686: Changes and improvements in Sibelius 7.1

Registering and activating Sibelius

Sibelius 7.1 uses a new mechanism for registering and activating the software. Previous versions of Sibelius used a combined activation and registration process, but as of Sibelius 7.1 these processes are now separate.

What is activation?

Activation is the process by which your copy of Sibelius is authenticated against an activation server in order to ensure that you only have Sibelius activated on the appropriate number of computers, as specified by the terms of your license agreement. Typically a single-user copy of Sibelius can be activated on two computers for your own personal use. Copies of Sibelius that are not activated cannot save (but they can open, edit, play back and print scores). No personally identifiable information is transmitted as part of the activation process.

What is registration?

Registration is the process by which your copy of Sibelius is associated with an individual person or institution. Registration is optional, but is strongly recommended: you will receive an Avid Support Code (ASC) when you register that allows you to contact technical support.

Activating Sibelius 7.1

If you are updating to Sibelius 7.1 from a previous version of Sibelius 7, you will need to re-activate your software, but you will not need to re-register, because you provided your personal details when you first activated Sibelius 7.0.

Instead of your existing Sibelius serial number (typically beginning something like SCEE, SCMP or SCEX), activation now requires an 11-digit System ID (which identifies your copy of Sibelius) and a 16-digit Activation ID (which provides your specific entitlement, e.g. the ability to activate your copy of Sibelius on two machines for your own use).

If you updated from Sibelius 7.0.x, your System ID and Activation ID will be found by typing your existing Sibelius serial number into this form, then click Request Free Update: the System ID and Activation ID are shown to you on the next page, in large bold type in a blue box in the middle of the page.

When you first run Sibelius 7.1 after updating from Sibelius 7.0.x, Sibelius will show you a message informing you that you must re-activate your software immediately: click OK and a separate program called Avid License Control (ALC) will run. Avid License Control is a utility shared by Avid software products for managing activation. On the first screen, you will see Sibelius 7 listed, and an Activate button: click this to proceed.

You are asked whether you want to activate using the Internet connection on this computer, or another computer. It is recommended that you use the connection on the computer on which Sibelius is installed, so choose that option and click Next. Now you are asked to enter your System ID and Activation ID: do so, and click Next. After a moment, you will be told that Sibelius has been activated: click Done to leave Avid License Control and return to Sibelius.

If you cannot activate using the Internet connection on the computer on which Sibelius is installed (e.g. because that computer is not connected to the Internet), choose the option to activate using another computer’s Internet connection and click Next. You will be prompted to write down a Device ID, which is a long string of numbers. Be careful to write this down correctly! Follow the instructions on the screen to visit www.avid.com/license to complete the activation process: you will need the Device ID you wrote down, and the Activation ID you received with Sibelius 7.1. A License.bin file will be generated by the Avid web site, which you need to transfer back to the computer on which Sibelius is installed (e.g. using a USB flash drive). Choose this file from within Avid License Control to complete the activation process.

Registering Sibelius 7.1

If you are updating to Sibelius 7.1 from Sibelius 7.0.x, you will not be prompted to register your copy of Sibelius.

If you are installing Sibelius 7.1 for the first time, you will be prompted to register Sibelius after you have successfully activated your software: a window will appear in which your Activation ID will already have been populated. Click Next to continue. You are prompted to create an Avid.com account, which will allow you to access information about your products and licenses (e.g. how many activations you have remaining) on Avid.com, and provide your personal information.

If the computer on which Sibelius is installed is not connected to the Internet, you can register using a web browser on another computer: the window that appears in Sibelius will tell you where to go in order to register.

You can defer registration if you wish by closing the registration window, and clicking Register Later in the dialog that appears, in which case Sibelius will periodically remind you to complete the registration process. If you wish to skip registration altogether, click Never Register instead.

Once you have registered successfully, you will receive your complimentary Avid Support Code (ASC) by email, which enables you to access assisted technical support from Avid’s dedicated team of experts.

