New post
Avatar
9

One of the major advances of Lilypond and Dorico compared to Finale is their automatic shortening of ledger line extensions on notes with accidentals (see below).

This is an excellent feature based on plate engraving practices which makes a huge difference in tight music spacing.  Finale does not have any way to adjust ledger line extensions on a case-by-case basis, so implementing a similar feature would be very beneficial.

8 comments

Date Votes

Official comment

Avatar

Hi All:

 

Yes, this is a nice feature that Finale has long been lacking. The request has been documented in our backlog as FIN-3815.

 

Cheers,
Michael Johnson
VP, Professional Notation
MakeMusic

Comment actions Permalink
Avatar
2

This is an important feature request and should be very seriously considered by MakeMusic. 

Comment actions Permalink
Avatar
0

Thanks, John!

 

Come to think of it, implementing the ability to adjust the length of ledger line extensions into special tools would be a great alternative to Finale doing this kind of thing automatically. This way, any semi-automatic combined adjustments to ledger lines and accidentals could be handled by a plug-in. This is not ideal, of course, but nevertheless more in line with how Finale is currently working and possibly easier to implement.

 

In any case, the ability to adjust the length of ledger lines would be a great feature by itself, and could perhaps also partly resolve the problem you expressed in your most recent post.

Comment actions Permalink
Avatar
0

This is a great suggestion. Finale is sorely lacking in how it handles note spacing with ledger lines in general. But someone on the Finale list made a great suggestion for that. An algorithm, as it were:

1. Shorten the ledger length in Doc options.
2. Run note spacing.
3. Restore the original ledger length.

This turns out to be incredibly effective at improving note spacing of ledger-line notes. Though of course it would be a huge pain to do it every time you ran note spacing. But you know what excels at an algorithm? Plugins. Now I'm going to toot my own horn, but if you care about note spacing that you will want to hear this toot. I added a Note Spacing plugin my suite that does exactly that algorithm. Check it out. It has some other cool features as well, like remembering different spacing options for different regions of the file. I never, ever use the 4 key any more. I always use the keyboard macro for my plugin.

 

Comment actions Permalink
Avatar
0

Thanks, Robert.

 

I haven't tested the new additions to your plug-in suite except for Copy System Baselines, which doesn't seem to work for some reason.

I'll definitely check out the spacing plug-in, though.

 

BTW, as you know, Finale does not consider any optical compensation cases (e.g., cross staff notes/facing stems, large intervals etc.) in it's spacing either. Do you think it would be possible to create a plug-in to handle those cases as well?

Comment actions Permalink
Avatar
0

Knut,

I would be interested in more information about the context in which Copy System Baselines did not work. (I believe you have my email address if you want to contact me off-forum.)

I did discover recently that Copy Page Layout does not work if Automatic Update Layout is turned on. Though it seems unlikely fix the baselines issue, I suppose that would be something to try.

Robert

 

Comment actions Permalink
Avatar
0
This is an important feature request and should be very seriously considered by MakeMusic.

Strongly agree.

 

Comment actions Permalink
Avatar
0

You can Vote for feature requests you like by clicking the up arrow to the left of a message. If MM checks these stats to prioritize future features, casting your vote may help promote your wishes.

Comment actions Permalink

Please sign in to leave a comment.