bapu
Proper resource allocation. 
That's the driving force of ANY software development effort.

Bapu,
Proper resource allocation.
Yes, exactly. You said in 3 words what it took me 2 posts to say.
If this is done correctly, Cake is going places. If not a lot of people are going to say rip-off.

microapp
The thread had degenerated to singling out a guy as a troll with alt ID's. (He was a pita for sure). A few others chipped in with the corporate conspiracy meme.

The problem was that it was started as a way to explain that yes, it's understandable that people who kept calling the membership program a greedy grab for money and impugning Cakewalk as being liars and such had goof reasons to be so cynical about the world in general. I just found it really sad and depressing that the world had deteriorated to a point where people automatically assumed that anything was done for the wrong reasons, having been bathed in it for five days straight. But then it got into a whole thing about capitalism, twisted what I said into something completely different that was going to have to require additional explanations (ironically, by interpreting what I said in the most cynical possible way so at least it was consistent with the premise ) trolling, and veering off into purely political topics that had nothing to do with the reaction to SONAR in amongst the rest of it.
 
I suppose I could have been industrious and deleted the political posts and left the rest, but posts often dealt with both. And then people would have said "why did you edit my post. Censorship! Evil!" Some people felt it wasn't an appropriate topic in the first place, while others did because it addressed an attitude that had been pervasive over the past several days within the SONAR forum itself.
 
The troll who was called out acknowledged that he'd posted under multiple alts and got conciliatory, as did I for his acknowledging it. So it seemed like the thread had run its course and my concern was that it would flare up into more politics, as it had already crossed the line for excessive political content and that element was picking up steam.
 
Frankly I was not aware of the degree to which politics could not be brought up in any context in these forums. At Harmony Central we had a dedicated political forum precisely for this reason, but if there was a political issue that impacted music (e.g., copyright revisions) or products (e.g., Gibson raid), it was allowed to live in music or product forums. Given that the topic was entwined to the reaction specifically to SONAR, I figured it was a SONAR forum thing. That is very clearly not the way things work around here.
 
The final element was my wife was rushed by the hospital shortly before I deleted the thread. I realized it was going to be a long night and I would not be able to monitor the forums any more at that point. I felt it was risky to leave such a potentially volatile thread unattended.
 
If anyone wants to make up a conspiracy theory of why it was removed other than the pretty obvious reasons stated above, feel free. We can always use another conspiracy theory.

sharke,
I agree, I think your idea would work. In fact I wish Cake would provide a Sonar 'core' and everything else would be ala carte. All the plugs, Pro-channel, PRV, Staff View, Matrix View, etc. would be extras. As it is now it is kind of like cable TV. Basic, extended Basic, Premium. I would love to only pay for what I actually watch.
Over the last year I have purchased all the pro-channel stuff that was NOT in X3 producer. Now all that stuff is included with 2015 Platinum. I am annoyed but not too much because I waited for each plug to go on sale so I did not pay full price. Still annoying though.

microapp
As I said I have not tried VocalSync since I did not win the lottery to get an early release.
From what I have read in other threads some people are disappointed with this particular feature. This may be a bad example but the gist of what I said is valid.

I'm among those on here who probably have the most dire need of such a feature to work and I can honestly say it is too early to give a decent assessment. I'm not jumping up and sown on the roof proclaiming how great it is , but not ready to dismiss it yet either. In any case, the gist of what you said is still based on a feature you know noting about.
 
 

microapp
If Cake were reluctant to redo SV before they will be even more so under the new paradigm.
With all this said, I have already ordered Platinum. I have been putting off a new system waiting for X4 and I am counting the hours until the release of 2015. 

 
Honestly i don't see how that can be determined when there is no definitive one reason for the staff view not being improved. Again, it is speculation based on a complete unknown.  Again, with Adobe the changed financial model has not seemed to make a difference in development speed or priorities.

