Thanks to Craig for an extremely detailed and objective summary of the situation. I continue to use staff view heavily in my work. I recently bought Notion, and exporting my midi files there went smoothly. I am now touching up my sonar scores there and am very happy. I have not tried using rewire yet; since my projects are all long, symphonic works, staying in Sonar until I get them sounding sounding right, and then working on the score in Notion, makes more sense for me. I would be content for sonar's staff view to at least remain where it is now. Please don't take it away, then I would have no choice but to leave. I will almost  certainly remain with Sonar as long as staff view remains. Of course, any significant improvements would be an inducement to upgrade (I'm still on 8.5).

Kamikaze
The links worked in January when I posted them here,
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3153601
Not sure why they got broke in 9 months

Kamikaze,
I think they changed servers when they integrated the store and forum accounts (late Jan ?) and this broke direct links. If you want a link to a post to be accessible indefinitely, you have to use the 'Findpost' method like you did above.
 
I have only one thing to say regarding the discussion. How many Sonar users wanted a brand new buggy Start Screen ? How did this ever get by the beta testers anyway?
I agree with Elffin and I suspect adding back the note icons would have taken less time than the new Start Screen.

Kamikaze

http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Features#start

Compose!

Score your music with SONAR’s integrated staff view - ideal for songwriters and composers
 

 

Chord Chart & Tab

Notate, compose, or print music with standard notation staff view and guitar tab - perfect for guitar students and teachers

 

I opened SV for the first time in Platinum because I forgot about the chord chart and wanted to revisit it, then was shocked to see the font is incorrect. The closest thread I could find was in the Music Creator forum (and one over a decade old), so posted the image there.

Kamikaze
Can you give an example of anything else where 111 users had expressed support?

 
Of course: stability fixes. And it's a helluva lot more than 111 users.
 

You really are cakewalks spin doctor (yeah I know you have no supposed 'vested' interest in).

 
I do have a vested interest - I want to be able to keep using SONAR. It is the best program for accomplishing my professional needs involving music, narration, and audio-for-video, and has been for 15 years. How I use SONAR and help other SONAR users understand the program (and as an aside, the modus operandi of the music software business) is something I do. How Cakewalk conducts their business and decides their priorities is what they do.
 
As to "spin," you have not pointed out anything I said above that is inaccurate. 
 

Why can't they speak for themselves?

 
Because their job is to work on the program. This is a peer-to-peer forum to help users get the most out of SONAR. JSG's posts and a few others notwithstanding that have described how they use SV, this thread does nothing to help users get the most out of SONAR. Many other forums would have kicked this thread into the trash a long time ago, not because of the negativity but the continuing redundancies from the same people.
 
I've often said I don't speak for Cakewalk, it's even in my sig. But I am not ignorant as to how this business works, having consulted to Ableton, Mixcraft, Samplitude, MOTU, Avid, Passport, PreSonus, Steinberg, and probably some others I've forgotten about at the moment. I don't come here and shoot off my mouth with speculation. I study the market. I receive reports on trends and sales. I've given hundreds of seminars on technology and the arts in 38 states, 10 countries, and 3 languages. I've won an award for mastering. The views I present are informed by a lifetime in this industry. 
 
The tradeoff is simple: having the people doing the actual work answering posts would mean time not spent working on the program. Besides, no matter what they say, no one will be satisfied. The following is indisputable:

• Cakewalk has not abandoned staff view. This is obvious because fixes have been made recently.
• Cakewalk is making fixes to staff view. This is obvious to anyone who reads the list of fixes published with each update.
• Cakewalk is not making fixes at a rate that satisfies many, if not most, of the people posting in this thread. This is obvious from the sentiments expressed by these people.

Nothing has changed in the above for months. I may have missed something, but I haven't seen any new thoughts or proposed solutions surface during that time, either. 
 

For some of the less observant people here who think I'm a Cakewalk apologist, consider this. After the start screen was released (and I disabled it a few days later), I spent two days analyzing the start screen and wrote a 7-page analysis including detailed comparative clickstreams of using the old start screen, using the new one, and using file commands; recommendations on how to improve it; bugs that had been reported in the forum; and features that could be added to it that IMO would greatly increase the value of the start screen and would result in people (or at least me) wanting to use it.
 
