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What's new in this version: Sibelius for Mac 8.7.2
Key Signatures and Instrument Changes:
- This is an area we spent a lot of time on getting right. We’d like to thank our tireless beta testers for their feedback while we worked on improving this area of the program. Many of you will know that entering Instrument Changes would always come with a level of cleanup. Any change in key signature would be too close to the barline, and on the wrong side too. In the part, they would split the multirest and it would take a number of steps to get this right. In addition to this, if a Key Signature change would happen at the same time, you’d get two key signatures appearing at the same time. With Sibelius 8.7.2, this is now all handled for you.
Barlines:
- Special barlines, which are accessed from Notations > Common > Barline, each have special properties. In previous versions, they would all split multirests, which was OK if you knew that was going to happen. However, many a Sibelius user has been confused to see a multirest split and not known why. In Sibelius 8.7.2 we have changed the behavior of some of these barlines.
- When opening older scores:
- Opening older scores in 8.7.2 that contain any of the barlines in the second list above now open with a ‘Split multirest’ above them in each part. This retains the layout of the score, and also gives you a useful visual indicator to show why the multirest is splitting. To snap this back into a single multirest, simply select the split multirest and tap delete.
- Sibelius | Cloud Sharing:
- Accepting the Terms and Conditions for the first time now knows if you’ve just opened the Dashboard or clicked ‘Share’—if the latter, it no longer just opens the Dashboard but continues to share the score.
- When sharing an unsaved score, the “Uploading Score” message only appears after you’ve saved the score.
- When extracting parts, the files are now given their own FileID, allowing you to share these independently from the full score.
- The Push button is now enabled and disabled more reliably.
Workflow:
- Non-magnetic gliss and port lines are now red when they are selected—this matches the colour of non-magnetic slurs.
- Text along lines is now horizontal once more. It can still follow the angle of the line when you specify a value to move the text up by a number of spaces (found in Edit Lines > Centered Text).
- A long-standing issue, where you’d lose title pages and other blank pages when changing time signature at the beginning of the score, has been fixed.
- Using the left/right arrow keys to navigate through the selection no longer causes the selection to skip into another voice when you pass an object in all voices, like a chord symbol, or staff-attached symbol.
- In some cases, entering notes into a bar directly after an Instrument Change would add them in the next bar instead. This dates back a really long time but you’ll now find notes go into the bar that you intend them go into.
- Adding Split Multirests are now added to the undo queue.
- Sibelius would sometimes move the score when performing an undo action. This no longer happens.
UI and Documentation:
- When exporting a PDF, the wildcards are now correct in French and German languages.
- The Lines section of the Inspector is now localized.
- Text is no longer cut off in the Quick Start > Learn tab for all languages except Japanese and Chinese (Mac only).
- When importing Ideas, the import button was sometimes cut off—the dialog has been extended to show this button.
- Several improvements to the Manuscript plug-in language documentation have been made.
General reliability:
- When pasting Lyrics, the Undo/Redo queue no longer gets out of sync. Previously, it was possible to repeat a lyric rather than paste the next one in the clipboard.
- Sibelius no longer crashes if you quit while still inputting text (Mac only).
- A score that containing $NumPages wildcard, if exported and opened in Sibelius 7.5 will crash—we’ve found this happens due to a bug in Sibelius 7.5-8.5. We fixed this back in March as part of the Sibelius 8.6 and Cloud Publishing engine development (where we found the Cloud Publishing engine would hang on some scores).
- Sibelius no longer starts up slowly when “Avid Application Manager Helper” is not running.
- As part of our regular monitoring of crash reports that come in, we’ve found several reports where RoboForm would cause a crash due the way Sibelius handles text. We will address this in a future update but the advice for now is to disable RoboForm.
Music XML:
- In response to any “Tempo Scale” effect, Sibelius now removes the metronome metric modulation but keeps the text indications. The XML output from Sibelius is now valid, and we’ll look into adding the tempo scale in the future.
- Sibelius now opens the newer MusicXML 3.1 files with the .musicxml file extension.
