what that size would be if you chose to print it onto different sizes of paper, though. There's enough scaling confusion as it is.

A small spreadsheet where you enter the staff size, scalings, and pages sizes, could help for the time being.

Does anyone actually use Page and Staff Scaling? I think I'm right that every other notation app just has a field for the staff (or space) size, and doesn't see the lack of additional scaling factors as a limitation.

I've long suggested that the Staff Size and System Scaling should be merged into one value, and Page Scaling should be hidden behind a "Legacy Settings" panel.

My own bugbear with Page Format is that nothing happens when you press OK. At the very least, the Redefine Pages options should be available directly. Ideally, pressing OK should reconfigure the entire score automatically, and if you want to make manual alterations to specific pages, then you do those in Page Format.

[dtoub]

Regarding feature requests, I am right there with you. I have submitted ideas to the current "official" features and requests forum and that is moderated by other users, not MM, with mixed results. I did send some feature requests to MM tech support and they told me the same thing: post it in the Forum since they do at least look at it (even if they don't chime in). But that got me nowhere and yeah, I'm pretty disappointed that MM doesn't have a better way to submit feature requests.

And given how many things need enhancement, it's striking to me that they just don't seem to listen. Not a good way to maintain their aging existing user base, let alone grow it with new users.