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| MakeMusic Forum > Public Forums > Finale - Windows - FORUM HAS MOVED! > Finale 2005 and The Latest Notepad | Forum Quick Jump
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mkelley
Registered Member
      
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 174
| Posted 8/27/2004 7:33 AM (GMT -6) |   | Actually, this is one the most serious deficiencies of Finale -- always has been. There is no major program that I know of that changes file structures and not allow you to save in previous versions.
All the Adobe products (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, etc.), all Microsoft (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) -- anything major that does revisions to its file structure will always both read and write to previous versions (so you can save in Word '97, for example, or Photoshop 6 format).
That Finale constantly shoots itself in the foot over this is very odd -- have they never used any other software? Have they never considered that folks might want to save to previous versions so others without that version might want to use it? Just what the heck are they thinking here?
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Dick Brodfuehrer
Hack Arranger and C.O.G. (Chief Old Geezer)
Date Joined Jul 2000
Total Posts : 4687
| Posted 8/27/2004 9:11 AM (GMT -6) | |
WARNING! Here comes another of my NEVER humble opinions.
The reason is pure arrogance. It isn't that NotePad is late, it is that the new Finale is released too soon. As 2004 so clearly demonstrated, the corporate policy is to release a new Finale version regardless of whether or not it has been adequately tested and subjected to adequate quality review --- in other words; "Get it out there, and to hell with the user base!"
But management and IS share responsibility. I'm not a techie, but did have management responsibility for an IS department at one time, and also for an IS audit function. My experience has been that no system designer or programmer could ever imagine, even in their wildest dreams, that their work could be anything but perfect. "Desk check the code? You gotta be kidding." "Spend time trying to defeat the system? C'mon, get serious. You're wasting my time." "Whatta ya mean it doesn't work right --- gotta be user error." And on and on and on, ad nauseam.
The only solution is for management to bite the bullet and insist on a clean, thoroughly tested product. And to recognize the arrogance of an attitude that says; "My God, it's August! Publish the new release. I don't care if it isn't ready. We'll fix the problems later."
End of another NEVER humble opinion.
(Currently using: Finale 2003a, Windows XP-Home, TGTools 2.25, and The Glenlivet when I can afford it.)
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
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mkelley
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 174
| Posted 8/27/2004 11:27 AM (GMT -6) | | Zuill said...
Basically, the Dolet MusicXML plugin does what you are asking. Save in that format and open in an earlier version. You will lose some things, but that's the way it goes. What's nice is that you can also open those in some other programs. Soon the Mac version will be out if not already (in beta testing at this time).
Zuill
Um, I'm going to be skeptical here -- first of all, I don't even have the dolet plugin in Finale 2004b, but let's assume that's because it's not part of the standard install and I just need to put my disk (at home) back in here and install it.
Now -- you're telling me that if I take a Finale 2004b file, with all it can do, and save it with this Dolet thingee and then reimport it back into Finale 2004b it will be exactly the same? Because I don't think so -- I'll bet you a dollar right now this won't work properly, that something will be lost in translation (even though by definition it shouldn't).
What I am asking is something far more basic -- Finale itself should save to previous versions, and preserve whatever it is that previous version can handle. This ain't hard -- even a beginning programmer can handle this, and it should be part of any beta tests anyway (since Finale 2005 has to open 2004 files it must know how to process them). And this should all be part of the standard "Save As" menu anyway, with no plugin (that might possibly not get installed) required.
Really, I reiterate this is so basic to just about any program worth its salt that I can't believe MakeMusic dropped the ball on this. The only explanation is they are so embarassed about earlier versions of their formats they would hope they'll somehow go away.
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Tyler
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2001
Total Posts : 3586
| Posted 8/27/2004 11:28 AM (GMT -6) | | This question comes up every year. Here are my observations.
1. MakeMusic doesn't normally introduce NotePad 6 months after Finale. Last year may have seemed like this for Windows users, but the Mac Finale 2004 was not released until January, and the OS 9 version until after that. The company believes that Mac users would feel very betrayed if they concentrated on anything but Finale. And besides this, the Mac version of NotePad is built from the Mac version of Finale. It would have also been more work, since some of the bug fixes that went into the initial release of Mac Finale also went into NotePad, but had a Windows NotePad come out first, it would have differed from the Mac version (something MakeMusic tries to avoid when they can). This year they introduced Mac and Win Finale at the same time. Perhaps this means we could see NotePad sooner than ever.