Sibelius on High Sierra:
- Sibelius and Sibelius First 8.7.2 is now supported on macOS High Sierra. Although I’m sure earlier versions of Sibelius 8 will likely work, we haven’t tested anything other than the latest versions.
Note on compatibility:
- Sibelius will only run when the hard drive is formatted in non-case-sensitive formatting. This is the default, so in general everyone will be safe. If you have purposely reformatted your hard drive to be case sensitive, which you need to have tried quite hard to do, then Sibelius’ playback and other features won’t work well at all.
Sibelius for Mac 8.7
- Sibelius | Cloud Sharing is now available with the new Version 8.7 Sibelius and Sibelius | First software update. Leveraging the power of Sibelius | Cloud Publishing and running on the Avid MediaCentral Platform, this groundbreaking technology enables you to send Sibelius scores to the cloud for rendering that can be displayed in any web browser, posted on social media, and embedded in webpages and blogs, to be viewed by anyone, on any device.
In addition to the new Sibelius | Cloud Sharing features, the Sibelius 8.7 software update also includes a good set of useful improvements, including:
Finding and filtering:
- When filtering for articulations in Advanced Filter, the filter now applies to just those you had intended to be selected or deselected
- When using Find/Find Next, the notehead type search works correctly
- Color function now works when noteheads are selected by pitch using Advanced Filter
Gliss lines and slides:
- Slides now work properly in all non-English localizations
- The Lines section of the Inspector is now correctly localized
- When exporting to previous versions of Sibelius, gliss lines are now positioned in the same place vertically—Magnetic Layout for these lines is switched off to allow them to stay close to notes and not get moved further away
General bug fixes and performance improvements:
- Legato passages play back correctly once more
- Score redraw is no longer slow to respond with jpegs at the start of a score
- Making a change in one bar no longer resets the spacing in a bar on another system
- Space after key sig warning is no longer too wide compared to Sibelius 8.3 and earlier
- Sibelius no longer crashes after using user batch plug-ins from Edit Plug-ins window
- When Sibelius starts for the first time, the Activate button now opens the Account page in Application Manager—this will prompt the user to log in, which will trigger an auto-activation of Sibelius, therefore removing the steps of finding license numbers and entering them in manually—it also ensures that you are logged in already to make the sharing of music go smoothly
- In some cases, Sibelius would crash when using sample rates of 96kHz or 192kHz after exporting audio—this no longer happens
- The borders around buttons in the Inspector are now easier on the eye
- Checking the “Use on single notes” checkbox in Engraving Rules > Ties 2 now persists after closing the Engraving Rules dialog
- “Change instrument names at start of system after instrument changes” in Engraving Rules > Instruments now has the correct German translation
- Sibelius is now generally more snappy
Sibelius for Mac 8.6.1
Playback:
- Guitar slides from the Keypad now respond to changes in playback, which are set in the Inspector and the Edit Instruments dialog. The choices are Chromatic, White Notes, Black Keys, Continuous or None
- Trills that trigger soundID changes of +trill.half and +trill.whole now play back more reliably
- The option to enable MP3 surround encoding has been removed from the Audio Export options
Exporting scores to previous versions of Sibelius:
- When exporting to previous versions of Sibelius, gliss lines are, in most cases, now positioned in the same place vertically. Sibelius does this best when exporting to 8.1-8.5 but some shift may occur when exporting to 8.0 and earlier
Engraving improvements:
- Sibelius now positions accidentals correctly when engraving rules set to “prefer top accidental at right”
- Spacing between clef and the first note has been improved. It’s worth noting that scores created in Sibelius 8.4 to 8.6.0 will have had a small amount of extra space allocated to key signatures in some cases. This has now fixed in 8.6.1 but if you’ve manually adjusted the spacing in scores using 8.4-8.6.0, you’ll need to check this spacing for any adverse affects. The change is so small that we expect this has largely gone unnoticed
- The gap after a double barline in an unpitched instrument part can now be reset once more—there’s no need to delete the hidden key signature marking as a workaround
- The positions of Glissandi lines and Slides (LX, RX, LY) are now retained when opening an old score in 8.6. This means scores with Slides that had their ends manually adjusted in a previous version of Sibelius, now appear exactly the same when opened in 8.6.1. However, if old scores have been saved in 8.6, their Slides will continue to be offset. To fix this up, you can filter out all regular ‘Lines’, being careful to deselect any lines in the score that aren’t slides, and reset their position
