Finalescript to Enter a Forward Slash

[UCG Musician]

I am trying to find a way to edit a full staff name and enter the "/" (forward slash) character. Nothing I've tried works. The key itself doesn't work, nor does trying to enter it with the Alt + 47 ANSI code. I have an old version of Finale but must stick with it because I have thousands of lines of code that I must use for an ongoing project.

[motet]

Finalescript or Staff Attribute? If the former, what is the Finalescript command you're trying to achieve?

[UCG Musician]

The script is to enter the staff name of "Alto/Tenor". I have a script that does everything but the forward slash.

[motet]

Let's see the actual script.

[UCG Musician]

I found a workaround! Using a script to edit the full staff name, calling it just "Alto", I subsequently use search & replace to substitute "Alto/Ten." for "Alto". (I then have to further edit it by putting it on two lines.) The script reads as follows:

Staff tool
Select Staff 2
Staff attributes
Press "edit" near "Full staff name"
Type “Alto”
Click OK
Click OK
Search "Alto" Replace "Alto/Ten."
Staff attributes
Dropdown "Alto/Ten."
Press "edit" near "Full staff name"
Right arrow 4
Enter
Click OK
Click OK

[UCG Musician]

I subsequently learned that the script doesn't like a command like "Type "Alto"" but is happy with "Press "Shift + "A"" plus "Press "l"" plus "Press "t"" plus "Press "o"". This same technique works for other similar scripting requirements. There must be a command for each character so it gets time consuming but at least it works! This is a better way to code what I need than the method I was previously using.

[motet]

You're lucky--I couldn't get Type to work at all in that staff name dialog in Finale 2011b.

Did you try

Press Shift + A
Type "lto"

[UCG Musician]

I couldn't get the Type command to work in any Staff Name editing script. It's good that I found a method because I have 191 files to convert from a hymnal for flute to one for Horn. The flute hymnal has soprano, alto and tenor lines all transposed up an octave without any range problems (as opposed to almost all other instrumental hymnals which have problems either on the high end in the soprano line or on the low end in the tenor line). The trick is that all the staves in the flute hymnal have a "+8va" on the second line of the full staff name so the script has to transpose the notes back down an octave and then modify the names to eliminate the "+8va". Then it has to move all the tenor line notes to Layer 2 and be copied to the alto line because they're both on one staff, which gets renames as "Alto/Ten." Then the lines are all transposed up a 5th for Horn.

[David Ward]

I remember that this came up with one of my earlier versions of Finale and that, on a Mac at least, the answer was to enter a solidus   ⁄  rather than the more usual vergule / - here they are next to each other  ⁄ / for clear comparison, solidus first.

Unfortunately in the computer jargon of ‘slashes’ (which to me suggests an Australian relieving themselves: “I'm going for a slash” &c) there doesn't seem to be a clear distinction in the names used for these.