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| MakeMusic Forum > Public Forums > Finale - Macintosh - FORUM HAS MOVED! > 2014 - Finally! | Forum Quick Jump
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555 95472
My friends call me "5".
      
Date Joined Feb 2012
Total Posts : 26
| Posted 11/4/2013 1:13 PM (GMT -6) |   | I just paid for and am currently downloading the DMG file (1.86 GB). I will post my impressions sometime soon. Maybe I will have insights today. Probably I will be converting a very large 2012 file and fooling around with some very old ones just to see what happens. (Those would be small quartet files engraved with Finale 3.7.2 — lots of fun!)
If there are any problems with the download or any install disasters (like contacts disappearing as with 2004) I will post right away. But based on Jari's blog post and stuff here I am expecting things to go correctly the first time.
Hasta luego...  | | Back to Top | |
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555 95472
My friends call me "5".
Date Joined Feb 2012
Total Posts : 26
| Posted 11/4/2013 2:55 PM (GMT -6) | | First impressions of Finale 2014 for the Mac, using a file with 1893 measures for a quartet:
1. SAVING: It takes about 5 full seconds to save via Command-S. This is much slower than in 2012 with the same file, which takes (normally) one second for the Save action to complete.
2. PLAYBACK: It takes eight to nine full seconds from clicking Play until the file actually starts to play. As Jari mentioned, it hangs while processing hairpins for a good bit of that time. In 2012 this file usually takes about four seconds to actually start playback.
3. PALETTE BUTTONS: If you use a small monitor you might be pissed off. The new pallets are fixed, meaning that Traditional has disappeared as a choice, so now the user is STUCK with the larger buttons that were introduce with Globe and Jazz and all those silly skins. I am always glad to see bloat removed, and all those button skins were pretty bad looking and silly, in my opinion. The smaller button icons from the old Finale worked better on a laptop monitor, and I have *always* used them since a choice was introduced. (This was in 2003 or 2004, I think. Maybe earlier than that.) The larger buttons do not allow you to place the main toolbar vertically in a single row any longer if you happen to work on a small monitor. The Macbook Air 11" is a *very* common and popular computer. I would have imagined that the Gods of Finale would have tested this when they decided to trap us with a single button size. I would very much like to see the choice returned, but just for size. (I actually like the new buttons quite a bit.) Oddly, the way I set up my palettes is with the main tool palette vertical on the left edge in a single row. Next to that is the Simple Entry palette, SE Rests, some empty space, and then the playback controls. Well, the same Gods who failed to account for the height of the MBA 11" screen nailed it with the width. My setup fits perfectly, to the pixel. How odd. Since the vertical was missed I guess that the horizontal must have been a fortuitous accident... (Photo included for this.)
4. MAGNETIC PALETTES: The magnetic palettes are quite nice since this includes the actual window. You can no longer expand the window to full screen if the palettes are placed at the edge; rather, the Green button expands them to fit within the space provided by your palette placement.
5. STAFF NAMES IN SCROLL VIEW: I like the staff names staying fully visible in Scroll View all the time, despite my very small monitor. I can still drag the system over the the left to get a bit more real estate on the monitor if I need to do so. But the nuisance of window resizing or opening extra views and having half of your staff names cut off 100% os now gone.
6. RESOLUTION: This is purely guesswork here, but now this program works properly with Retina displays. I do not have one AFAIK on this MBA. But the rendering that now works with the Retina display seems to make what is on *MY* monitor much more sharp looking. Also, some things seem to look more bold than in 2012, without changing to a bolded font. It is not bold, but seems more *black* as though some characters are a bit thicker on the monitor. I cannot really describe this. But I am interested in whether anyone else experiences this on a non-Retina display.
7. FINGER SCROLLING: In scroll view - WOW! Calm down!!! I barely move my fingers and it scrolls like 50 bars! Hard to control at best, and nearly impossible to move a single measure at a time. SLOW THIS DOWN or at least give us some control over the speed like the Mac trackpad controls for cursor speed as you swipe around the screen. Again, WOW! Not good for me at all, here!
8. MESSAGE BAR: Purely cosmetic, the Message Bar is now at the bottom where the scroll bar was. Since you can now make scroll bars visible, invisible or visible when you need them globally on the Mac I guess this is a bit of a space saver for a small monitor like mine. I *think* I like this one. I have to mess with my scroll bar settings, first, though.
