Ain't optimism grand?

This is the first release in many many years that I was not involved with beta testing, so I have no idea if anything is really fixed or improved. The feature list I’m seeing so far involves stuff that has no impact on anything I do. What concerns me is that there are tons of things that have never been fixed, never been enhanced, both from a functional/performance perspective as well as UI/workflow. I’ve enumerated several of these before and won’t rehash them, but when I’m hearing about actual innovations with other notation software, it really gives me pause about Finale’s future. I have no interest in switching. But that’s my point; those of us who don’t want to bother with new notation software have a huge interest in making sure that Finale improves. There used to be very close contacts between many of us and the developers/support staff for Coda and then MakeMusic. What happened?

This is the first release in many many years that I was not involved with beta testing

Likewise. 

those of us who don’t want to bother with new notation software have a huge interest in making sure that Finale improves.

And for it to improve, it will have to change, and there are many users who don't want it to change. Much of the UI needs overhauling to improve productivity. 

Jason Wick, MM's Senior Manager for Finale has an interview on the Scoring Notes Podcast today for those who are interested.

https://www.scoringnotes.com/podcast/jason-wick-on-finale-development/ 

Fix the faults in the UI, first. Then, and only then, will I be open to new “features.” 

David and Ben, were you not invited this time? Were they keeping all testing in-house?

Agree. The UX is extremely inefficient. For me, making it better would trump nee features any day. But I also fear they are falling behind on innovation. Not new features for the sake of new features. But stuff that is actually useful. I’m not upgrading to 27. The new features are meh (at least for my use cases) and the reported bug fixes actually don’t impact me. But I’d love a better interface. Even just the ability to customize the toolbar would be delightful. 

MM tends to 'redevelop' one area at a time, bringing both new features and bug fixes. (And of course, new bugs!)

David and Ben, were you not invited this time?

 I was certainly not invited - (or "NFI", as we say in the UK).

I've been a beta-tester for every version since F2012.

I was not invited either. As with you, I’d been a steady and active beta tester since at least F2012 (I can’t even remember at this point, it’s been so long). Bummer, because I always found some issues to report and felt I made at least some sort of contribution to the efforts of the developers. Very odd. I’m going to hope more of us longtime testers get invited to the party next time. 

It will be interesting. 

I do not need to be blown away by a plethora of new features. I would like to see some of the basic functions made less complicated. I prefer to make layout decisions after I have my notes sounding correctly with lyrics that don't involve constant fiddling.

My needs are not that complex. Think Finale 1998 but where everything works as it should — I know I can't have that so I do what I can.

On the other hand, not a fan of the our way or fugetaboutit approach that Dorico takes. So, we'll see…

>>This is the first release in many many years that I was not involved with beta testing

Same here.  Been a beta tester since about 2010 or 2011.  I was not invited for this one.

>>There used to be very close contacts between many of us and the developers/support staff for Coda and then MakeMusic. What happened?

Back when Karen VanDerBosch was CEO, if there were issues during beta I didn't think were being addressed, I used to email her directly and she'd always respond and take action.  I don't mean I'd get a form letter back from her - I mean she'd actually take action.  At one point she had held a meeting with the programmers to discuss my concerns and then she emailed me back with a whole rundown of the meeting and what was addressed and what changes were being made moving forward.   That impressed the heck out of me and left a lasting impression. 

Anyway, I'll probably update since I use Finale daily for work and just want to stay current but I agree that there doesn't seem to be much on the fix list that would affect me.  There seems to be a big emphasis on printing.  But I agree that when they don't ask a bunch of seasoned beta testers who are very familiar with the program to be involved in testing, it doesn't really raise my optimism level much.  We shall see.

Wow! Good to see familiar names. I've been off most forums since the old one was taken down. Just happen to look here for V27 info and was so glad to see you all here. I'm in the same boat. I was a beta and alpha tester for so long I don't remember the first one, but since Michael Johnson left a lot of things have changed. I used to have many sit-downs with programmers, engineers, software designers, CEO - really in-depth discussions in Minnesota. All day meetings with them not only at their headquarters but at publishing houses and an annual one-on-one meeting at Midwest for at least 10 years. Now....silence.

Watching the lyric tool go to hell has been the hardest thing to watch/endure. Very sad. I'm hoping something good will come out of V27, if not a wakeup call to take advantage of the huge collective professionals that want them to succeed.
Back to my hole I go. Again, glad to see you all, especially David Toub. You always had some wonderful insight and practicality that really helped improve Finale IMHO.

Cheers. SF

STEVEN FISKUM thank you for the kind words. Hoping, as you state, that something of a wakeup call happens. We do want Finale to continue to flourish and succeed. Important for the many long-time users with insight here to be part of the process.

Steven,

I’m curious about your take on the lyric tool. I certainly haven’t seen any long-requested (and long-promised) improvements, but I haven’t seen any backsliding, either, over the past decade.

