Dorico wants scores to adhere to Elaine Gould. That should work out well for you once you get used to it. Changing things in Layout takes getting used to — so I hear because six years later, I'm not used to it. 

Avid has just announced $149 bucks for perpetual license for us Finale users.

It's about time. Thanks for the heads up. Can't imagine that I'll be interested but still good to know. Its workflow and I just do not get along.

Fortunately, I'll be able to keep Finale going for many years. Heck, Encore's been dead for a decade and I still use it now and them.

Well like you I did a full reinstall with new d/l plus Garritan and NP sounds. Even did the plugins. My computer is fairly new and very fast. So I think I can make Finale last a long while.

However it may be beneficial to do the score in Finale and xml it to Dorico for the parts! Don’t mess with the score in Dorico at all.

For sure the parts are amazing, most of my time in Finale was dealing with the broken cue note system and multimeasure rests that should create (or uncreate) themselves. I did have to mess with my score in Dorico until - as suggested - I suddenly started thinking in Dorico. The singular major difference is that Dorico is a one screen UI whereas with Finale I was always using two or three monitors. So in Dorico you are always opening and closing modal windows that I leave open in Finale. Most if not all of the Dorico modals are available by key command, and by on-screen context-aware toggles once you know where to look. I've developed functional muscle memory; tweaking my test score takes me no longer than it does in Finale, though you are constrained in Dorico by the inerrancy gospel of Elaine Gould. Once I have defined my own defaults (my first was to turn off the flow title off everywhere) my imports will look pretty good.

Most of my work will continue to live and breathe in Finale, but I'll complete one series of three arrangements in Dorico. It has gone better than I expected, Finale and especially its community of commenters and plugin developers has made me notation aware.

... with Finale I was always using two or three monitors.

I have never seen or had the need for two monitors in Finale let alone three.

I suddenly started thinking in Dorico.

And therein lies the problem. It is a foreign language that who knows where they came up with. The more I mess with Dorico the more I realize I need, like MikeH, to keep Finale alive and well. It is the same with Musescore. The more you use it the more you realize you need Finale to live.

After what I think is a reasonable time with Dorico 5, my thoughts are Dorico 5 has an amazing ability to make even the most simple of tasks impossible or impossibly difficult. I use Photoshop and can do advanced photo editing.  I use Excel where I make some fairly complex spreadsheets with cells that determine results depending on other cells. But Dorico 5 puts them to shame for ambiguous cryptic and confusing menus plus unclear verbiage.

Yes to get a basic score like a solo and piano is simple enough but a full concert band score is a horse of a different color. Simple putting measure number at the bottom of the score with a outline box and a big font it nuts. Stem direction, what's with that? On and on!

Musescore announced that they're immediately going to make Musescore more friendly to Finale users. Beefing up functionality for more professional engraving. Musescore announced they're looking to include a version of Speedy Entry, as well as giving a "Finale profile" to make the UI/hotkeys more like Finale. 

I, for one, can not recommend Dorico to Finale users. I would wait for the announced plans for the next version of Musescore. However who knows how long the competitive price for Finale users to Dorico will remain. Not long i would guess so keep that in mind.

FBO others, it's not an impossible task. Other than a week on the slope of the learning curve, I am having no trouble with Dorico - I have acquired conversational fluency, and have replaced a published score (now with vastly better parts) with one from Dorico. 

It is important to note that the scope of your own library of work will be the prime consideration. I have 65 pieces that will not move because I can tell you for a fact that these impeccably crafted scores will not import cleanly into anything else. They do not need reformatting just for the sake of the occasional musical tweak. For this task I have set up a dedicated machine to freeze Finale and MacOS in place. But I have 11 more pieces that will be Doricized strictly on the basis of superior parts production - and I don't consider these compositionally finalized so it's an opportune time for this limited scope.

Mike Halloran here has said MuseScore is 'likely' the future, but it is not the present. In my opinion, for the moment, Dorico is. My particular need is met, but certainly not everyone's. And there are some things Finale is still better at and will live in my workflow permanently. The music we write is the important thing, not the ink and quill we write it with. To wit, the linked video is an example of how Bach calligraphed his scores - a process superseded in Bach's own lifetime and yet they play his music still. Yours too, I pray.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NFFiFLWRF0

edited to add video and a comment about it, also to clean up an attribution.

Mike Halloran here has said MuseScore is 'likely' the future, but it is not the present. 

I tend to agree with MikeH and have said so on previous occasions but I have no desire to learn two additional music notations programs. I have a somewhat better situation as I am on a PC. You Mac folks are likely to lose it or at least partial functionality with the very next OS upgrade.  I believe I can get Finale to last as long as I need. Being old does have some advantages!

What is needed is a more musician-termed notation program. I mean menus labeled "dynamics" and "articulations" etc, instead of the software-speak such as "lines" and "shapes."  Dorico forces you into the software's lexicon, not a musician's.

I agree all your points. As to the MacOS, I actually have Finale running on its own separate MacMini, the OS frozen, software updates turned off, [edit: and not connected to the internet]. I use a newer Mac for everything else. I think Dorico does resort to a little pedestrianism, but there are still the usual musical terms....once you figure out where to look. (I upvoted your comment. Nothing there to disagree with.)

Oh, yes, David those terms are fime. It is the terms and verbage Doric 5 uses for other things pertaining on how to use and/or navigate the software. Even on their Quick Reference sheet it uses musical terms.

The last piece I was working on I copied one staff to another and the stems were mostly messed up. In Finale it is simple to correct this if it happens but not so in Dorico. Simply deleting or removing a staff is not straight forward.

We have time let's see what Musescore comes up with. I did the crossgrade deal and bought Dorico Pro 5 so I have it.

EB

As of 9/11/2024 there’s an ad on https://www.scoringnotes.com/productguide/ that says Fiale Users Get Sibelius for $99. However, the link takes you to the $149 offer.

Wrong information on Scoring Notes?!?!? Say it isn’t so!

Ok, seriously, it happens now and then.

There are many reasons why I believe that MuseScore may become the future—no reason to repeat myself here. In any case, Muse Group has to deliver a fully professional notation app, something that they have only promised will happen in MS5, and it has to be superior. Will the promised AI component do it? Will anyone like the results? No one knows.

The next macOS 15, Sequoia, has been in public beta for months now. 27 and Garritan work fine. Will this change next July? We will know then.

Does any of this affect my work now? Good gosh, No!