General stability:
- Sibelius no longer crashes when rapidly creating a new score from the Quick Start
- Revoice Chord Diagram now works as expected once more
- It’s possible once again to be able to delete a user-created Guitar Scale Diagram
- When in note input mode, the color of the mouse pointer is now the same as on keypad
- Sibelius no longer crashes when recording Live Tempo if the playback line is at the end of the score
- Staff size change of a system is no longer lost after deletion and undo action, if it’s not the first system
Sibelius for Mac 8.6.0
MAGNETIC GLISSANDI:
- Sibelius automatically places your glissandi lines as you enter them into the score, positioning them between the two notes. As you compose, Sibelius automatically updates the positioning of the glissandi lines, saving you the manual steps of positioning the lines on creation, and subsequently when editing the notes too
- When entering Glissandi lines (Gliss, Port, or Wavy) in your score, you will now find these position themselves between the two notes, and will attach themselves to these notes, following the notehead as you move it. This saves you the manual steps to reposition the lines when creating them, and subsequently with editing the notes too
The method for entering these lines has changed slightly, but it should feel familiar enough to experienced Sibelius users and is straightforward to grasp for new users. To enter the new gliss., port., or wavy lines, select the note with which you would like to start the line, and choose the line from the Lines gallery. Sibelius will draw the line from the note you have selected, to the next note:
- You'll see the line is placed between the note you have selected and the next note
- Lines follow the direction of notes as you edit them
- Sibelius automatically provides more space for rhythm dots and accidentals
- Glissandi lines will even slope upwards or downwards between two notes on the same position on a staff to show the direction the gliss is going
CHANGING THE APPEARANCE:
- In Sibelius 8.5, we introduced the new Inspector, which brings relevant settings and features within easy reach and streamlines your workflow in Sibelius. With Sibelius 8.6, we’ve added new features to the Inspector to give you ultimate control over the new glissandi lines. In your score, select a new glissandi line, and open the Inspector (Ctrl+Shift+I/Cmd+Shift+I)
In the Lines section, you now have the following controls:
- Slide ends: This allows you to fine-tune the precise position of each end of the gliss line
- Slide style: Changes the type of line from a Glissando, Portamento, Wavy, or a Line
- Slide text: Allows you to toggle the “gliss.” or “port” text that runs along the line
- This will happen automatically when the lines get too short to display the text, but you can override this, which is useful in cases where you need to
- If you wish to place a gliss line freely and independently of a note, you may do so by first deselecting anything you have selected (by pressing Escape) and then adding the line from the Lines menu. Since the line you create this way is not attached to any notes, the Inspector controls that are available for magnetic gliss lines are not available.
CREATING MULTIPLE GLISSANDI LINES AT ONCE:
- Creating multiple gliss lines at once is fast and simple to achieve with Sibelius 8.6. In previous versions, you had to add the line manually, and then adjust each one by hand. If you then changed the notes, the line would then need to be manually positioned again. Now it’s really easy
- Select the notes you’d like to add the lines to, go to Lines, and choose the type of line you need
- You can then use the Inspector to toggle the text off
CUSTOMIZING LINES:
- If you need to move the ends of the lines, you can manually reposition them by dragging one using your mouse or selecting it and making fine adjustments using your keyboard. As you make further edits to the notes, the line will retain its relative position to the notehead to which it is attached. This is useful when indicating the gliss should go to a different note in the chord, say, or even when writing passages across a grand staff with cross-staff beaming. Once this has been done, you’ll see the lines move relative to the notes as you edit them. To reset the line’s ends to their default position, select the line and go to Appearance > Design and Position > Reset Position.
- Creating your own lines in Sibelius is easy as well. You simply go to Notations > Lines > Edit Lines, and then choose the line you’d like to edit or to create a new line from. In the cases of the Gliss or Port lines, you can change the text that runs along the line, to whatever you need.