9. LINKED PART PAGE LAYOUT: Not sure, but just about positive that I put this file to bed last night with the spacing of my systems set a certain way. I could be wrong. But all eight parts (quartet plus alternate instrument inner parts) looked to have had system spacing changed a good bit. Normally when you space systems evenly on pages with Page Breaks the first system snaps to the margin at the top if your spacing is set to 0 and you have 0 between systems. All of mine are apparently now randomly below the margin on every page. I fixed it with a quick application of the Space Systems Evenly command and all was good. But it was pretty weird, nonetheless, to find this to have been changed. It was like coming home and having the feeling that someone was in your house while you were gone...
10. FINGER SCROLLING PART TWO: Very annoying behavior, when you swipe up or down, unless you are *perfect* in your direction you will *also* swipe many, many measures east or west at the same time. If you swipe to look at the instruments at the bottom of the system you also swipe (99% of the time I tried) forward or backward a long way in the score. VERY ANNOYING! I suppose I need to file a bug report or feature request to have this looked at? I have never done this. Can anyone post a link here so I can send this in?
11. FILE SIZE: Holy COW!!! My files have MORE THAN DOUBLED IN SIZE! I was under the impression that the new file format would create slightly smaller file sized. I was misinformed. (Photo included for this.)
So far I am liking this version of Finale quite a bit. But there are some oddities that I feel should be looked at.
Your mileage may vary.
Have a good day.
 Post Edited (555 95472) : 11/4/2013 2:07:31 PM (GMT-6)
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JustinP
Senior Product Manager
Date Joined Mar 2009
Total Posts : 822
| Posted 11/4/2013 3:16 PM (GMT -6) | | | |
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555 95472
My friends call me "5".
Date Joined Feb 2012
Total Posts : 26
| Posted 11/4/2013 3:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey, Justin! Thanks for reading my little blurb!
For me, this large file (note the before and after file sizes, by the way) always takes longer to play or to save or to run a full re-space, as you would expect. And today I saved the file six times, each instance taking the same amount of time. Also, it asked me to save before I quit, which I had already done. So quitting also took some time due to this extra save.
The two-finger scrolling is the only real annoyance for me. This, by the way, started with Mavericks. Finale 2012 started two-finger scrolling right and left (in Scroll View) overly fast. As soon as I updated to Mavericks (on a freshly wiped SSD and not on top of Mountain Lion) and reinstalled Finale 2012c I started having a LOT of problems with being able to scroll back a single screen of measures, being almost unable to scroll a single bar, only more than one. And just flicking to go back that single eight or ten bars would send me back 40 or 50!
I have playback set to begin at the Leftmost Measure by default on all my files. So scrolling back to the exact bar is a must for me. And the upgrade to Mavericks really messed this up.
The behavior is more pronounced in 2014 with Mavericks. I am sorry, but I have not yet installed 2014 on my Mountain Lion MBA 11" or my 27" iMac. I will do this later. Then I can see how 2014 works on a much larger monitor and how it works with Mountain Lion regarding the scrolling behavior.
Thanks very much for your time, sir!
Wade RackleyPost Edited (555 95472) : 11/4/2013 2:29:03 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | |
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Zuill
"The Troll"
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 29077
| Posted 11/5/2013 10:00 AM (GMT -6) | | In Windows, I too am getting files doubled in size compared to 2012. Wow. That is disconcerting.
Zuiill
"When all is said and done, more is said than done."
Finale 2002b, 2003a, 2004b, 2005b, Win XP SP3, 2011b Win 7 64bit, 2012a Bought and Paid For (Hopefully soon 2012b with some of the MAJOR BUGS fixed--well, now with 2012b and some of the bugs are fixed) 2012c, with some bug fixes. 2014 now.
Favorite Forum quote: "Please, everybody, IGNORE THE TROLL!" | | Back to Top | |
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555 95472
My friends call me "5".
Date Joined Feb 2012
Total Posts : 26
| Posted 11/5/2013 10:06 AM (GMT -6) | | Yes. I am afraid to convert all mine as I store all my files via Dropbox, so size matters. I have used up half my space. If all my files will more than double in size then I will not have room for them after opening and saving them in 2014. And that is just my accomplished work. That does not include work to be done in the future.
More than double in size. Sobering.