Interesting comment on the Lyric Tool. Was there ever a time when it was good? 

I really don’t have any major complaints. A couple of quibbles, but nothing critical. Of course, I don’t do anything complex.

Since 2.0 I've done a ton of lyric work, simple to complex 24/7 :-) The lyric tool has it's faults for sure but in FIN26, lyrics would delete in a devastating way unknown to the user. Not for lack of knowledge of the lyric tool, I know all the caveats and work in it all day long, this was a programming problem. Also FIN26's horrible way type into score appears when in scroll view, it's maddening. When you go to the next syllable the previous one doesn't show up or it flies off somewhere above where it shouldn't be until you go to the next syllable or a redraw but then this behavior just continues as you progress through a piece. Luckily!!!! FIN27 seems to have fixed this issue as far as I can tell. Haven't worked long enough on lyrics tonight to see if they are deleted but at least input and working with them has now calmed down. There were other issues like flushing left/right/center and that the shortcuts used wouldn't work the first time...EVERY TIME so you would have to do it twice and sometimes you would have to do it manually with the mouse and pulldown menus. A real PITA. Thank-goodness that appears to be gone.

The only problem I'm seeing now is that the graphic tool's PDF engine is not the ALL BLACK engine that was used in FIN26! This is a problem for publishers and specifically presses. I worked extensively with Michael Johnson to make this happen for publishing houses. I'm hoping it's just an oversight and the engine will be restored in a point update.

I'm very hopeful for FIN27. My experience so far has been pretty positive. Let's hope it keeps going in that direction. Cheers! SF

>The only problem I'm seeing now is that the graphic tool's PDF engine is not the ALL BLACK engine that was used in FIN26! <

WHAT?!?!  Mac? Win? Both?

PDF in the Print menu on the Mac hasn't been black since 25. Using Graphics/Export Pages>PDF has been the only way to get true black on the Mac in Finale for nearly 6 years. 

I've downloaded 27 but haven't rebooted so I won't be able to check this till tomorrow.

Oh crap. I just read this in the bug fixes:

• PDF export. PDF export now uses the native Print to PDF device, resolving many long-standing issues with exported PDFs.

So, once again, they screwed this up on purpose like in 25/26 but without the workaround of Graphics/Export Pages…. 

Here's hoping I'm wrong.

Mac. Not sure about Windows. SF

Windows doesn't have a "native Print to PDF device".

Well I didn't see that. That's a step backward in my opinion. The long standing issues with PDFs were them not being BLACK and almost all of my work has to be through the graphic tool export. Hard to believe if this is true. Where is this documented? Thanks. SF

It's not documented nor has MakeMusic ever explained it. There are, however, nearly 5 years of posts on this forum about this issue. It's been verified, cussed, discussed till we're blue in the face — to the point where a new post only has to begin, "the pdf on the Mac…" often followed by "it worked in 2014" (we know) where one of us will jump in with Graphics Tool, Export Pages > PDF is the only way to get true black on the Mac.

One poor guy with a monochrome Brother Laser printer kept trying to make Print/PDF work — his printer can't do grey scale so he was screwed, I forget his name but there are many threads. Of course, Graphics/ works but he wasn't accepting that.

Here's the total response from Make Music on this issue:

> Windows doesn't have a "native Print to PDF device".

Yes it does - Windows 10 ships with "Microsoft Print to PDF". It's technically an optional feature, but it is installed by default. 

I rely on it for "resolving many long-standing issues with exported PDFs." 

Well, I saved to pdf in 27 using both the Graphics/Export Pages>PDF and Print>PDF menus. I then printed the results on both of my printers. Yep, true black appears to be gone.

Printing directly, OTOH, was great.

What is the problem with the true black (or not)? I know it’s been commented on, but I didn’t pay much attention. Was it something about commercial print shops?

The printed output of music dark grey pdf files isn't as good for many pro shops compared to true black . Some old commercial monochrome laser printers (that one user's Brother in particular) cannot print them at all. Even with my newer inkjets, I can see the difference but it's not much. Choirs and orchestra members don't have an issue with the charts so I'm ok with that.

Back 5 years ago, there were those users going ballistic around here over the increased file size but with most email being able to handle 10–25mb nowadays, just not the issue it used to be. 

Since it doesn't affect me directly, I'll be taking my cue from Douglas Adams and surround this with an SEP Field making it Someone Else's Problem.

Got it. 42

Well, time to eat crow! Not sure why but all of my testing last night showed every PDFs with 4 colors to make black. Started back to testing tonight and everything is TRUE black. Weird. I did a lot of testing, quitting, restarting both program and machine last night but every PDF had color. Not today. Not sure what to think. Looks like everything is fine....sƒ (what a weird waste of time)

Interestingly, after rebooting a couple times, I found the same thing.

Since the install, pdf in 26 behaves the same as 27. This thread shows why. 

https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500001328721-WARNING-File-damage-to-Finale-26-when-27-DEMO-is-installed-Mac-