I don't complain, I present solutions. I believe many of them will be adopted. I lobby on behalf of requests from the user community all the time because I pay attention to these forums and the developers are, as they should be, working on the program. I pinged them about the Concrete Limiter fix (in final stages of testing). I asked about whether contrast changes in FX bins are forthcoming (there's more to it than just a few lines of code, and the topic is being reviewed along with other aspects of the UI - it would be stupid to make a change and then have to change it back a few months later because you didn't anticipate something properly). And yes, I kept the subject of staff view fixes in front of Cakewalk because I felt it was important - not for me, but for some people in the community and the program as a whole.
 
I've seen mentions of bugs that didn't have a recipe to reproduce and figured out how to reproduce them so they could be fixed. And by the way, Cakewalk was EXTREMELY appreciative that I took the time to do the Start Screen analysis because frankly, they're swamped. They were appreciative when jsg condensed the multiple rants about bugs to specific, quantifiable bugs whose squashing could then become a goal for the developers. 
 
I'm transparent with both the community and Cakewalk, and interested only in solutions. When I feel I need to lobby on the community's behalf to Cakewalk because it's the right thing to do, that's what I do. When I feel I need to lobby on Cakewalk's behalf to the community because it's the right thing to do, that's what I do. I see no reason to change. And this is why it's an advantage to the community that I'm NOT part of Cakewalk but a hardcore SONAR user who relies on it virtually every day to accomplish specific, professional goals: I can see things from both sides.

Craig,
 
I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I have several thoughts. I'm trying to base them on facts, just as you are, which I appreciate. Just so you know, I am one of the people interested in staff view. I have contributed to this and other staff view threads in support of staff view improvements in the past, even though my name was not included in Kamikaze's search. I suspect there are more like me, but since I don't have any hard facts, I won't make any exaggerated claims.
 
1) You named stability fixes as a forum topic that has more people participating than staff view. Stability fixes is a pretty general topic, I don't think it is fair to compare that with a specific feature such as staff view. Can you name any other specific Sonar feature that has threads with more people participating?
 
2) When microapp asked his question about how many Sonar users wanted a new start screen, while you gave a lengthy and admirable response, you did not actually address his questions at all. So we're left to wonder, what are the facts about the number of people that asked for a new start screen? If we knew there were many requests for it, we would better understand why Cakewalk chose to implement it.
 
3) In one of your posts, you raised the possibility that Cakewalk's scientific surveys may paint a different picture than the traffic in the forum. That is certainly possible, but I don't think we've been shown the actual results of those surveys (I could have missed it). Would it be possible for Cakewalk to release the information from a recent survey so that we all would have the facts about the desires and priorities of their overall user base? That might help people to set their expectations to reasonable levels in many ways.

Anderton
 
 
I'm transparent with both the community and Cakewalk, 

Yes Craig, but do keep your emails on a server in your basement? Inquiring minds want to know. The security of Sonar Nation is at stake.
(Incidentally, for true email security, I recommend Proton Mail. Their server is inside a granite mountain in Switzerland).

cakewalk please fix the staff view so it works as advertised. if you are unable to fix it please remove it from the application. as a humorous note: you could just make pro audio 9 run on win 10 :-)

Just for the record. To clarify Craig's repetitive "There have been fixes to Staff View".
Yes there have been.
 
Staff View Fixes since January - 5
 
Dorchester (2 fixes)
Tracks are now listed numerically in the Staff View (CWBRN-8767)
Staff View Track Pane no longer forgets picked tracks when changing screensets (CWBRN-14421)
Everett (2 fixes)
Staff View Snap values would not update in certain cases (CWBRN-17277)
View > Staff View now updates an open Staff View with new track selection (CWBRN-32843)
Foxboro (1 fix)
Resolved an issue where extra notes were added to MIDI data when lyrics were entered in Staff View


These are all I could find in the KB notes. If anyone can add to this list, please do.
 
PRV fixes since January - 24
Total documented fixes - 242
 
If it is all about prioritizing user interest, there are obviously 5 times the users interested in PRV.
And SV users are only 2% of user base.
 
This doesn't take into consideration how many of these fixes were regression bugs, which would definitely skew the percentages.
Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled to see any attention given to SV. Please, Bakers, don't stop now.
 

Actually, I don't need to worry about Cakewalk getting rid of staff view. Since I use 8.5, it will always be there. Whew, that was a close one!