Glad I still have 2012c on my MBA... | | Back to Top | |
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saxop
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 261
| Posted 11/5/2013 10:06 AM (GMT -6) | | | I'd expect them to be somewhat bigger with the switch to XML, though obviously compression will hide a lot of that. The fact that each piece of information is tagged is what will allow various versions of Finale to pick out the pieces they understand. We're nowhere near the file sizes from the pre-Finale 2001 days before compression was used. | | Back to Top | |
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JustinP
Senior Product Manager
Date Joined Mar 2009
Total Posts : 822
| Posted 11/5/2013 6:04 PM (GMT -6) | | | |
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Charles Lawrence
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2009
Total Posts : 3638
| Posted 11/5/2013 7:19 PM (GMT -6) | | saxop said...
...with the switch to XML...
I see no XML in a MUSX file.
"Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about!"
Dell XPS 600, GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz [Intel64 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 4] (2 processors)
8GB Ram
HT Omega Striker 7.1
MSI N430GT 2GB GPU
1TB x 4 internal HD's
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Edition, (06.01.7600.00)
Finale versions: 2011b.r2, 2012c.r13, 2014.0.3163 GPO4
"There is a world of difference between a person who has a big problem and a person who makes a problem big." – John Maxwell
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JustinP
Senior Product Manager
Date Joined Mar 2009
Total Posts : 822
| Posted 11/5/2013 8:50 PM (GMT -6) | | | |
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saxop
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 261
| Posted 11/5/2013 9:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Charles Lawrence said...
I may have misunderstood, but I took the phrase "switch to XML" to mean that he thought there had been a change (switch) in the file format for the new MUSX file. A MUSX file contains no XML that I can see. There has been the capability to export to MusicXML for sometime now. Those files, being pure text only files, will naturally be large in size. Zuill, I am sure was not referring to the size of MusicXML files but to MUSX vs MUS for the same document.
You're right, I don't actually know for sure that they are using XML for the new data structure. All we know is that Michael Good created it, it has an "x" at the end, and it very likely uses some sort of "element tagging" that provides it with the functionality to be understood by multiple versions of Finale (including versions older than the one which created it). We've heard that the intention isn't for the backwards compatibility to work by using a "Save As" feature, but rather that the files are just supposed to be readable by any version of Finale from this point forward. To work without backwards conversion suggests that older versions of Finale will be able to identify which pieces of information they understand. It's the same reason that MusicXML is so flexible. When I write a notation program, I don't have to support everything that MusicXML supports in order to read and write the files.
It's also apparent that a musx file is a sort of zipped package that contains other files, one of which is proprietary to MakeMusic and I'm guessing is a compressed XML file. | | Back to Top | |
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Charles Lawrence
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2009
Total Posts : 3638
| Posted 11/5/2013 10:28 PM (GMT -6) | | | saxop, The MUSX format specs are proprietary, so we may never know what is under the hood. It very well may be some sort of compressed MusicXML. I doubt the x in the extension has anything to do with XML. It seems to be the norm now, considering all the latest Office products use it. [EDIT] A MUSX is just a ZIP file. Change the MUSX to ZIP or add .ZIP to the end and you can open it with a zip reader of your choice. Interesting. There are several XML files imbedded, but not MusicXML, as well as a SCORE.DAT file, which is probably the meat and is proprietary no doubt. It is not a ZIP file.
"Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about!"
Dell XPS 600, GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz [Intel64 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 4] (2 processors)
8GB Ram
HT Omega Striker 7.1
MSI N430GT 2GB GPU
1TB x 4 internal HD's
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Edition, (06.01.7600.00)
Finale versions: 2011b.r2, 2012c.r13, 2014.0.3163 GPO4
"There is a world of difference between a person who has a big problem and a person who makes a problem big." – John Maxwell
Post Edited (Charles Lawrence) : 11/5/2013 9:43:15 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | |
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Charles Lawrence
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2009
Total Posts : 3638
| Posted 11/6/2013 9:18 AM (GMT -6) | | | saxop, Very interesting about the x. You are probably correct that it signifies an XML wrapper file. I did the same with some Office files and they too indeed are just ZIP files containing several XML parts among others. Thanks for the heads up. You learn something new everyday around here, some of it having nothing to do with Finale!
"Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about!"
Dell XPS 600, GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz [Intel64 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 4] (2 processors)
8GB Ram
HT Omega Striker 7.1
MSI N430GT 2GB GPU
1TB x 4 internal HD's
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Edition, (06.01.7600.00)
Finale versions: 2011b.r2, 2012c.r13, 2014.0.3163 GPO4
"There is a world of difference between a person who has a big problem and a person who makes a problem big." – John Maxwell
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