Printing

Sibelius now has improved support for printers with automatic duplex units, i.e. printers that can automatically print on both sides of each sheet of paper. If the chosen printer supports automatic duplexing, a new option is added to the drop-down that includes Print One Sided and Manually Print Both Sides: choose Automatically Print Both Sides to activate automatic duplex support.

Because Sibelius cannot tell the exact capabilities of your printer’s duplex unit, a new Duplex Options dialog has been added, which can be accessed via the link below the choice of printer drop-down in File > Print. In this dialog you can specify whether your printer’s duplexer flips paper on the long or short edge: change these settings if you find that the music printed on the reverse of the paper is upside-down.

Other improvements to printing in Sibelius 7.1 are as follows:

• The Duplex Options dialog also includes an option for manual duplexing (i.e. when Manually Print Both Sides is chosen in File > Print) to determine whether the order of pages to be printed on the reverse side of the paper needs to be reversed. Change this option if you find that you get the wrong page printed on the reverse of each sheet when using manual duplexing.
• Duplex printing now correctly inserts blank pages as required if the document being printed has an odd number of pages or otherwise requires a blank page to be inserted to prevent the first page of the next copy being printed on the reverse of the last page of the previous copy.
• There is no longer a long delay after clicking Print in File > Print and the document spooling to the printer (Mac OS X 10.7 Lion only).
• When using the native Mac Print dialog (accessed by clicking Use OS Dialog at the bottom of File > Print), the settings in Sibelius’s File > Print page are now ignored. When the native Mac Print dialog appears, it is as if all pages are set to print a single copy, normally (i.e. not as a booklet, or spreads, or 2-up), uncollated, and at 100% scale with Fit to paper switched off. You can then use the settings in the Mac Print dialog to access all of the settings of your own printer, including those not accessible via Sibelius’s File > Print page (Mac only).
• Further improvements to the way the native Mac Print dialog is initialised, if chosen. The page size and orientation shown on the Page Atrributes page of the dialog now matches that chosen in Layout > Document Setup, allowing you to correctly set alternative options on the Paper Handling page of the dialog (Mac only).
• The page range edit control in File > Print is now correctly updated when you select a different part from the table view at the top of the page (when opened via Parts > Print > Print All Parts or with a part in the selected tab).

Exporting PDFs

• File > Export > PDF now provides greater flexibility in setting the filenames of the PDFs to be produced, using the same tokens as those that can be used for naming extracted parts (in Parts > Extract > Extract).
• New Export full score and all parts (separate files) option in File > Export > PDF.
• New Export selection of parts (separate files) option in File > Export > PDF, replacing the previous Export single part option and the extra options for extracting parts as PDF files in Parts > Extract > Extract, both of which have now been removed.
• New Export selection of parts (one file) option in File > Export > PDF.
• Exporting PDFs using certain fonts could cause Sibelius to crash; this has now been fixed (Windows only).

Exporting graphics

Exporting a graphic from a dynamic part via File > Export > Graphics and then returning to the Backstage after choosing a different part to export now correctly updates the automatically-generated filename (provided it has not been edited by the user, in which case the user-edited filename is retained).

Display settings

Sibelius 7.1 now uses DirectWrite on Windows to provide improved text measurement (particularly noticeable at low zoom levels, where characters are now spaced much more evenly than in Sibelius 7.0) and ClearType font smoothing, which uses RGB sub-pixel anti-aliasing rather than full pixel grayscale anti-aliasing (so-called “standard” font smoothing) for improved on-screen display.

