Finale 2014D Announced

November 3rd, 2014 : MakeMusic today announced a new 2014d update to Finale which includes a half-dozen new features, as well as a handful of bug fixes:

• Meet Gear Fisher, MakeMusic CEO (Gear Fisher, via Finale Blog)
• Finale 2014d and News from MakeMusic – (Finale Blog)
• Announcing Finale 2014d! (Erik Vork, via MakeMusic Forum)
• Finale 2014d and beyond: a discussion with MakeMusic (Sibelius Blog)

Of special note is a new opt-in anonymous usage data feature which will help MakeMusic better track how Finale users are working with the program, so that relevant improvements can be made more frequently and efficiently in the future:

“Improve Finale: By selecting “Yes” below, you allow MakeMusic to automatically collect anonymous information about your hardware configuration and how you use the software. With this information, we will identify usage patterns so that our designers can make informed decisions when creating future versions of Finale.

We will not collect your name, address or any other personally identifiable information, and you will not be contacted in any way. Since we have no visibility into your actual documents, there is no risk that any unpublished or copyrighted material will be accessed.

You can change this setting at any time by choosing “Help Improve Finale” from the Help menu.”

Here is a list of the features and bug fixes:

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FEATURES IN FINALE 2014D

• Optional large-size tool palettes. A larger size for improved visibility can be chosen in the Preferences – Palettes and Backgrounds dialog box.
• Disable snapping for beat-attached Smart Shapes. Deselect Smart Shape > Snap When Attaching to Beats to return to the Finale 2012-style method of placing Smart Shapes.
• (Win) Customizable tool palettes. You can now customize the appearance and layout of all palette buttons exactly as you could in Finale 2012.
• (Win) File and Edit palettes. These palettes, which restore the functionality of the corresponding toolbars in  Finale 2012, can be displayed via the Window menu.
• (Win) Page View and Scroll View buttons. These buttons have been added to the View palette so you can easily switch between views.
• Help Improve Finale. After installing this update, a new dialog appears on the first launch asking whether or not you want to submit anonymous usage data to MakeMusic. MakeMusic uses this data to inform the design of new versions of Finale; no personally-identifiable or document-specific information is ever collected, and you can change your mind at any time by choosing Help > Help Improve Finale.

FIXES IN FINALE 2014D

File Management

• File opening and saving speed has been further improved.
• Quick Look support is now enabled for documents created in Finale 2014 on Mac.
• Spotlight support is now enabled for documents created in Finale 2014on Mac.

Movie Window

• The Movie Window can now open all file types that were available in Finale 2012 on Mac.

Speedy Entry

• Contents of the previous measure no longer overwrite existing music when selecting the “Move the extra notes to the next measure” option in Speedy Entry.

Stem Connections

• The misalignment of stem connections for upstem quarter notes in certain circumstances has been corrected on Mac.

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MakeMusic also announced that effective January 1, 2015, they will discontinue technical support for Finale 2011 and earlier. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it will theoretically allow MakeMusic tech support personnel to provide a much higher and more focused level of expertise for the newest versions of the Finale program.

Finale 2011 users will continue to be able to find support through the MakeMusic Community Forums, on-line Knowledge Base, Learning Center and resources like this blog.