Future of notation software

[John Ruggero]

Den, I will take the liberty of answering your question to OCTO as it applies to me:

Finale can do almost everything, but some things are unforgivably laborious or require awkward workarounds. And finale requires a high level of user expertise to get good results. However, there are two things that Finale absolutely cannot do: change the length of ledger lines on a case-by-case basis and create longer unusually-shaped slurs without piecing several together. Ironically, Dorico can do both of those things quite easily, but can't do some things that Finale can do just as easily such as multiple alternate fingerings for single notes or changing the thickness of beams. As well, while Dorico does more things automatically, such as certain kinds of spacing,this sometimes makes the program less flexible and laborious for engravers who like to do a lot of fine-tuning by eye.

So at this point there is no clear winner between Finale and Dorico for me, but I stay with Finale because Dorico cannot do several essential things. But Dorico has an unusually active and responsive development team, and Finale does not. So the (music) "writing is on the wall" although Finale seems to be oblivious of this.

As far as simple notation, this represents no problem in either program. It is the less common, complex things that can be problematic in both.

[Den]

Thank you very much to all of you for these short but simple explanations, I absolutely agree.
I wonder how much better and more functional it would be to work at Finale if all the primary functions of engraving were solved. It amazes me that after soooo manyyyy years, the team working at Finale has not implemented such primary and important functions in newer versions to make it easier for all users to work. Another question arises and a discussion about similar programs "why don't we make software even more complex and visually complicated" ... instead of simpler.

[benwiggy]

But Dorico has an unusually active and responsive development team, and Finale does not.

And here is the greatest feature. As "just an ordinary user", I have submitted several bugs in Dorico, to which the response has been "Sorry, this will be fixed in the next update". And it was. I have also submitted a number of feature requests that have also been implemented.

Compare that to Finale, where there are bugs I have been filing for 10 years that still exist, such as this default behaviour:

Screenshot.png (262.9 KiB) Viewed 9311 times

It took several years of my pestering before they added something as minimal as a shortcut for the Clear key for Mac laptops!

For me, if, with Dorico, I have to spend a bit of time adding graphics in a vector art program or performing some lengthy workaround, then that's still worth it over all the time I'm saving through its many other efficiencies. And I remain safe in the knowledge that if the feature isn't here today, it will be soon.

[Den]

Incredible .... but true and sad. 10 years

[OCTO]

It took several years of my pestering before they added something as minimal as a shortcut for the Clear key for Mac laptops!

Puh!!!! I didn't know that it existed, I needed it so many times. And what's the key??

[David Ward]

It took several years of my pestering before they added something as minimal as a shortcut for the Clear key for Mac laptops!

Puh!!!! I didn't know that it existed, I needed it so many times. And what's the key??

Shift-Fn-Delete works as clear; but that needs two hands. Is there a one-handed option?

[OCTO]

Shift-Fn-Delete works as clear; but that needs two hands. Is there a one-handed option?

Fn.... I would never had guessed!
Thank you.