Mike Halloran

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  • in reply to: Encore 6 launch #1867
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
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    Yea… I’m not holding my breath. I want it when it becomes available but am not letting this keep me from getting my work done.

    Encore is a tool. If I must, I’ll use another. If I need to open an old file, there are ways. Everything I’ve ever done has been exported to MIDI, MusicXML and pdf. Nothing will be lost when I get a new Mac; it will just be a bit inconvenient to convert these files to something else.

    in reply to: Feature Request: To be able to select default font #1866
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    “Times New Roman is typically a default font for many Windows programs…”

    Then change it.

    Minion Pro is a popular lyric font because of its readability. You can get it free from Adobe by installing Adobe Reader. Although it saves as an Application font, it’s easy to install as a System Font available to all users. The instructions differ for Mac and Windows but it’s pretty easy to do.

    Again, you can be save any available font in a template.

    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    “With the graphic panel I actually don’t use the Lyric tool [L] just the Text tool [T], particularly to have more specific control of text placement.”

    Your request makes no sense. Using the Lyric tool, one is able to position words and syllables precisely by dragging horizontally with the mouse. The entire line can be repositioned vertically by dragging the arrow on the left—for each line up to 8. You can also replace, resize and restyle the lyrics for the entire document with a few clicks. If the new placement isn’t to your liking, re-drag as you like.

    This is not possible with the Text tool without creating a new field for each word, a task that is cumbersome and time consuming to say the least.

    in reply to: VST in Encore #1861
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    There’s a good idea.

    For the Mac, the IAC Driver might work. I have no interest in trying it out as I use Finale and Overture when I need this but here’s the Apple Support doc for those willing to give it a try.

    https://support.apple.com/guide/audio-midi-setup/transfer-midi-information-between-apps-ams1013/mac

    in reply to: Saving Scores #1860
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    Windows does not have a native pdf engine. There are many commercial and free apps you can use to add this functionality. CUTE PDF is very popular.

    Print to PDF is part of the Print menu on any Mac. 3rd party apps from Adobe and others do exist but are not necessary for basic functionality.

    in reply to: Encore 6 for Mac #1850
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    Not yet. It will be announced here when it is.

    in reply to: Where to purchase Encore 5? #1848
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    Encore 5 is not offered for sale anywhere. I’ve seen some shady sites that claim to offer 5.0.4 for Windows and 5.0.7 for Mac. “Trusted” will not be part of that equation.

    in reply to: Encore Issues I’d Like Sorted In 6 #1846
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    “ I know about adjusting measures per page after a delete or add measure.”

    I wasn’t talking abut that. Reread my post. Ask questions if you don’t understand. It’s too bad we can’t add graphics or screen shots here.

    in reply to: Where is Encore 6.0? #1842
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    “I bought Sonic Writer 5 for only $69.00 and it does everything Encore 5.0.4.875 did …”

    Oh not everything. I downloaded Score Writer just to see. If you do what I do, there are a few absolute deal killers for me, especially this one:

    “Lyric Verses — Overture: 8; Score Writer: 4”

    I often need more than 4 verses in my church work. Encore has up to 8. Score Writer would be useless in my Christmas book, also. I’d like to do it in Encore but the slurs are so bad (at least on the Mac) that terrible doesn’t even begin to describe it so I’m doing my book in Overture (don’t need Finale or Dorico for this). BTW, Finale slurs didn’t really look good till 2009 and Encore 5 was released in 2008.

    The cross-grade to Ov5 is $129 and it does have all of Encore’s functionality + a lot more – glad I spent the extra $60. I still want Encore 6, however. Overture and Score Writer take me longer to use. There are other functions doable in Encore, not possible in Score Writer but that’s the big one for me.

    I couldn’t get the Score Writer Installer to work on my iMac Pro over Ventura (Overture works fine) so I had to fire up my old MacBook Pro. Here’s the feature comparison between Overture and Score Writer:

    Product Comparisons

    in reply to: Will we ever see Encore 6? #1841
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    How many other apps out there that haven’t had a paid upgrade in 15 years or an incremental update in 9 years have users waiting for a new version?

