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David Bolton
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2006
Total Posts : 158

Posted 1/10/2012 6:26 PM (GMT -6)

The script below works in Finale 2011 but does not work on Finale 2012. Attached is a file that contains an example ligature for the "fi" in "fire" (stanza 2, fifth syllable) so that others can run the script and reproduce the problem.

This problem is present in 2012 and 2012a.

FINALEscript:

//Ligatures are converted to regular characters

search "X" [Times NR Expert MT] replace with "fl" [Times New Roman] //fi
search "W" [Times NR Expert MT] replace with "fi" [Times New Roman] //fl

//End of script

I initially sent this report to Finale support, but they said they do not offer support for Finalescript. Which is a little worrying since I sent this as a bug report for Finale, not as a request for help writing scripts. All that aside, has anyone encountered this themselves, or know of a workaround? I suspect this has something to do with Finale 2012's long awaited switch to Unicode.

File Attachment :
clouds of witnesses surround us (excerpt).mus 27KB (application/octet-stream)

This file has been downloaded 372 time(s).

gogreen
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 1999
Total Posts : 1618

Posted 1/11/2012 3:52 PM (GMT -6)

I'm in F2011b, but I've found that changing scripts a bit can make them work. Try your script first with brackets removed. If that doesn't work, try it with the quote marks removed. Then try it with quote marks and no brackets, and then no quote marks with brackets.

Arthur J. Michaels

www.arthurjmichaels.com

Finale 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011b.r2 (using 2011b.r2)
Garritan CoMB
Core i7 860 @ 2.80 GHz, 8.0 GB RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP 1
Dell 2408 WFP, 1920x1200
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496
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Brother HL-5150D printer
AKG K-240 Studio headphones

Saffron
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2008
Total Posts : 4504

Posted 1/11/2012 8:27 PM (GMT -6)

OMG Finale is SO shouting for a rigourously defined scripting language - one based on the parsers and syntax/semantics of a properly thought out, high level "natural language" scripting tool. FinaleScript is just so horribly ad-hoc and unpredictable.

Since 2005, I've been thinking about spending 3 months getting DEEPLY into the PDK, and porting a high-level scripting language, based on my Prolog compiler, into a Finale plug-in. But always, other projects have come along and taken my attentions elsewhere.

Maybe 2012 should be the year I finally grasp this nettle ...

Brian

gogreen
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 1999
Total Posts : 1618

Posted 1/11/2012 11:42 PM (GMT -6)

One other thing. You might also have to experiment with making "Times NR" and "Times New Roman" consistent. Try interchanging them. I'm guessing that Finale doesn't understand "NR."

David Bolton
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2006
Total Posts : 158

Posted 1/17/2012 5:29 PM (GMT -6)

I was able to update the script to work in Finale 2012:

//Ligatures are converted to regular characters

search "<61527>" [Times NR Expert MT] replace with "fi" [Times New Roman]
search "<61528>" [Times NR Expert MT] replace with "fl" [Times New Roman]

//End of script

I suspect the change is necessary due to the new Unicode support in Finale 2012. Unfortunately the Unicode support in the Finalescript editor window seems to be different from the Unicode support for lyrics in the score. (By different I mean buggy :)

Description of problem: When I copy the "fi" character from the lyrics into the Finalescript editor window it appears as a square (which is fine), but after you save and close and edit the Finalescript a second time the character has changed to a "W". The W still worked for search and replace in Finale 2011, but does not work in Finale 2012.

Solution/Workaround: Replacing the character with a numerical reference works around the issues described above. It was a little tricky to find the numerical reference for the character. The method I used was to copy the "fi" character from the lyrics and paste it into the search box of Firefox. Firefox helpfully displays the hexidecimal number ("F057") inside the square box. From there it is just a matter of converting the hexidecimal code to the decimal equivalent. The following page has instructions for this last step: www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/html/unicode.html#num

David Bolton

Post Edited (David Bolton) : 1/17/2012 4:39:52 PM (GMT-6)

weeksc
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2000
Total Posts : 349

Posted 2/6/2012 9:25 AM (GMT -6)

I have also found that FS gets confused rather easily depending on which tool is currently selected when you run the script. I always make sure that the Selection Tool is active, and this works most of the time.

--Clancy

Finale 2008b

Intel 2.3 GHz Core 2 Duo

4GB RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium x64, GeForce GT 440 video card

Creative Labs X-Fi Platinum sound card

___________________________

I never claimed to know everything... I'm just right about the things I know!

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