2. I was the first person in the company to discover and start experimenting with MusicXML. I was very excited when I discovered how well the program worked and I shared my findings with the company. MakeMusic started including that plugin with Finale for 2 reasons. One was for importing SharpEye files - a scanning program which did a better job than SmartScore or PhotoScore at the time yet was a fraction of the price. And the other was that it finally gave users a very real way to bring files back to previous versions - not perfectly, but we knew that even if we created the feature ourselves there would be limitations due to changes in the software. MusicXML has never really been touted by MakeMusic as a save-as-older-version feature, but in all fairness it should be. In tech support I used it that way on numerous occasions when users sent in 50 or 60 files that they needed in an older format.
3. Developing this as an actual feature would take a lot of resources in a development cycle, if it could even be completed in one round. After the feature was in there it would have to continually be updated each year, becoming an ever-growing drain on development resources and testing resources. This unquestionably would hurt other areas of Finale's progress.
4. It's incorrect to call this arrogance, and MakeMusic does not release Finale until they feel it is ready. Case in point, according to our own development schedule, Finale 2004 was supposed to be released for Windows in April or May and for Mac in June or July. In reality we didn't release Windows until August and Mac until January. Some time around the beginning of August, we believed Windows was complete and sent it out for duplication. But in fooling around with some nonsensical rhythm that involved a combination of a huge tuplet with 32nd notes being broken over a barline by the new Simple Entry, I managed to get Finale to crash. It wasn't a real-world scenario since it was a rhythm we'd never encounter, but MakeMusic opted to halt the already in-progress duplication, fix the bug, throw out the CD's and start over. Now MakeMusic is a public company, and in order to keep their investors happy, they have to consistently produce successful software (which they do). But this company will absolutely do what it can for the customers when it's at all within their power to do it. That's one of the reasons I still hang around supporting them 6 months after I stopped working for them.
Windows XP, all updates
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mkelley
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 174
| Posted 8/27/2004 11:34 AM (GMT -6) | | Tyler,
I'm going to guess you're not a programmer, because if you were you'd know this is a pretty trivial thing to implement that would not "take a lot of resources" up. I've managed quite a few programming teams, and I'd fire any single programmer who couldn't handle this (and we were writing systems that make Finale look like child's play -- in fairness, I can only guess at the complexity of Finale, but since we had hundreds of programmers with a payroll of many millions at the very least we were in the same ballpark).
Be that as it may, given that this question comes up every year, and that tech support folks like you used to be have to deal with it 50 or 60 times, you'd think someone at MakeMusic would get the message. This is a "feature" that should have been included a long, long time ago.
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Composing, Arranging and Orchestration ForumsPost Edited (mkelley) : 8/27/2004 4:37:15 PM GMT | | Back to Top | |
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Zuill
"The Troll"
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 29077
| Posted 8/27/2004 11:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Finale 2003 and 2004, as well as 2005, have the MusicXML plugin.
I know what you are saying. However, since Finale doesn't do what you are asking, it's good to know there are options. I can't answer your question about what data may be lost in translation, but I know from my experience that it is very, very close.
But another benefit of the plugin is that it will help in swapping files between different programs. That is something even Microsoft doesn't handle well between its own programs(Word to Works, for example). Just as the early days of MIDI established standards by which different manufacturers could rely on their equipment being compatible with eachother, so Music XML is doing that.
I can't say why your 2004b doesn't have the plugin. It should be there.
Zuill
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."
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Tyler
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2001
Total Posts : 3586
| Posted 8/27/2004 11:42 AM (GMT -6) | |
mkelley said...Tyler, I'm going to guess you're not a programmer, because if you were you'd know this is a pretty trivial thing to implement that would not "take a lot of resources" up. I've managed quite a few programming teams, and I'd fire any single programmer who couldn't handle this (and we were writing systems that make Finale look like child's play). Be that as it may, given that this question comes up every year, and that tech support folks like yourself have to deal with it 50 or 60 times, you'd think someone at MakeMusic would get the message. This is a "feature" that should have been included a long, long time ago.
I have been there for the discussions about this. It seems like some programmers outside the company feel like it would be a small project, while other programmers outside the company believe it would be a huge project.
But the programmers at Coda who know the code and are quite accomplished say it would be a very large job. And as I said before, it would be a constant drain.
MusicXML gets installed by default. It should be in your plugins menu at the bottom. If it's not, you should reinstall the software.
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