Craig, I was a little shocked at where that thread went and my last posts on it were an attempt (pointless perhaps) to bring it back to Earth. I was not criticizing above, I was just stating what went down. Just as well it was deleted. It became more of a verbal bar-fight that a thread. 
I think all the non-trolls here appreciate what you do and your contributions to both Sonar and the forum. Under the circumstances I think your composure was exemplary and I am sure that in your place my responses would have been deleted under the forum rules for profanity and/or civility.

Dub,
As stated elsewhere, consensus seems to be that Cake does not have the right to modify the Staff View code. There was a 32-bit plug(I forget which) where the author passed away and nobody could find who owned the rights in order to convert to 64-bit...same thing. I think here though the owner of the rights is known.
This means a total rewrite of SV and Cake does not have the resources to to this in parallel with everything else.
Maybe Craig knows for sure if all this is true?

I thought some staff view bugs were fixed in X3 patches in which case Cake has access to the code.

microapp, there is a discussion in another thread about the pitfalls of a la carte: http://forum.cakewalk.com...nt-a-BLT-m3150296.aspx

mike_mccue
Has VocalAlign or Drum Replacement been a hot topic on the Feature Request section of the forum?

 
Development on both was started long before that forum was initiated in mid-September, and the "X4" features were frozen at least a month before then. That forum is designed to provide guidance on what to prioritize over the next year. However lots of users have requested more tools for EDM over the years, which is why Drum Replacement made the cut.
 
But it's not a good idea to go only by requests because people don't always know what they can ask for. Many years ago Keyboard magazine did a reader survey and not one person mentioned wanting examples of music in notation, but the editor at the time thought readers would want it. So he added it and it became one of their most popular features.
 
At EQ magazine no one asked for my "Power App Alley" sort of "comic strip" approach to doing an applications-oriented article. But I thought it was a good idea. It became so popular a lot of other magazines started doing the same thing. No one asked for my "Craig's List" column that used to be in the back of EM, but it was the page many (if not most) readers turned to first, and various columns have been reprinted or linked to all over the internet.
 

Suggestions that someone should make a "Feature Request" for Staff Notation seem like conspiracy speak for "don't bother us we're busy".

Actually it's conspiracy speak for "in numbers there is strength." If the same vocal minority keeps asking for staff improvements, it's not going to have as much impact as if lots of people ask for it. It's like voting. If more people vote for someone, they win regardless of whether their policies are what the other people want.

microapp
Dub,
As stated elsewhere, consensus seems to be that Cake does not have the right to modify the Staff View code. There was a 32-bit plug(I forget which) where the author passed away and nobody could find who owned the rights in order to convert to 64-bit...same thing. I think here though the owner of the rights is known.
This means a total rewrite of SV and Cake does not have the resources to to this in parallel with everything else.
Maybe Craig knows for sure if all this is true?

I have no idea, except I do know the plug-in you're thinking about is the VC-64, and no one knows what happened to the author. If he for sure had passed away, at least there could be negotiations with his estate.
 
I don't know about the staff view code, but the reality is there are Windows DAWs that do notation well. For example Avid bought Sibelius so they basically had a turnkey notation system. Cubase has always emphasized staff view and with Yamaha having a strong presence in the educational market, I would be willing to bet it will never be de-emphasized. So, there would be two reasons to beef up staff view: Lure away Cubase and Pro Tools users, which means the staff view would have to be equal to or better than what they offer if it's that important to the user. The other would be because it was very important to Cakewalk's user base, which so far has not proven to be the case.
 
I think the most likely scenario (and in the immortal words of Herman Cain, "I don't have facts to back me up") is that Cakewalk can chip away at any bugs in staff view to bring it up to the level where it's functional for the majority of users. I think there's more concern among users about having a decent, working staff view than "the staff view to end all staff views." Those who want engraving quality notation can use something like Finale. (Cakewalk added MusicXML export specifically so that even if people didn't compose with staff view, they could bring the files into notation programs.)
 
The new model will likely facilitate this approach because they can deal with it a piece at a time instead of making a big deal of "ALL NEW STAFF VIEW!!" in a future "big update."