MakeMusic continues its recent pattern of releasing incremental point updates at regular intervals to fix bugs and make minor improvements to Finale’s UI.
Finale 25.5 is the latest of these, offering a few minor enhancements while fixing some bugs which were evident, particularly on the newest OS versions (like Mac OS X High Sierra).
For instance, the following new features of this upgrade are very much “under the hood” type enhancements; stuff that subtly makes Finale easier to use:
1) Garritan Instruments for Finale. The Garritan Instruments for Finale installer has been updated to improve speed and produce a higher installation success rate.
2) Finale’s file structure has been updated in an effort to make the application more localizable.
3) MusicXML. Measure number text is now exported when a file contains measure numbers that are repeated in multiple movements or sections.
On Mac, users can now access the clear key functionality of a full keyboard on a laptop computer by using FUNCTION+SHIFT+DELETE.
If you plan to use CLEAR or FUNCTION+SHIFT+DELETE when working in PART view, keep in mind that Clear functionality is a Stack operation, meaning that rather than clearing only notes and other staff attached objects, it will also delete global system text such as tempo text or rehearsal marks affecting all other parts. Use with caution.
The update includes a number of little UI fixes. For instance, text in a number of dialog boxes now displays correctly.
And, good news for for Mac High Sierra users: a whole bunch of crash scenarios have been sussed out and fixed. The Finale installer ReadMe file has a complete list of these.
While there isn’t anything really “exciting” about this update, what *is* exciting is the way MakeMusic has been supporting their Finale notation product with more frequent point release updates to fix bugs and make Finale run more smoothly.
For more information, visit www.finalemusic.com