I have to agree (mostly).

I definitely appreciate the updated icon designs, though, some (like the time/key signature) icons are so small and faint—even at the "large" size.

Also, the Expression Selection dialog box could be very useful if it were modeless and/or dockable.

I'll give it as big "meh" so far.

Agree about the tool icons being hard to read. I miss the days when they were tiles, instead of just text.

The symbol selection is much larger now, maybe almost too much larger, but that's neither here nor there. And wonder of wonders, when you hit the magnifier, the symbols actually get larger!!! So that begs the question, why doesn't it work the same way in the expression and articulation windows, as I have been asking for years?

The hard hyphen is STILL a hyphen-minus. Still no easy way to use an elision (undertie.)

More to follow, I'm sure...

>Agree about the tool icons being hard to read. I miss the days when they were tiles, instead of just text.<

Indeed. My old eyes and flat icons do not get along. They all look the same at first glance.

I kind of miss the old 'Jazz Maroon' option.

I find it interesting that way back in the days of System 7 and 8, the Apple icons were rounded and shaded. Then they went flat, with OSX. Now, they seem to be regaining some dimension in Big Sur. Maybe Finale will regress as well, to keep up with Mac.

Mike, that was MacOS X 10.10 Yosemite that gave us those horrid flat icons. 

https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/mac-os-x 

Every now and then, I log into my old G4 running OS 10.4.11 Tiger and am always surprised by how nice everything looks.

I have downloaded the Finale v27, but I can't start it. The next window cannot see the .bin files both of which are exactly where the program put them. It wants me to insert the disk or write in a new URL. I haven't the foggiest notion as to a new URL to write. The URL that appears in the window appears to lead nowhere. I have no discs because downloading precludes the necessity of discs. So, I have the program in hand, but inaccessible. I worked at it last night and this morning. I even got the Geek Squad into the action. They found no errors in my system, but they are not privileged to deal with Finale support. So, I'm am still trying to start my new program, Finale 27.

Stanley, I would start a new post about this. Please provide some screenshots showing the requests to insert the disk, etc, and describe exactly the steps you've taken.

A .bin file is a compressed archive, and not the application itself. 

Thank you Ben B-W. This morning another agent of Geek Squad, apparently unhappy about my after-meeting survey remarks, called me to make things right. He did. He discovered that I was harboring a Trojan Horse. Apparently, the interloper was causing other difficulties that I had been charging off to PC age and too many files in storage. 

After he finished (about an hour), I attempted to start the program and was successful. Now, I have considerable learning to do.

Again, thank you for stepping into my problem. I'm glad on two counts: the program is up and running and I required very little of your valuable time. 

Darn those horses! Glad you got it fixed.

Back on topic, here's some more examples of appalling user interface that someone signed off on:

The Swing Style button in the Transport Window. (Also all 3 of the Repeat drop-downs, though it's less noticeable, unless you have 10 repeats.)

The View size drop-down list in the Font Annotation Editor.

Adjusting the size of the button to fit the text should be the work of minutes. Most of the Dark mode images of notation actually don't want to be inverted, and ought to be displayed black on white. 

Please can someone set aside a day to fix these things before the .1 update?

Like I have said for the last couple of years, I think MM has all but given up on Finale. I think we have what we are going to have and that is that. Look at how long it took to get the updated version 27. The only bragging point here is the smufl fonts. The other items like the slight "clean up" of instruments isn't a real upgrade.

I also believe MM spent all its resources on Smart Music which was great for the pandemic. But I was talking to our school music department boss and he said the high school will drop Smart Music use when do actual classes again this fall.

There  are only two reasons MM doesn't fix bugs or make significant upgrades. One, they don't know how to or, two, they  don't have the money to. (Money means, either upfront outlay or later return on.)

I'm afraid you may be right Ernest. I am seriously looking into Sibelius now as it seems to do everything I need it to (and more). Dorico is picking up steam here in Australia too as it has very good tech support  here apparently. One of my mates that is a Sibelius educator here has recommended that I check it out too but has offered to come to my city (Newcastle, 2.5 hours away) and spend a few days taking me through and setting up Sibelius for me. Unfortunately Sydney is in heavy lockdown due to a widespread outbreak of the Delta Covid variant...for the foreseeable future.

 Finale users are few and far between in Australia. All of the pro writers, publishers and schools have moved over to Sibelius a long time ago. My publishers here in Australia and in the UK are using Sibelius and must admit that I love the way my scores look in Sibelius!  I used to demonstrate and promote Finale and Smart Music at music conferences here. Smart music is now extinct in Australia. I don't know anyone here or any school that uses it. Most of us use recorded or tempo variable backing tracks for our students except for school and Australian Music Exams (AMEB) which must use real piano accompaniment. I am one of the few that still use Finale here now and the price I am paying for that is that I am effectively dead in the water using it on my new mac mini (which is an awesome little computer) except for my old mac pro from late 2008 which still has Finale 25 on it which thankfully, still works apart from a few small issues that I can work around. It certainly is a sorry state of affairs and very disappointing. I have however, sent videos, screenshots and detailed reports to tech support last week and I'm hoping for some answers or comments tomorrow when they are on line again. So far, the techs have responded well and seem eager to help sort out some of the issues. I think that the issues are on their side of the pond though, not on mine so that might mean more comments like the one I got the other day- "Regarding the blurry tool graphics, I'm seeing in your final screenshot an image of the playback controls. Unfortunately, this is a known issue between Finale v26 and v27 on Mac OS 11.0. This is an issue we are investigating and working to find a solution to it. Unfortunately I do not have an estimated fix date at this time."

I hope you are able to find solutions for your issues soon.

Cheers! Andy