See my JW Lua script for a solution:

http://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=11&m=483190

Harald

I reported this about eight years ago. It started in version 2008. Strangely, files that were created BEFORE 2008 open with their dotted rests in the correct position; this bug only affects NEW documents.

Michael Johnson, what is MM going to do about this? Granted, it's not the worst bug, but I (and others) have reported this numerous times, going back years. It has previously been acknowledged by MM as a bug, so I'm wondering what, if anything, will happen now that you've acknowledged it yet again. While I'm kvetching, how about adding user-defined text field inserts, and re-doing the jazz font so the Z's don't look like 2's. I reported these requests years ago, and they were acknowledged by the "development team." We Finale users have spent a great deal of money for upgrades, but what we'd really like to see are bug fixes.

Hi Girard:

Our process is to document features and defects which is followed by prioritizing based on exposure, value, effort, and severity in the case of defects. The prioritization process is ongoing and always in flux. Work is then staged based on a variety of sources (Product, Development, Customer Success, and others). Estimation is also a part of the staging process as well as scope definition. Sometimes a bug or feature may seem very straightforward and low risk, only to find it explode out of proportion on deeper examination. We're currently working to clean up the code to lower the frequency of those "explosions" so that we can deliver quality features and defect fixes in a timely fashion with an appropriate effort of the team. I'm very proud of the team's effort over the past 24 months, but we have miles to go -- a sobering fact the entire team is aware of every day. 

You've said yourself this isn't the worst bug, so it isn't in the P1 spot right now. But, I do want to address it at some point in the not too distant future. I've always been frustrated by the pebbles in the shoe as you walk along the journey with Finale. Death by 1,000 paper cuts would be another analogy.

As for text handling -- yes, high on our list to address for a variety of reasons (aka sources, see above).

We will be doing no work on the Jazz font for reasons I can not discuss. Yes, there are glyphs that look bad. I agree with you, but we can't change them. We're researching alternatives, but I can't say more at this time.

Thank you for your support via upgrade purchases through the years. I couldn't agree with you more that defect fixes are of great value. That is exactly why we're releasing free updates (2014.5, 25.1, 25.2, ...) and will continue to do so.

Sincerely,

Michael

> We will be doing no work on the Jazz font for reasons I can not discuss.

Okay, that's understandable. Then I would like to suggest to replace the jazz font at some time with a SMuFl-compliant new one which corrects the oddities, including the dot placement.

Harald, I have been pleasantly surprised by the Finale Copyist font. It is a text font only, but it complements the JazzFont as a music font and has a library of chord suffixes that are reasonable (I edited most of them, but that's me). It uses actual lower-case letters, which is a giant plus in my opinion, rather than the small-caps in JazzText, and has all the text enclosures that we like so much in the Jazz defaults.

The missing diacriticals like e accent grave (è) are present, too. There are some useful arrows and other things in there, too, though you still have to live with the JazzFont fermata. Or substitute it.

It is a Speedball-type font (all the lines are the same thickness in every direction with rounded ends, rather than being thicker horizontal and thinner vertical with flat ends, like a nib pen) like the Broadway Copyist font, but much, much cleaner. BC font looked to me like the copyist had palsy, like Charles Schultz drawing the Charlie Brown comics at the end of his career.

Hi Harald:

The world of fonts is moving to SmuFL -- you're nailed it. We've been public about support for them, stay tuned. 

Christopher "...copyist had palsy"? ouch. We are looking to clean up some of the glyphs with the migration to SMuFL. More to come.

Cheers,

Michael Johnson

VP, Professional Notation

MakeMusic

Hi, Michael - thanks for your answer - I appreciate it very much! I understand why you may not be able to alter somebody else's font, and hope that one of your alternatives pan out.

The 1000 cuts analogy works - the pebble is quite big, though, when one has to manually respace dozens of dots! I hope you'll give consideration to adding user-defined text inserts.Also, it would be nice to have a link to the Jazz Font character map included with the other shortcuts & character map links in the help menu.

Harald & Christopher - I like the look of a handwritten font, but Finale Copyist looks almost childish to me. I have been using Dom Casual instead of Jazz Font, and have been happy with it. I haven't seen anything else (yet) that I like better.

Maybe this is the place to request an easier way to bracket text. RIght now, that involves going back and forth in the Expression Editor between Jazz Font for brackets or lines, and Dom Casual for text. Very clunky. Let me know if I'm missing an easier way - thanks!

Hi Girard,

I don't think you're missing anything. You need a font that has the crafted enclosures (the two and two-and-a-half sided ones are the ones I really like) which means they need to be in your text font for you to do what you want. Full four-sided enclosures (like rehearsal letters have) can be assigned to individual expressions in the Expression Edit box, but you probably don't want those perfectly rectangular or oval enclosures.

