That concept, if possible to extend to page formatting, could solve a lot of problems at once. A stop point would require that changes force addition / deletion of pages before the stop point, preserving everything after it. Now imagine a virtual stop point at each flow start, and my problem with flows would be solved.
–Neil
you only realized this after the two months trial period you had with the full version?
In the middle of a bunch of urgent deadlines for projects started on another software I should have been able to drop everything and spend two months learning Dorico? You may also recall there was originally a deadline of September 24 to get Dorico or else lose the special crossgrade price – so, like many people, I bought the app feeling like I had a gun to my head.
I don’t believe this is true. Here is the Finale blog post with the “end of Finale” announcement, as archived by the Wayback Machine on the day it was published. You’ll see that the announcements says that the crossgrade price will be available “for a limited time”; this time was never specified, and in fact the crossgrade is still in effect today.
The deadline that was changed was for the Finale activation servers – they were originally supposed to be turned off in August 2025, but MakeMusic later said that the servers would remain available “for the foreseeable future”.
(I know this isn’t germane to the initial point about how Dorico handles layout changes, just trying to keep history straight.)
Not sure how germane this is even to the history of the deal between Steinberg and MakeMusic. The September 24 deadline as a (possibly incorrect) interpretation of the “limited time offer” may have been because of a rumor, but it was definitely discussed frantically online and between users – you can find traces of it if you Google key words and the date. Keeping Finale activation servers on indefinitely was in response to the very justified outrage after the first announcement. The sense of urgency from the “limited time offer” as well as extending it were just good salesmanship. I certainly fell for the latter.
Key point is that Steinberg had requested MakeMusic not only to stop developing Finale but to make it unusable as soon as possible. Somehow they didn’t anticipate the fury that would cause but quickly changed their tune. Too late, since that kind of nakedly vulturish disregard towards, well, all of western music, really taxed their whole “cool underdog” image wrt Sibelius.
Do you have any evidence to support this? Sounds a bit libellous to me.
Any proof of that?
This is utter nonsense. According to Martin Keary (aka “Tantacrul”, woh is Head of Design at MuseScore), MakeMusic had already announced that they were “getting out of the music creation business” in 2022. Revenue from Finale had been declining for over a decade, and former dev staff have publicly commented that the code was already unusable.
“Any proof?” 
Below are the relevant bits from the initial announcement. There are two parties to this deal: MakeMusic and Steinberg. Whose interest is served by this original (though quickly reversed) plan for a very efficient destruction of the old software? Implementing this requires MakeMusic to be proactive about putting Finale to sleep. Their product is dead, so what do they care either way. But there’s money to be made by forcing a maximum amount of people out of using Finale and into Dorico.
Here:
It is no longer possible to purchase or upgrade Finale in the MakeMusic eStore
Finale will continue to work on devices where it is currently installed (barring OS changes)
After one year, beginning August 2025, these changes will go into effect:
- It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale
The only hope for a stable notation software, and one that caters to more complex types of music, seems to be MuseScore. They’re not quite there yet. But as an open-source app, there’s way less risk of enshittification (as happened with Finale and Sibelius) or that a valuable tool is destroyed because of profit-seeking.
Nothing here that says
And nowhere this was suggested
Yes, it was announced that development would stop, yes it was initially announced that authoization servers would be stopped. But nothing of that would be stopping a user to use Finale on computers on which it was already installed.
They’re not going to keep selling something that they have no plans to support or develop. That’s taking on a liability that they don’t need.
MM could have just said “We’re closed. Find something else.” Instead, they said “Here’s a discounted crossgrade, which we recommend.”
Dorico does have limitations, and you’ll find people railing at the lack of all kinds of things that have subsequently been implemented.
Seems the true believers on this forum didn’t see anything unethical about the plan laid out in the original announcement, but countless users around the world sure did. That’s why it was such an insane s-h -it storm. Point being, musicians roped into using a software that fundamentally cannot do the job have good reason and the right to vent about it.
I’m not a believer, but I like to stick to the facts.
You may well be angry, but I do think you’re angry at the wrong party. It’s not Steinberg who stopped Finale’s development, it’s MakeMusic.
And MakeMusic’s announcement was abruptly, understandably leading to lots of questions, but in my opinion only MM is to blame for that.
Nobody was roped into anything; Finale users could switch to any software they wanted (or stick with Finale). I took a good look at Dorico, Sibelius (which also offered a comparable crossgrade), and MuseScore before deciding that Dorico worked best for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely equally angry at MakeMusic. But the “future of notation” can’t be a company that’s just as short-sighted and has as little regard for the people actually creating the music. I wouldn’t be surprised if in another 15-20 years, Dorico is discontinued and a bunch of artists are again locked out of their own creative output.
Wouldn’t that be true for any company? If they don’t make any profit anymore, they’re forced to stop.
Quite easy to get some examples, not only software, but also hardware. If you have your creative output in WordPerfect or on VHS or Betamax tapes you’ve got a problem too.
And there’s a lot of abandoned OpenSource projects too.
Nothing is forever unfortunately
You’re right in the sense that I can ultimately only blame myself for buying into the hype. The main problem of course is that, as the very same Tantracul quoted above put it in another video, there are no good software options for composers. My first couple of days learning Dorico, I was in fact excited and hopeful; then eventually lost all hope that there will ever be such a software. By all accounts, Sibelius is borderline broken because of the same market-driven enshittification that eventually made Finale so unpleasant to use as well. But yeah, an abrupt out-of-the-blue announcement that your main professional tool is discontinued, will in fact be actively hammered to death, and hey, you have a limited amount of time to buy this Advanced New Software at discounted rate is what roped me in (to use the expression). And I can tell you that this feeling is near universally shared by composers in my professional circles – as in, people whose music cannot, under any circumstances, “look always great with a few default settings” on any software.
Wouldn’t that be true for any company? If they don’t make any profit anymore, they’re forced to stop.
Quite easy to get some examples, not only software, but also hardware. If you have your creative output in WordPerfect or on VHS or Betamax tapes you’ve got a problem too.
Sure, but there’s more than just a difference in nuance between a company that seeks to make a profit, and a company that’s willing to torch an entire culture to gain (or, in the case of MM, to sell) a bit of market share. And even moreso between genuine advancements in technology – such as from VHS or Betamax – to killing an invaluable creative tool in favor of a competing one.
The funny thing about this old accusation is that any attempt at defending yourself from it will only dig you a deeper hole. I can only remind my esteemed forum colleagues about the Ignore button.
I always forget it’s there. Thanks for the reminder.