- Any custom lines that you have created based on gliss lines receive the same treatment from the Inspector allowing you to edit them in the same manner as the ones that Sibelius provides by default
ADDITIONAL TWEAKS FOR WRITING FOR GUITAR NOTATION:
Slides, up until now, have always been able to play back a continuous slide (that is, if you slid your finger up a fretless guitar), but from Sibelius 8.6, you’ll be able to change the way these play back from the Inspector:
- Opening old scores in Sibelius 8.6
- Sibelius will open any score from Sibelius v1 all the way through to Sibelius 8. These will open up in exactly the same way as before and will not move or convert any gliss. lines. This is important to retain the same careful layout you’ve spent so much time on. However, adding further glissandi to your score in Sibelius 8.6 will now create the new style of line
OPENING SCORES FROM 8.6 IN OLDER VERSIONS OF SIBELIUS:
- As ever, Sibelius has a way to convert a score into an older version, allowing you to work with someone who hasn’t upgraded to Sibelius 8.6 yet. This is simply done by going to File > Export > Previous Version and choosing the version of Sibelius you need to export to.
- When doing this, Sibelius will convert what it can into the equivalent object that was supported by the previous version. In the case of the new glissandi lines, these are all converted into the old style gliss. line and their positions are retained.
NEW MANUSCRIPT SUPPORT FOR MAGNETIC LINES:
- In Sibelius’ built-in scripting language, called ManuScript, Line objects now have a new SlideStyleId variable representing the Line style state of the note. This read/write variable lets you attach or detach glissandi as well as other lines to a note.
- You can also define and assign additional custom Line styles that are not based on the available default Line styles (see Line styles in the ManuScript Language Guide for more information).
MUSICXML IMPROVEMENTS:
- The new Magnetic Glissandi lines feature was borne out of an overall improvement and better support for MusicXML. It’s a long term project that we will chip away at for a while. When we started to work on adding support for importing glissandi lines, we needed a way to position these nicely to notes. As such, we rewrote how these lines are handled, so there is now very minimal cleanup to do after importing MusicXML files.
- Here’s a summary for the changes to MusicXML that are included in Sibelius 8.6:Better support for small staves (improvements on support added into Sibelius 8.5)Sibelius now imports page margin values correctly (in previous versions, margins form odd pages were applied onto even pages, and vice versa)Ties are now no longer missing in chords over bar lines, and the direction of ties are respected (over or under)
- We’ve also made several improvements to the way MusicXML files are parsed in general. As we all know, not all MusicXML files are created equally, so Sibelius 8.6 is now less prone to crashing or failing in some way when opening malformed MusicXML files.
IMPROVEMENTS TO MANY LONG-STANDING ISSUES:
- As well as introducing new features and new ways to work in Sibelius, we are working on some old and hard-to-crack issues to improve Sibelius’ stability and overall performance. Some of these may be small niggling bugs and others will be larger scale issues that may have been getting in the way. Here’s the list of what’s included under the hood in the 8.6 upgrade.
GENERAL:
- Sibelius is now over 10% faster starting up
- Auto-save now works much more reliably. This is the feature where Sibelius will periodically save a copy of your score. If Sibelius unexpectedly quits, Sibelius will now recover the most recent version of the file, and hopefully won’t have lost too much work. To set how often Sibelius auto-saves, go to File > Preferences > Saving and Exporting.
- When opening older scores in Sibelius 8.6, rests in parts are now where you expect them to be positioned
- Sibelius no longer crashes when doing ‘Paste as Cue’ followed by ‘Undo’. This only occurred when pasting across different time signatures
- When sliding notes from one page to the next, your selection is now followed so it’s clearer to see what’s happening
- Annotating when the Inspector the is open is now muchsmoother
- Improvements to the licensing engine, which should result in fewer “Error Initializing License Engine” messages
- Editing values and navigating fields in the Inspector is now easier
- The Inspector now resizes vertically when undocked
MAC:
- Characters created with Shift + Option + shortcuts are no longer doubled
- When editing text with Shift + Option + Left/Right Arrow no longer deletes the text you’re editing
- Editing text in the Backstage (Score Info, dialog boxes etc.) with Shift + Option + Left/Right Arrow no longer deletes text as you do it
- Sibelius will no longer hang when attempting to play back to a disconnected audio device
APPLICATION MANAGER:
- Application Manager 17.5 is now included with Sibelius, which introduces a new Open button enables you to open Sibelius directly from the Apps tab. The Open button only appears if you have an active Avid Upgrade and Support plan or subscription, and Sibelius is up to date.