    Me too, BTW. I just hope it retains the easy of use that keeps me using it (or most of it, at least).

    in reply to: Encore 6 #1839
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    Until Don lets us know, we are all in the dark.

    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    “Last year *somebody* at Passport made…”

    “Somebody” is Don Williams. He wrote the first version of Encore a long time ago. His apps include Sonic Scores Overture. Last year, he acquired the source code, trademarks and rights to Encore with plans to release version 6. I can assure you that it was he wrote those posts.

    The last paid updates to 5 were offered by the previous ownership in 2008.

    Yes, Encore 6 is late but no one has been charged any money. It would be nice to see an announcement, of course.

    in reply to: Encore Issues I’d Like Sorted In 6 #1837
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    “ Be able to delete measures without the entire score shuffling back those measures”

    Encore has always been able to do that. After you delete the measure(s), correct the number of measures per system. Say you had 5, you delete 1. To maintain the spacing on the rest of the page, change that one system to 4 and reflow (Adjust Measure Spacing) if necessary.

    The layout tools in Encore are quite simple compared to everything else. It’s the feature I like best and hope that doesn’’t get changed (much?).

    I’ll find the tutorial that I wrote nine years ago based on Richard’s email to me for removing all traces of older versions of Encore for Mac, especially those horrible early beta versions of 5. The 5.0.7 installer doesn’t do this. I’ll create a new thread for that.

    in reply to: Where is Encore 6.0? #1835
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    Score Writer is the “lite” version of Overture 5. Since I have O5 already, I’ve never looked at SW — perhaps I should.

    “ Also why I, like many have gone to Finale, Sibelius and MuseScore.”

    I do not like Sibelius or MuseScore but have had Finale and Dorico since the beginning of each. My “heavy lifting” has been done in Finale since 1989, pen and ink for the 20 years prior. I keep waiting for Dorico to be a useful tool for me—takes me way too much time to get anything done. I have bought and discarded about a dozen other notation apps since my Mac Plus in 1986.

    I used to use Notion 6 to open MusicXML from Sibelius but it doesn’t work with he current version. The Dolet 8 plug-in lets the current Sibelius export MusicXML 4.0 which opens in Finale 27.3.

    My point is that I use the best tools I have to get the work done. Encore has a definite place in my toolkit, especially for my church work and lead sheets. Like everyone here, I want it back. That E6 is not ready isn’t keeping me from getting things done.

    in reply to: Encore Issues I’d Like Sorted In 6 #1826
    Avatar photoMike Halloran
    Participant

    “I’m using 5.6. I have 5.7 but that is buggy as well and I experience even more crashes with 5.7.”

    Exact answers to specific questions can be most helpful. There was never an Encore 5.6 or 5.7. I do know that you have a Mac, at least since the last version for Windows was 5.0.4.

    I’m not playing word games here. There was more than one build for Encore 5.0.7. Oddly enough, if you run Get Info in the Encore menu on the very last version of 5.0.7, you get

    Encore

    5.0.6 1303M

    Encore 5.0.7 Copyright © 2014 etc.

    This was the last build and it’s quite stable over MacOS 10.14 Mojave. Some issues including Core Fonts and Barline Types only work properly in that version over that OS. If you don’t have 5.0.6 1303M, it can be found. I don’t post my contact info but I’m not hard to find if you need that build.

    You should purge every old version of Encore from your Mac. Old fonts, especially, can cause crashes no matter what version you are running. I can find Richard’s 2014 email on that if needed.

    “Like my 1st post says I use Encore to sequence so Velocity is big for me”

    Good luck with that. Overture combines the features of Encore and MasterTracks Pro. Unfortunately, Ov5 cannot open Encore files but Don says that Ov6 will. I think your solution will lie in that direction. If you’ve not downloaded the demo, it would be a good idea.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 92 total)