Re: [abcusers] Update to jaabc2ps
On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, John Atchley wrote: I've uploaded an update at http://www.guitarnut.com/abc/index.html I cleaned up the source and used preprocessor definitions so it should compile on various platforms without warnings (except for one unused function that I haven't looked at yet, just ignore it). Thanks Guido! er... it won't compile with gcc without changes... you forgot to add #ifdef _MSVC to all sources but abc2ps.c. No real problem tho. Another little thing that ought to be fixed is the "gets" thing, which really makes gcc angry. From the gets(3) man page: Never use gets(). Because it is impossible to tell with out knowing the data in advance how many characters gets() will read, and because gets() will continue to store char acters past the end of the buffer, it is extremely danger ous to use. It has been used to break computer security. Use fgets() instead. I also fixed a horizontal spacing problem that sometimes occured when voices with different note lengths were combined. good! Also improved the %%jsastem= implementation to avoid stem collisions between voices. good^2! I implemented M:none. You have the choice of having M:none display "none," "free," "free" over "meter," or "fm." I have no formal music training -- if there is something else that really should be displayed let me know and I'll add an option for it. another option should be simply not to display a thing; it shouldn't be hard to implement... Enjoy, John Atchley thank you very much for your work! Ciao, Guido =8-) -- Dr. Guido Gonzato ggonza at tin.it - Linux System Administrator My public PGP key is at http://ibogeo.df.unibo.it/guido/PGP.asc "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." -- Konrad Lorenz To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] free Finale
Mark Vandenbroeck wrote: Hi, Is there any documentation on the Finale format (text or binary). I might give this abc2finale a try. The Finale text format is called ETF (Enigma Transportable File). It was an early - and rather half hearted - attempt to create a common file format for notation program. It hasn't had any practical uses for a while (Coda claimed that you needed the format to transfer Finale files between Windows and Mac computers, but that isn't true), but recently somebody published a ETF-Lilypond converter (se the links Ewan A. Macphearson provided). I've seen some of the results from that converter. It doesn't seem to work very well at the moment, but it's certainly promosing for the future. The ETF format is vastly more complicated than ABC. It contains all the layout data to recreate exactly the postscript output from the original, a complete set of midi functions and much much more - and all in a syntax that is more primitive and far less intuitive than ABC. I suppose an ABC-ETF converter should be possible (using a stationary file for all the functions not covered by ABC). The other way would be more difficult. Coda Software has released the ETF specifications as a 133 KB PDF file. I can't post that here, but I'll send it to anybody who asks me for it. Frank [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[abcusers] abc on Lilypond home page
hi, has anybody noted that the source file to Paddy O'Rafferty on Lilypond's home page is actually an abc file? I don't know how we should interpret this... :-) Later, Guido =8-) -- Dr. Guido Gonzato ggonza at tin.it - Linux System Administrator My public PGP key is at http://ibogeo.df.unibo.it/guido/PGP.asc "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." -- Konrad Lorenz To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] free Finale
Mark Vandenbroeck wrote: Is there any documentation on the Finale format (text or binary). I might give this abc2finale a try. I had a quick look at the feature list for the free Finale. It supports mouse input but not the keyboard or midi input that the non-free versions of Finale have. The idea of selecting every individual pitch and length using a mouse seems very tedious to me. I think abc2finale would be an essential tool for anyone wanting to do notation with the free Finale. Otherwise, it would be hard work to use it as anything other than a viewer for Finale files created by other people. It would be wise to make sure that this Finale text format will import into free Finale before putting any effort into a converter. Is the printed output better than anything the ABC community can offer? If not, what's the point? Cheers Philip To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] free Finale
On Thu, 26 Oct 2000, Philip Rowe wrote: Is the printed output better than anything the ABC community can offer? If not, what's the point? I have made a few quick tests, and although I must say that FinaleNotePad is a nice gift for undemanding users, abc is IMHO better. One thing for all: FinaleNotePad does not do PostScript unless you have a PostScript printer. Not to mention that actually typing notes is (to many of us, at least) quicker and more fun. So, to sum up: I think we should spend our time improving and completing abc, instead of writing convertion tools of questionable value. IMHO. Later, Guido =8-) -- Dr. Guido Gonzato ggonza at tin.it - Linux System Administrator My public PGP key is at http://ibogeo.df.unibo.it/guido/PGP.asc "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young." -- Konrad Lorenz To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] free Finale
"Guido" == Guido Gonzato [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Guido So, to sum up: I think we should spend our time improving Guido and completing abc, instead of writing convertion tools of Guido questionable value. IMHO. I wouldn't waste my time on conversion to a non-free, questionably stable format, no. But converting to other free formats lets us take advantage of a lot of work that ABC programs haven't even begun to do. Let's not forget that the very first ABC program was a converter between something typeable and readable and MusicTeX, which is neither, but allows a very complete description of printed music. So I've been looking hard at both abc2mtex (with John Walsh's help) and abc2ly. And I think they both have a lot of potential to give abc users options they aren't going to get out of abc2ps and relatives any time soon. Note that conversion *from* a widely used, non-free format would be a great idea, if anyone wants to work on it. People who want to publish work which is currently in finale or encore (or sibelius) should have a path open to them that doesn't require their public to buy a program. -- Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org ) (Note the email and homepage address changes; please update your address book, bookmarks, and links.) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] free Finale
