(Please note that this article is mainly intended for JW Lua script writers.)

Today (Sep. 18, 2013), Kelby Stine at MakeMusic made a post on the MakeMusic blog about replacing Wizard-created staff names through FinaleScript. I thought it would be interesting to do a FinaleScript vs. JW Lua comparison on this (testing on the JW Lua beta 0.05 functionality, which is soon available).

Kelby's blog post is here: http://www.finalemusic.com/blog/using-finalescript-to-rename-staves-in-your-finale-score/

The FinaleScript source which the blog post is based on is here: http://www.finalemusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Name_Change_Script.txt

Here's the JW Lua script (what Kelby would probably call “code-based gobbledygook”) for approximately the same functionality:

function ChangeStaffInstruments(thestring)     
    -- Clarinets
    thestring:Replace("Clarinet in E^flat()", "E^flat() Clarinet")
    thestring:Replace("Clarinet in B^flat()", "B^flat() Clarinet")    
    if not thestring:ContainsLuaString("^flat()", nil) then
        thestring:Replace("Alto Clarinet", "E^flat() Alto Clarinet")
        thestring:Replace("Bass Clarinet", "B^flat() Bass Clarinet")    
        thestring:Replace("Contralto Clarinet", "E^flat() Contrabass Clarinet")    
        thestring:Replace("Contrabass Clarinet", "B^flat() Contrabass Clarinet")
    end
 
    -- Saxes
    if not thestring:ContainsLuaString("^flat()", nil) then
        thestring:Replace("Sopranino Sax", "E^flat() Sopranino Saxophone")
        thestring:Replace("Soprano Sax", "B^flat() Soprano Saxophone")
        thestring:Replace("Alto Sax", "E^flat() Alto Saxophone")
        thestring:Replace("Tenor Sax", "B^flat() Tenor Saxophone")
        thestring:Replace("Baritone Sax", "E^flat() Baritone Saxophone")
        thestring:Replace("Bass Sax", "B^flat() Bass Saxophone")
        thestring:Replace("Contrabass Sax", "E^flat() Contrabass\rSaxophone")
        thestring:Replace("SubContrabass Sax", "B^flat() Subcontrabass\rSaxophone")
    end
 
    -- Brass
    if not thestring:ContainsLuaString("^flat()", nil) then
        thestring:Replace("Trumpet in B^flat()", "B^flat() Trumpet")
        thestring:Replace("Horn in E^flat()", "E^flat() Horn")
    end
    thestring:Replace("Horn in F", "F Horn")    
    thestring:Replace("Baritone (B.C.)", "Baritone BC")
    thestring:Replace("Baritone (T.C.)", "Baritone TC")
end
 
-- Load all staves
local staves = finale.FCStaves()
staves:LoadAll()
-- Parse through the staves
for staff in each(staves) do    
    local oldstring = staff:CreateFullNameString()
    local staffstring = staff:CreateFullNameString()
    -- Change the instrument texts
    ChangeStaffInstruments(staffstring)
    -- If the text has changed, save the string
    if oldstring.LuaString ~= staffstring.LuaString then
        staff:SaveFullNameString(staffstring)
    end    
end

I did the comparisons on the same Finale document (a “Concert Band (Full)” created by the 2012c Document Wizard) on my Windows machine.

JW Lua is a programming language, and the comparison clearly shows that difference. You'll need to code a bit more, but you have full coding flexibility, can control the brevity of the language - and you get execution speed.

However, in Finale 2012 string replacement in staff names is generally a bad approach since it put user restrictions on the script. Instead, the JW Lua script should make changes primarily based on the InstrumentUUID property. In the specific example above, the JW Lua execution is about 372 times faster than FinaleScript, which would probably be an even larger difference if a InstrumentUUID solution would be used. But that's way beyond this comparison.