From: Scott Erichsen piano...@scotterichsen.com To: vip-l vi...@softspeak.com.au
Below is some info on the future of developments of Sibelius access, a set of free jaws scripts for sibelius 5. There is also info on Sibelius 6. Hi all, I'm sure that most of you will be curious about Sibelius 6 and the future of Sibelius Access, so I'll take a moment to discuss this in detail. There are some very exciting new developments in Sibelius 6, one of which is of particular importance to us visually impaired users, but I'll address the issue of future updates first. I'm now renaming the existing scripts Sibelius Access 5 so as to clear up any confusion over version numbers. You will not be able to use Sibelius Access 5 with Sibelius 6 since there are several significant changes which the scripts will not accommodate. Sibelius Access 5 must be completed before I can even start looking at scripting Sibelius 6. You may question the wisdom of continuing work on what is now an out of date product but there are reasons why this has to be done. The obvious reason is that some people will not make the upgrade for a while (especially schools and universities who usually take a long time before upgrading) and so Sibelius Access 5 needs to be completed for them alone. The other is to ensure that blind musicians have a good and workable solution. This can be done far more quickly by completing the support for Sibelius 5 rather than starting work on Sibelius 6. (Sibelius Software have ensured us that you will still be able to purchase Sibelius 5 through your local distributors or by contacting Sibelius directly.) Given all of this, I can make no comments about Sibelius Access 6 other than to say that I hope to be able to provide a solution in the future. So what about Sibelius 6 itself? As I said there are some very exciting new features, one of which is a major break through for visually impaired musicians - but more on that later. There's a very nice "live tempo" feature, which lets you record the tempo for the entire score by tapping a key as though you were conducting the piece. You can use it to shape the tempo in the same way that a click track is used, except that this rather nifty gadget will follow you even if you start tapping half notes instead of quarter notes. The keypad now has 6 layouts. The new layout includes arpeggio lines which automatically snap to the chords and properly line up with the top and bottom notes. There are also some jazz articulations for falls, plops and doits. The symbols dialog has been completely rewritten so that you can use the arrow keys to select the symbol in the grid. The name of the symbol is also displayed as you arrow around and if you set JAWS to say all you'll be able to hear which symbol is selected. This in itself is a big win for VI users because JAWS is no longer guessing which symbol is selected. Chord symbols are also much easier. You can now create the chord symbol by playing in the chord directly. You just create the chord symbol using the old keystroke and then play the chord on a MIDI keyboard and Sibelius will work out the symbol for you. And now for the big reveal! The really exciting new feature is called magnetic layout. To put it simply, the score now lays itself out automatically. If you add a dynamic it will be positioned so that it does not collide with any other items. In fact, the whole score works like this, even the staves themselves. So if a very high note on one staff collides with a very low note on the staff above, the staves themselves will move apart to make room for them. It's very hard to find the right words to describe the way in which Sibelius 6 will affect the way in which we work. I've received so many enquiries over the years about how blind users can ensure that a score looks right for sighted musicians. The answer now is that you don't have to do anything - Sibelius does it for you. Sibelius say that "it may be the greatest revolution in music engraving in 20 years" but I think that most visually-impaired musicians who have to prepare print scores will say that this is a modest statement. Of course there are limits. If you put too many things in one place then Sibelius will not be able to resolve the collisions, and you can never account for every possible scoring situation. The important point is that you now only need a sighted user to quickly check the score for things that Sibelius couldn't position properly, instead of needing them to carefully format the entire score for you. In case some of you are doubtful of this features reliability, you can read more at http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/6/magnetic_layout.html I know that some of you will be thinking about buying Sibelius 6 just to get at this new feature alone, especially those of you who have to regularly produce scores for players and there is nothing to stop you doing so. Sibelius Access has already been setup so that the scripts will only load when version 5.2.5 is running. In all other cases the default JAWS scripts will be available so you don't have to worry about Sibelius Access itself causing problems in Sibelius 6. Speaking for myself, I am now preparing scores in Sibelius 5, which has good feedback and accessibility, and then opening them in Sibelius 6 so that I can run them through the magnetic layout and print it. You can read more about Sibelius 6 at http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/6/index.html I hope this answers some of your questions. I have no objections to people discussing using Sibelius 6 without scripts but please remember that the list is really for discussing Sibelius Access which only supports Sibelius 5. I'd also ask that you refrain from asking me when Sibelius 6 will be supported since I've already said all that I can. Dan Rugman visit the new on-line resource for visually impaired musicians and home of Sibelius Access. www.musicaccess.co.uk Regards Steve Email: s...@internode.on.net MSN Messenger: internetuser...@hotmail.com Skype: steve1963 To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org