JW Freeware Plug-ins Wiki

JW Yada Yada Tremolo positions tremolo articulations automatically, and (if needed) extends stems to work with the tremolo markings.

The original version of JW Yada Yada Tremolo was a plug-in I wrote as a really quick fix for the positioning problems with tremolos in Finale. Now a few years later, Finale 25 added an important feature for plug-in developers, which provides much easier and more accurate layout for the purpose on tremolo editing.

Version 2 of JW Yada Yada Tremolo is only available for Finale 25 and later versions, and it's a complete rewrite and redesign of the plug-in. The old version (for 32-bit Finale versions) of the plug-in is still available as a legacy version download.

(And yes, the “Yada Yada” is a Seinfeld reference.)

In version 1 of the plug-in, everything was hard-coded to a number of fonts. The plug-in handled everything automatically, without any options to control the tremolo positioning.

In version 2, any music font that contains a tremolo can be supported (including Unicode/SMuFL fonts, such as November 2). The user now also has a number of ways to control the positioning.

General installation instructions are found on the Download and installation page.

The requirements for a font to get correctly positioned tremolos are:

1. The font must be installed on the running computer. (Standard Finale notation fonts are correctly installed by default.)
2. If the font is a legacy notation font (such as Maestro, that can only containing a maximum of 256 symbols), the font name must be correctly listed in the macfonts.txt configuration file. (Standard Finale notation fonts are configured correctly by default.)
3. The font must be added in the user interface for the plug-in, in the JW Yada Yada Tremolo Settings window.
4. The font must have a correctly defined FAN (font annotation) file in Finale.

Positioning of the tremolos are based on the boundary box for the tremolo glyphs in the font annotation file. The most common music notation font are already included in the plug-in's settings by default.

IMPORTANT! The plug-in will only process articulations that are set to Always on Stem Side in the articulation definition. The Always Place Outside Staff must also be OFF for the tremolo articulation. You can use the Verify font… button in the plug-in to verify that your articulations have the correct settings.

Here's a simple test to see if the FAN information for the tremolo is correctly set in Finale:

1. Zoom in on a tremolo articulation in Finale
2. Using the Selection Tool in Finale, click on the tremolo articulation to select it.

If the rectangle that appears around the tremolo follows the true boundaries of the tremolo, the FAN information is correct.

To run the plug-in (to change the positioning of the tremolo markings):

1. Select a region in the document that contains tremolo markings.
2. Select JW Yada Yada Tremolo in the Plug-ins menu.

To change the plug-in's options, select JW Yada Yada Tremolo Settings… in the Plug-ins menu.

Although JW Yada Yada Tremolo 2 can be configured to work with virtually any tremolo symbol, it also provide some standard symbol mapping for common font layouts.

When the Legacy (Limited) mapping is used, the following 3 music symbols are interpreted as tremolo:

When the Legacy (Full) mapping is used, one additional symbol is also supported:

When the SMuFL mapping is used, these symbols are supported:

Any additional symbols outside these preconfigured mapping are added as user defined symbols.

The JW Yada Yada Tremolo Settings window is the main option window for the plug-in. The main item here is the list of recognized tremolo fonts.

This window is modeless, so you can have it open at all times if needed.

The checkmarks to the left of the fonts decides if the tremolo font should be active for processing or not.

The Verify fonts… button will perform a number of tests on the active items in the tremolo font list. This is a useful tool to detect configuration errors and troubleshoot before applying the plug-in on a region. It will do the following tasks:

• Check if the font exists on the system.
• Check if the glyphs seem to have the correct FAN information. (This test is very basic.)
• Check that the legacy fonts are also included in Finale's macsymbols.txt file.
• Check that the fonts defined as user-defined mapped font have tremolo symbols added.
• Since version 2.01, it will also check the articulation definitions and report if any errors were found in those settings.

The Close button will close the window without saving any settings. The Apply button will apply the current settings to the plug-in, but it will not close the window. Version 2.01: if you have a region selected, you get a question if you want to apply the new settings to the region. The OK button will both apply the current settings to the plug-in and close the window. Version 2.01: if you have a region selected, you get a question if you want to apply the new settings to the region.

The measurements in this dialog box is based on your selected measurement unit in Finale.

The measurements in this dialog box is based on your selected measurement unit in Finale.

These are the known limitations in the current version of the plug-in. I will try to fix these issues in future plug-in updates:

• Flags that use a different positioning system than Finale's “standard fonts” will cause incorrect tremolo placement. (Bravura flags will cause this to happen.)