I have used Finale shortly after it became available..shows my age..and I have found there are two types of Finale users; those using simple entry and those using key-character entry. You can probably guess which I am. Regardless, I would love the following:

 

    -   Have a yearly "composting" contest (music composition entry contest--who can get it on paper first with the fewest errors) using the two primary entry styles. The grand "compucopyist" winner would receive 24/7/365 support for the "issues" that each new version seems to have "sprinkled" throughout without fail. Would certainly be a good advertiising gimmick.

 

    -In speedy entry, when you select a dot for say a dotted quarter that the dot dissappears after you are finished with the dotted quarter. Currently, as most of you are aware, if you choose to dot a note, you are stuck with the dot until you turn it off. I wish that after I am through with the dotted quarter, all parts of the note go away, including the dot. The quarter goes away so why doesn't the dot that gives it the dotted quarter identity go away?  I would think that once one dots a note, the dot and the note (the dotted quarter note) would be considered  "married", locked together until you turn off the dotted quarter note by selecting another note such as the eighth rest, or whole note.  At that time, if you click an eighth note you should get an eighth note. Currently, if you have a dotted quarter, then click an eighth, you have a dotted eighth when you wanted just an eighth.

 

     -   In scroll view, I shouldn't  have to reposition the page with the hand tool each time the screen redraws to see the staff names in the left margin. There may be a way (ways) to do this but I have yet to discover it. Scroll view is when this nuissance occurs.

 

     - Have more user friend "everythings". Meaning, I agree with a former reply about percussion maps whereas if you specify that you want these percussion instruments in this staff, that the program will automatically set up playback, with the proper instrument and the sound requested as well. Then we can spend decades trying to figure out how to tweek the basic sound rather than trying to figure out how to "produce" the basic sound.  My thinking is, if I can produce a flute, clarinet, tuba, etc., with little effort besides typing a few common sense keystrokes, then I should be able to do so with any percussion instrument. If I want a drum set, put that sucker in the percussion staff and if nothing else, have a staff wizard that simply gives me two or three choices of which drum set set up I prefer. We simply want to be able to ask for core percussion stuff, including orchestral, concert band, rock band, jazz, etc., then hear what we wanted. Another possible solution would be for us to specify in the "setup wizard" which percussion instruments we want to use (such as maracas, claves, cowbell, suspended cymbal, snare, bass drum, and gong, as well as more instruments, fewer instruments) , on "x#" staves, then have Finale do it. The help files apparently have the genuine "sure bet" processes in print so why not make it possible in set up to have the basic functions of percussion setup automated totally, as the processes for setting up all of the instruments has always been automated. One other reader mentioned that they had no problem with percussion mapping, and I wish I could agree, but my experiences have been that you do what the help file says to do, then you get almost all you asked for but not everything, even though the directions were followed. And at times, if it does work, you can save it, then return later and it goes back to a default that you changed but it didn't change, or it changed back even though you specified you wanted your changes to be default.

 

     - My final finale change that I would love to see would be to change the way lead sheets are made. I can't seem to enter guitar chords, then hear them realized unless I type the notes of the chord into the score in a given layer, then hide the notes when printed because the melody is what is entered, not the chords. At this point, the sound is there but it's a lot of trouble just to see and hear a C chord. Another change I would appreciate would be that if you want to enter a single  guitar diagram above or beside a given chord, that you don't have to have chord diagrams above or beside every single chord in the song. Sometimes I feel the need to show a chord diagram on an unusual chord for guitarist, but not for common chords. All those chord diagrams take up a lot of space and they make your printed copy very amateur-looking. In other words, the score looks like it was written with the beginning guitarist in mind only. My suggestion, make chord diagrams either "married" (all chord diagrams appear) or "single" (for a chosen chord), and that we can decide which we prefer. I am one to write out chord charts and lead sheets if necessary, but I would prefer to be able to make a lead sheet quickly using the chord tool rather than the text tool without having to enter and view every chord.  I have found the chord tool and it's menus to be very user-friendly to the experienced guitarist but it shouldn't have to be used excpet when needed and we should not be forced to have a chord diagram above every chord when we wanted just one. I have written hundreds of charts and I have never used a single diagram in print because I don't want all those diagrams on my lead sheets. Even if the designers leave the chord input method the same, at least attach a toggle to each chord giving us a choice about whether any or all chord diagrams are printed. Maybe Finale designers could examine a copy of "The Real Book", the standard for many jazz entertainers and educators, and try to design your lead sheet procedures around making the final copy look like those charts. Maybe you have already done this, but I can't reproduce what may or may not be possible.

 

     In the opinion of a longtime user of Finale, Finale has suffered recently from the need to make "improvements", and some that were not needed. If it truly is an improvement rather than a sales point, then I am all for the change, but to change something that already works in favor of a new "angle" that can be added to your "Improvements" list on your new versions, is not user-friendly.  Additionally, it is the customer that switches to other programs that do the same task as easily, and has equal quirks I'm sure. I believe that Finale has improved in many ways, i.e., page setup, expression/articulation entry and results, and I appreciate the efforts by those who have helped make it a better product, but there are times that I ask, why did they change that? The original path worked very well and now we have to learn a new path that may prove to be not as good as the original that didn't need fixing. Work towards the age old issues that almost all users experience rather than inventing new issues for steps that didn't have issues previously. They could call the  new version: "Finale Gold", the seemless, flawless notation standard. There are no "issues" with Gold unless they are "issues" caused by you, the customer..our most valuable asset.

 

I normally don't have this much time on my hands but I am taking a break from the sometimes easy, sometimes not easy help files in the manual and the forums searching for answers to "issues" I have with midi, playback, and percussion. I didn't have trouble opening those files or reading those humongous books in the beginning but now I have to read help files explaining how to use the help files...*&$^.

 

I have now wasted a good two days trying to reproduce something I figured out a few days ago, then saved the solution carefully, then when I returned to work on the document all of the changes I saved were nowhere to be found. Should I get back to "discovery" of a program I have used forever or should I just watch football....