Finale (software) - Functionality

Functionality

Finale's tools are organized into multiple hierarchically organized palettes, and the corresponding tool must be selected to add or edit any particular class of score element, (e.g., the Smart Shape tool to generate and edit trill lines and dynamics "hairpins" (so-named because the symbols resemble women's hairpins); the Staff tool to add and edit the parameters of individual staves). Alongside these tools, additional controls are available to view or hide up to four superimposed layers of music that can be entered onto any particular staff, for purposes of organizing multiple contrapuntal voices on the same staff. Several of Finale's tools provide an associated menu just to the left of the Help menu, available only when that particular tool is selected. Thus, the operation of Finale bears at least some surface similarities to Adobe Photoshop.

On the screen, Finale provides the ability to color code several elements of the score as a visual aid; on the print-out all score elements are black (unless color print-out is explicitly chosen). With the corresponding tool selected, fine adjustment of each set of objects in a score are possible either by clicking and dragging or by entering measurements in a dialog box. A more generalized selection tool is also available to select large measure regions for editing key and time signatures, or transposing, among others. This tool also provides the ability to reposition several classes of score object directly, and more recent versions of the software have implemented extensive contexual menuing via this tool.

Finale automatically takes care of many of the basic rules of harmony and music notation, such as correct stem direction and vertical alignment of multiple rhythmic values, as well as established rules for positioning of noteheads on chords. For other things, without careful advance user customization, the program makes what can be described as "a good guess", especially in the area of enharmonic spelling of newly-entered data generated from a MIDI keyboard, while respecting the current key signature: it is smart enough to spell F-sharp rather than G-flat in a D dominant 7th (the dominant or fifth of the dominant) chord in C minor; but for other chords, such as a G major 7 +5 (major seventh chord with an augmented fifth), it may occasionally use G-flat instead of F-sharp. For the majority of western tonal music, Finale chooses the correct spelling for chords of the tonic and dominant keys correctly, but when the music wanders to tonal regions further away from the tonic, Finale tends to make mistakes by treating chords as if they belonged to the tonic key in some way. When using a nonstandard key, experts have recommended that the user "assign a spelling for each pitch in the chromatic scale" using a dialog box available from the Preferences menu.