Product Review - Sibelius 6

The latest and greatest version of the popular score-writing package incorporates some advanced concepts from modern word processors, plus a healthy dose of magnetism...

Mark Wherry

The last time I looked at Sibelius 6 was about 15 years ago. Back in the days when the program ran on the sadly now defunct Acorn personal computers, its full title was Sibelius 7; and Sibelius 6 was a more affordable version aimed at those who didn’t need the full feature set. So it’s with a wry smile, and perhaps a sign of age, that I’m once again looking at a product called Sibelius 6.

Getting The Right Version

One of the most interesting new features in Sibelius 6 addresses a problem with which we’re all probably familiar. How many times have you created successive versions of a score, appending filenames with sequences of characters such as v1, v2, v3, and so on? And then, how often do you forget what changes were made in different versions and end up editing the wrong score? If you’re anything like me, I’m guessing the answer is: quite often. So to make it easier to handle revisions to scores, Sibelius 6 introduces a new feature called Versions. Simply put, this is a basic versioning system, allowing you to keep track of different versions of the same score within a single file.

When you’re working on a score, it’s quite common to use the Save As command to create a new instance of the current score. This means that new edits can be tried out, and, if you don’t like them, you can always return to the original version. In Sibelius 6, you’re always working on what is known as the Current Version of a score. When you reach a place you might want to return to, instead of saving a new instance of the score, you can create a new Version instead, with the new Save Version command.

Sibelius will display the New Version window and automatically suggest a Version name containing the Version number, and the current date and time. You can change the name, of course, and also add a comment. This is useful to give a short description of what changed in a particular Version. For example, “I changed the bass part to work as a piccolo obbligato.”

If you close the score after a period of intensive editing without creating a new Version, Sibelius will automatically prompt you with the New Version window. This behaviour can be disabled, and you can also set various options for Comments when creating a New Version. It’s possible to insist that a Comment is created for a Version, or you can disable the Comment field altogether. For me, the default option of an optional Comment is just fine.

Once different Versions have been created, you can recall an earlier Version by using a pop-up menu on the toolbar. Because only the Current Version can be edited, earlier Versions are read-only, and are displayed, appropriately enough, with a crumpled paper background. However, selecting and copying are permitted, making it possible to bring data from a previous Version into the Current one.

At this point, you might be wondering how saving Versions is any different to saving files. You can, after all, always load up older files to copy and paste from. But whereas copying and pasting is about all you can do when Versions are saved as different score files, this is just the beginning of what’s possible when working with different Versions of the same score.

The Edit Versions window provides an easy way to manage Versions. It shows a list of Versions in the currently loaded score, complete with start and end dates; and there’s even a handy preview display so you can quickly browse the different Versions. If you want to revert to a previous Version, a Make Current button is provided. This automatically saves the Current Version, and creates a copy of the previous Version as the new Current Version, giving you full flexibility if you later change your mind. Very handy indeed. And as an added bonus, you can even save new score files of individual Versions, should you wish. This is especially useful if you want to give someone a score without letting them see your dirty laundry!

As well as managing some other general housekeeping tasks, such as renaming Versions, the Edit Versions window also lets you browse through any comments added to Versions. A particularly useful feature, especially when you’re collaborating with other people, is that you can add multiple Comments to the same Version. In this way, different contributors can make their own Comments against different Versions, and everything gets saved in the one score file.

Spot The Difference

...

Product Review - Sibelius 6

Article Preview :: Score-writing Software[Mac OS/Windows]