Adding instruments?

[BuonTempi]

The "Add Instrument" button in the Score manager does nothing. Doesn't respond to a click at all. And didn't there used to be a menu item under Staff menu to add an instrument from the Setup Wizard?

I've reset my preferences, to no avail. Possibly a Sonoma (MacOS 14) issue, as it works on my other Mac that's still on Ventura.

[motet]

MakeMusic's system requirements for Finale 27:

macOS 10.14 (Mojave), 10.15 (Catalina), 11 (Big Sur), 12 (Monterey) and 13 (Ventura), natively compatible with Apple silicon and Intel-based Macs

[BuonTempi]

I'd assumed that was just not up-to-date. However:

"We are aware of issues in Sonoma with Finale v27.3 with the ScoreManager that affects editing and adding instruments within the dialog."

https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/ ... n-Products

Still, didn't there used to be another way?

[motet]

Perhaps you could add a staff in the Staff tool and then go to the Score Manager to set up playback.

[motet]

I could envision a class action lawsuit against Apple for not making OS changes upwardly compatible, disrupting users and forcing them to upgrade their applications (if they're lucky enough to have a new version available). This doesn't happen with Windows.

[BuonTempi]

I suppose it depends on whether this change is intentional, or a bug that will be fixed in a later OS update; whether MM were following the correct APIs to start with; and all sort of other things. I have plenty of apps that don't need updating to work with the new OS. (Though some others do.)

I don't think Apple is quite as cavalier about what happens to apps as it might appear. I know, for instance, that they are working with another software company, adding code specifically for them, so that their existing apps don't break in Sonoma (though you'd think that's what the beta period would be for).

Some OS transitions are more plain sailing than others, and I'd say that in general since the removal of 32-bit support in Catalina (4 years ago), things have been fairly stable.

I had to re-build one of my own apps for Monterey, which otherwise introduced a glitch in a UI control. It depends whether you think software is an on-going process, like maintaining a garden, or a "work of art", that stands for all time.

[motet]

You're right that I don't have all the details. I do think it's possible to make progress without breaking old things, though--I still occasionally run Finale 2005 on Windows 10 to make small corrections to old files (I haven't tried it on Windows 11, but my guess is that it will still work). I suppose Microsoft will one day stop supporting 32-bit code, though.