- The following improvements have also been included:
- Application Manager no longer randomly opens a terminal window on Mac
- Choosing to restart App Man Helper in the Preferences tab is now nice and quick
Sibelius for Mac 8.5.0
Inspector:
- Part of the overall vision we have for the way you work in Sibelius, looks at minimizing features being hidden away in menus and dialogs, and presenting them in a clean and feature-packed Inspector panel. This will allow you to select an object in the score and see all the properties and possibilities for editing that object. Sibelius 8.5 is our first foray into this, by adding the new Staff size options, and we’ve smartened up the Inspector to give it a clean and modern look
- The main area we’ve improved on is the Text section. To help explain and guide the user, there are now useful graphics to indicate the sorts of things you’re capable of doing to any given piece of text. The other sections have been smartened up to align tick boxes, feature labels and controls to give the Inspector the professional look you have come to expect
- The Inspector now also behaves like other panels. You can invoke it from the Home tab, as before, but also from the View > Panels section of the Ribbon
- The Inspector will appear docked on the left of your main Sibelius window. You can pull this off and dock to on the right, or if you prefer, you can leave it floating; useful if you have a second monitor. When undocked, you can resize the Inspector by dragging out the bottom edge. Sibelius will populate the Inspector with features and controls that are only relevant for the item or items you have selected. For example, the Scale % only appears when you have a Chord diagram selected. The contents of the Inspector will sometimes be too tall for it to contain all the controls, so a scrollbar will appear on the right hand side to allow you to find what you need easily. Each section can be collapsed up too, so you can hide controls you aren’t using at that time
Multiple staff sizes on breaks:
- One such example of driving features and workflows to the Inspector is our new Multiple Staff Sizes feature
- The new control of the staff sizes allows you to change individual bars, whole systems of one or more instruments, large passages of music, or entire pages at a time
Improvements since Sibelius 8.4:
- It’s now possible to change Normal staff size to a smaller value then Medium staff size value in Engraving Rules. Smaller staff sizes all decrease so you can no longer get these out of order
- We’ve made dialog appearance improvements to Engraving Rules > Staves with 200% DPI scaling on Windows with high pixel density displays
- Making a change to a staff size in Engraving rules, and then clicking OK (without having unfocused the staff size spin box) now makes the change in your score
- Tuplet brackets and numbers now scale neatly when working with smaller staff sizes
- Instrument changes from unpitched to pitched instruments now create key signatures automatically
- MIDI input works once more after changing from an unpitched to pitched instrument
- Cancelling out of Document Setup now cancels the unit selection you may have made
- On Retina displays, some text fields in several dialogs are no longer too short, for example in the File tab > Score info dialog
- In Sibelius’ Manuscript plug-in language, note.Deselect() deselects entire parent NoteRest when it should just deselect that note
Further general improvements:
- The version number now briefly appears on the splash screen once more as it did previously in 7.5, so you can quickly verify the version of Sibelius you’re launching on startup
- The Save As dialog on macOS now correctly remembers the current file name and last path saved, so that you don’t have to navigate to the correct location every time
- Sibelius no longer hangs or crashes in rare cases when clicking ‘Music Fonts’ in Edit Symbols
- The Inspector and Timeline panel sizes and positions are now saved along with the other panels. See File > Preferences > Files in the “Windows Sizes and Positions” section. This means that it is now possible to hide the timeline by default just like you can with other panels, which has been a longstanding request since it appeared in Sibelius 7.5.0
- A problem has been fixed where some keyboard shortcuts didn’t work correctly on macOS Sierra
- Sibelius Sounds and Sibelius | First Sounds now correctly install on macOS Sierra
- Application Manager 2.5.11 is now included in the Sibelius and First 8.5 installers
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