I've used Dom Casual for my chord suffixes because it's quite narrow, but the shaky leg of the lower case "m" bothers me, since it's in EVERY suffix, or almost. Finale Copyist is quite clean, which is why I like it, but it isn't as bold as some other JazzFont items. I know what you mean. Finale Copyist would pair nicely with the old Swing font, don't you think? I don't use it much myself, though.

Hi All:
We are looking into improvements of the enclosures (FIN-3832). Yes, I don't think you're missing an easier way presently.

Cheers,

Michael Johnson

VP, Professional Notation

MakeMusic

OK - these conversations took place 8 months ago. Has there been any progress on these items?

1) Eighth-note rest augmentation dot spacing bug. (The spacing issue reappears even after using Jari Williamson's change plugin. I've forgotten the ((clunky)) workaround someone was kind enough to suggest.)

2) A replacement of the hideous JazzFont characters.

3) User-defined text inserts.

4) Enclosures improvements. (I did notice that there is now a rounding option for boxes in Fin25.) Here is an example I painstakingly created using mixed fonts in the expressions editor. I stress the use of "painstakingly!"

Ha ha, Girard! I reported the augmentation dot bug in 2007—TEN YEARS AGO—and there has been no movement. It first showed up in version 2008. At the time, old files still spaced the dot correctly and only new ones showed the bug, which seemed to imply that it was a Finale issue, not a JazzFont issue.

Well, here it is, 2 years since my post on this thread, and 11  years since Christopher Smith reported this bug, and with yet another new release, this bug remains. Finale 26 is an extremely thin improvement, and woefully short in bug fixes. I wish I could get my money back. I think this will be my last Finale upgrade. Also, where is the promised alternative to JazzFont, which has some truly ugly characters? Is there a reason  there is no shortcut to the Jazz character map in the Help dropdown menu? Is there any improvement to creating mix-font enclosures? Does ANYBODY from Finale care?

2020 - Groundhog day. NO movement on the dotted eighth-note dot spacing..

Hi Girard,

I know what causes it, at least. It has to do with the font that is set as the Default Music font in Document Options.

I have some old files where the dotted rests behave themselves, and this is because Default Font was Palatino (I DID say old files?) and I had switched it over to the JazzFont manually. Yes, I was one of the people who bought JazzFont as a 3rd party font, before it was included in Finale.

So you can permanently fix this, IF you take a new Maestro default file, switch the Music Font (NOT the DEFAULT Font!) to Jazz, and then change all the other bloody settings to your favourite Jazz defaults. As I remember, this was quite the task. Perhaps Robert Pattersons Settings Mover plugin can help, because I'm pretty sure libraries aren't adequate to the task.

BTW, I don't know if you've ever tried importing JazzCord suffixes into a non-Jazz file, but this same bug affect the parentheses in the chord suffixes. You end up with parentheses in the default font, instead of in the JazzCord font the way they're supposed to be, and the baselines are different so they look terrible. You have to edit the font of both parentheses manually in EVERY suffix! Then you can save THAT as a Chord Suffix library, so you never have to do it again.

Hello, Christopher - we meet again, and about the same issue! We should get together every year and drink a beer to drown our dotted sorrows. Quite a while back I created a chord library using Dom Casual, based on the Brandt-Roemer guidelines.I use Dom Casual for text also. I think it looks far better than B'way Copyist. I wouldn't THINK of using JazzCord suffixes anywhere, much less importing them into a non-jazz file. I've also thought about getting the Bill Duncan library, but not at $150. Piro looks interesting, similar to the Sher Music font. I've also thought about using Maestro for all my jazz & funk stuff. I do use the Maestro fermata. In the meantime I'm in Jazz Font limbo.

I just took my default Jazz file, changed the default Music Font to Maestro, then changed about a dozen entries back to Jazz in Document Options: Notation. Seems to work so far. Thanks!

BTW, I've been using Finale since at least 1996 - was that 3.2? I too bought the Jazz Font from Rich Sigler, in 1998 - $50.

Hey, Girard!

I go back to 1995. I think it may have been version 3.0, but I'm not sure any more!

The Bill Duncan library has a lot of goodies in it, including one of the best chord fonts I've ever seen. It matches Times and Maestro pretty well, rather than Jazz, but is properly kerned and superscripted. It also has harp notation, and some other lovelies. I contributed to the Articulations font, so he gave it to me for free before he died.

I, too, created my own chord suffix library using Dom Casual. Despite it being a Speedball type font instead of the JazzFont's nib pen type font, I find it matches well enough. Check out Finale Copyist for chord suffixes as well if you haven't already. A library is included in new versions of Finale.

I agree that Broadway Copyist is not very good.

Also my original default font was Petrucci of course, not Palatino! Age and memory, I suppose.

Thanks for the tip on Finale Copyist. I just did a font switch, and it does look better for chords than Dom Casual. Not sure that I like it for other texts; I've grown accustomed to the look of Dom Cas as an improvement over Jazz Font, despite DJ Argue saying Dom Cas looked cartoonish. He does like FinCopyist for chords, as you do.