Text

• A problem whereby some weights of fonts with extended styles (e.g. the full Plantin MT Std family from Monotype, beyond the weights supplied with Sibelius 7) would not display correctly in Sibelius has been fixed (Mac only).
• Horizontal scaling of text now works correctly in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• Sibelius now opens much more quickly when thousands of fonts are installed on the system (Windows only).
• When exporting a score from Sibelius 7 to earlier versions of Sibelius, Italic and Underline properties of the text style are correctly preserved when opened in Sibelius 6 or earlier.
• When exporting a score from Sibelius 7 to earlier versions of Sibelius, Sibelius uses the Mac-specific full name of the font if available (this is only defined in some fonts from some manufacturers, e.g. some Adobe font families), which increases the chances that Sibelius 6 and earlier will use the correct font. In general, the way Sibelius 7 stores font names on Mac is not backwards compatible with previous versions, because the names that were used in previous versions are no longer accessible via 64-bit APIs. With this change, a wider selection of extended weights will be exported in such a way that Sibelius 6 and earlier can find them; e.g. a score using all weights of the Myriad Pro family can now be exported back to Sibelius 6 or earlier correctly (Mac only).
• Changing the properties of a selected text object using the controls in Text > Format now updates the status bar display immediately.
• Fully-justified text no longer sometimes prints incorrectly, where the last word of one line ends up incorrectly overlaying the words on the next line (Windows only).
• Sibelius no longer sometimes fails to bring the text input position into view when creating some kinds of system text, e.g. Title text.
• When exporting a score from Sibelius 7 to earlier versions of Sibelius, character styles that have been overridden with explicit font changes are now correctly preserved when opened in Sibelius 6 or earlier.
• Lyric hyphens no longer appear offset both vertically and horizontally when using PostScript Type 1 fonts for lyrics (Windows only).

ManuScript language

• The dialog editor for ManuScript plug-in dialogs has been reinstated, and is available for the first time on Mac as well as Windows. It has also been improved significantly, with improvements including:
• Nudge and align controls with the arrow keys
• Keyboard shortcuts for control Properties dialogs, and testing the dialog
• Improved grid display
• Improved tab/creation order editing
• Full undo/redo within the dialog editor
• New Score.ExportScoreAsPDF() and Score.ExportPartsAsPDF() methods.
• Sibelius.ShowDynamicPart() now works correctly in respect of Sibelius 7’s SDI and tabbed interface.
• New Sibelius.ClearRecentDocuments() ManuScript method to clear the list of recent files shown in File > Info and on the Recent tab of the Quick Start window.

Note input

• When using the 5 on Keypad option on the Note Input page of Preferences, which changes the first Keypad layout to use Finale-compatible shortcuts for note durations, you can now create a tenuto articulation by hitting the 9 key on the numeric keypad. You can also use the * key on the keypad to create an explicit natural accidental.
• Hitting 0 on the numeric keypad at the same time as playing a note on the MIDI keyboard during step-time input or re-inputting no longer causes a crash.

Other improvements

• Deleting a part by viewing said part, triple-clicking its staff and then hitting Delete no longer crashes Sibelius (Mac only).
• Batch processing plug-ins that open and close scores will no longer crash when closing a score with an attached video (Mac only).
• Submenus (e.g. in the context menu when you right-click on the score, or in the hierarchy of menus used for choosing sounds in the Mixer) no longer appear and disappear as you move the mouse over the parent menu (Mac only).
• Further stability improvements.
• Home > Plug-ins > Batch Processing > Convert Folder of Scores to Earlier Version now works correctly if the chosen destination folder does not exist.
• Opening a score with an attached video will now correctly open the Video window, unless the user has specified that the Video window should not appear for that score.
• Copying a selected Idea in the Ideas window to the clipboard using the Command-C shortcut now works once more (Mac only).
• Re-selecting an already-selected item in a combo box or list box in a ManuScript plug-in dialog now works the same way as in previous versions once more.
• New Home > Plug-ins > Batch Processing > Export Folder of Scores to PDF plug-in.
• The height of the Preferences and Engraving Rules dialogs is now constrained to the height of the screen display, with a vertical scroll bar shown for the chosen embedded page if necessary, to ensure that the OK and Cancel buttons always fit on the screen.
• Sibelius now detects Kontakt 5 as a Kontakt-type device and can load sounds automatically from Kontakt-based libraries, provided a suitable sound set is available.
• The progress bar that appears during the Arrange process no longer appears on top of all other windows, and the warning that tells you you're arranging a long passage now has a Don't say this again checkbox so it can be suppressed in future.