Hey Mr Happy I am totally with you on your observations,  but you are missing the point.  GIVE the software to school children and when they grow they will want to purchase it.  The kids in music programs grow to be the affluent adults who can afford things.  How do I know?  I've been going to school band/choir/orchestra concerts since 1997 to see my children perform.  No matter where you live, rich or poor, you should attend the last school concert of the year when they say goodbye to graduating students. The kids going on to the best places ARE IN THE MUSIC PROGRAMS...no matter how privileged they where/are.
 
Have you ever seen what it does to a child to have their original composition performed by a band/choir/orchestra?  I have. 
 
Get the software in the hands of students. The world will be a better place and Sonar will financially benefit ten fold.
 

Another troubling tale is the cut backs to music programs for more present topics/classes.
The music program in my children's school has made multiple cuts to their budget, teachers and classes.
Being a musician myself it bothers me deeply. Most music programs were replaced by Computer programs.
In order to keep up with the times, programs must be cut so new ones can develop.
 
Evolution is a funny thing. 100 years ago it was all about reading music. 
60 years ago or so electric instruments took to rise. Now the digital era has come to the front of line.
When I was a kid there were many, many musicians taking lessons, learning to read music (such as myself).
For the past 20 years or so, I have seen the decline in the importance of learning to read music.
I have a very close friend of mine whom I grew up with and I took lessons at his fathers school (along with additional music programs in public school). My friend inherited the store after his fathers passing and he has seen this same decline in kids learning to read music. Its a sign of the times. more kids would prefer to shove their phone in their face or be the first to harvest 100 million on World of Warcraft.
 
I really understand this whole thing because I am able to separate myself from it as an observer.
I am a passionate musician who reads and writes his own music almost every day but I also understand the times have changed. More kids now a day are reaching for a loop or pre sampled sound to build their songs around and could give 2 slits about what a music note is.
 
I don't frown upon that or shame them for that because my grandfather said the same thing to me about distorted guitars (he clamed I was hiding my mistakes with noise) and he was right. But that was/is my generation.
School orchestras will probably always have a place (I hope so any way). But music as a class is at its peak of taking a back seat to other current event classes. For all of us, I hope this changes.
 

jsg
I suspect Cakewalk's user base consists of a small number of people who actually read and write music, so they've probably abandoned support for those who do use the staff view.  I wish I were wrong about this, but I don't think I am.

I don't think so, but nobody knows. IMHO it would be reasonable to have an opinion poll for such questions (what functionality has what value for us). There are recently so many assumptions and assertions of forum users. But no one really knows who is THE "Sonar" user!

Here we go again with the thread that just won't die. sonar isn't the only thing rising from the ashes...
P.S. I have no idea what that emoticon means. 
 
Please keep staff view, if only in its current form. Many of us do find it invaluable for our work. Improving it would be fantastic, but at least keep it as is!

.

mister happy
 
When I consider a DAW that was founded with the goal of providing good staff notation integration and then ignored the concept for decades, it seems especially frustrating. I can not help thinking about all the lost opportunity for both the DAW and its potential customers.
 
  

And a computer was founded on using a computer language (FORTRAN, Basic, BCPL).
But people found an easier way (clicking on Windows).
 
Its no different with the DAW.
Why spend years learning to read music when you can click to add notes in a piano roll ?
 
Not trying to start a debate, im just trying to point out the obvious.
 
 
 

mister happy
When I consider a DAW that was founded with the goal of providing good staff notation integration and then ignored the concept for decades, it seems especially frustrating. I can not help thinking about all the lost opportunity for both the DAW and its potential customers.

The founding versions of Cakewalk did not have notation at all. That didn't happen until Windows versions. I don't remember exactly when the "Score Editor" first showed up - probably during the Cakewalk Pro Audio days.

When I started school in the 70's everyone in the class learned how to read basic music (by playing the recorder). If you were good at it and/or keen then you progressed onto bigger instruments. I remember music lessons where the teacher would hand out some sheet music of a new song we had to sing, and everyone would sing it correctly from the music first time. I'm sure there was some element of some kids following other kids, but it was definitely significant that you could pass out some sheet music to children of my era and they wouldn't have much trouble following along. I'm sure that's different now. Judging from what I've heard from public school teachers I know, many of them would have trouble reading the lyrics let alone the dots. 
 
I was lucky to have had a couple of great music teachers at school. On the one hand we had Mr Lane, a classically trained pianist whose lessons consisted of having to listen to someone like Stravinsky or Debussy and then talk about it afterwards, and Mr Cain, who had us singing Beatles songs around the piano and taught us about Reggae and Ska. I think even in the absence of formal music training, the least schools could be doing is attempting to instill some kind of music appreciation into kids. The sad truth is that it's culturally acceptable to go through life with the musical sophistication of a 10 year old. Imagine if at the age of 40 you were still reading Where's Wally and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. People would think there was something wrong with you. But apparently it's quite alright for 40 year olds to listen to teenybopper crap that they should have grown out of before puberty. 

.

mister happy

SandlinJohn
...when the "Score Editor" first showed up...

Cakewalk 3.01

Yep, that's when i jumped in.  And I was so thankful I could print lead sheets from it. Cakewalk was the coolist sequencer with a 29.97Drop Frame and could lock to picture.  CUTTING EDGE BABY!