Finale has released the latest maintenance update to Finale 26; version 26.2.
Since introducing Finale 26, which had several major new features, much of the focus of development has gone into technical improvements under the hood; admittedly, unglamorous architectural work designed to bring Finale into the future.
This means that while you may not see much change on the surface with this point upgrade, the underlying code is being updated dramatically.
According to the Finale Blog article from October of this year, senior manager of the Finale product development team Jason Wick stated: “The architectural work that we’ve been doing modifies hundreds of thousands of lines of code and those changes are investments in the long-term viability of Finale.”
The Finale 26.2 point release is a continuation of MakeMusic’s “long game” trajectory. For instance, on Mac, this update ensures that Finale v26 is compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina.
Nearly all of what is going on with this update is laying the code base groundwork for future, larger improvements and features. This will mean that significant new features will be easier to implement in the future.
Performance
In working with Finale 26.2 over the last couple of days on Mac, while I can’t provide any scientific evidence to back it up, it seems more responsive overall to me than the previous Finale 26 versions.
Library / House Style Improvements
Finale’s libraries now retain more information. A subtle, but nice enhancement to Finale 26.2 are the inclusion of Page Format for Score and Parts as well as Guides when you export / save a Library.
Finalescript
FinaleScript’s import options commands now import all associated options.
ARIA Player
Finale’s ARIA Player has been updated to v1.959 in the full Finale installer. if you would like to download the update directly, the ARIA Player v1.959 installer is available in the MakeMusic Download Library.
Patterson Beams Plug-in
The Patterson Beams Plug-in has been updated to so that grace notes and resized notes appear more elegantly. Stem lengths and beam angles look like they would at full size, and place themselves more appropriately within the staff lines.
Installers
The various Finale installers for the application, Aria player and on Mac ReWire are now compliant with current OS security protocols. Finale users on both platforms can be more confident that their software install is safe and stable.
On Mac, for instance, Finale executables such as ReWire now comply with Mac notarization standards. The Apple notary service is an automated system that scans the software for malicious content, checks for code-signing issues, and provides alerts to any potential problems.
I’ve been using the update in my regular work on Mac now for a few days, and everything is really stable on Mac (which as a professional user as you can imagine is very important).
I’m also please to report that v26.2 is excellent with my (free) JetStream Finale Controller, which you may have been hearing will be released this year.
Summary
In summary, my recommendation is to update. Finale 26.2 is a free maintenance upgrade for all Finale 26 users, which is paving the way for future functionality and power.
Related
I would like to register in the Finale Forum.
I own finale 2014.5, however I cannot get registered.
At the bottom of the registration page it says:
Every other letter from the following:
finaleforum:
This question is a means of preventing automated form submissions by spambots.
Please help me!
Guessing you are trying to register on the independent Finale Forum, as opposed to MakeMusic’s own forum.
I’m not signed into that, but I think you literally just type in every other letter:, fnlfrm, in order to register. Hope that helps!