Frank Nordberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (snip) I've tried to find out something about the present state of Encore, but hasn't succeeded yet (snip) Although I have nothing worthwhile to say about the virtues or demerits of the program(s), I found this status report dated July 31, 2000, at the Gvox web site: http://www.gvox.com/store/index.cfm At this time, depleted stock levels of existing products - coupled with a need to create an advanced, Internet-based software delivery system - have forced a temporary moratorium on the distribution of our programs Encore, MusicTime Deluxe and Master Tracks Pro. Within the next few months you will be able to purchase your favorite GVOX software on-line via ESD (Electronic Software Download). Please check our website occasionally for updated information on our progress as it becomes available. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this temporary product unavailability may cause you. Longtime users will be pleased to know that new versions of these products are currently being developed as well. The software that you love making music with will be updated to be compatible with the newer operating systems, as well as receive numerous feature enhancements and additions. If you have any suggestions for product improvements, please email them to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (end quote) John John McChesney-Young ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** Berkeley, California, USA To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
RE: [abcusers] Update to jaabc2ps
On Thursday, October 26, 2000 1:26 AM, Guido Gonzato [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: er... it won't compile with gcc without changes... you forgot to add #ifdef _MSVC to all sources but abc2ps.c. Hmmm, don't know how I missed all those the first time I searched for "process.h" -- must have had a typo in the search string. Interesting that GCC for Cygwin didn't catch it even with the -Wall flag. I don't really trust windoze ports of unix stuff, I guess I'm going to have to look into building a Linux box again. No real problem tho. Another little thing that ought to be fixed is the "gets" thing, which really makes gcc angry. From the gets(3) man page: Never use gets(). Because it is impossible to tell with- out knowing the data in advance how many characters gets() will read, and because gets() will continue to store char- acters past the end of the buffer, it is extremely danger- ous to use. It has been used to break computer security. Use fgets() instead. This is one of those cases where you have to really understand what's going on, rather than slavishly follow well-meant but not necessarily "good" advice from whoever wrote the man page. Yes, gets() can be misused, but that doesn't mean it should *never* be used. gets() is only used in one place (in the original abc2ps code, at that). Where it is used is in the interactive function and it is used to get user input to select tunes. The buffer is 500+ characters, and it's *highly* unlikely that the user is going to enter more characters than that. If they should, the only thing that will happen is that the program will crash. The only time there would be a security problem is if gets() was being used in a login process or other security-sensitive code. Even then, any security problem is really in the underlying operating system and not in the application. Any operating system that allows access beyond a user's permissions just because a program crashed has a SERIOUS security problem but it's NOT the fault of the application that crashed! In other words, gets() in this instance has a slim chance of causing a problem, and any problem that it does cause is not a security concern. I suspect that the security problem mentioned in the man page is probably a carry over from very early unix systems that were riddled with security issues. Most importantly, changing this to scanf is NOT acceptable in this instance [I seem to recall your mentioning you'd replaced gets() with scanf() in a previous post]. Scanf stops reading a string on whitespace, and in this instance we want to read to the end of a line, allowing the user to select multiple tunes using whitespace delimiters. Michael designed this function so that it cleverly uses the command-line parsing code to interpret the user input in interactive mode. How about following the man page advice and using fgets()? Well, that can be made to work but it unnecessarily complicates the code. gets() strips the trailing newline, while fgets() doesn't. (Thanks KR. See, Bill Gate's boys weren't the first to introduce oddball inconsistencies seemingly intended solely to trip up programmers!) That means that if we switch to fgets() we also have to provide additional code to detect and strip a newline character, and that may be further complicated if we want to ensure cross-platform compatibility. So, put simply, in this case I think gets() is the best solution, which is probably why Michael used it to begin with. I did add some comments to the code, explaining the above. I implemented M:none. You have the choice of having M:none display "none," "free," "free" over "meter," or "fm." I have no formal music training -- if there is something else that really should be displayed let me know and I'll add an option for it. another option should be simply not to display a thing; it shouldn't be hard to implement... Actually, it's very easy and I initally set this up to do just that. Then I realized that there were two problems. First, no time signature generally means 4/4 time, at least in all the music books I have. Second, it would certainly be a problem in the case of meters that change in the middle of a tune. If you're changing from some meter to free meter in the middle of a tune you have to print *something*, right? I can offer it as an option though. Next time I upload the code FreeMetStyle 4 will cause it to output nothing. It'll be up to the user to use that option intelligently, though ;-) John Atchley To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Egregious example of line wrapping
Phil Taylor suggested: | Jack Campin wrote: | BarFly is AppleScriptable, isn't it? So, if you've got a Mac on | your network somewhere, you should be able to tell it to: | | - open the file | - go into split-screen mode | - do Print Preview | - save as PICT | ... | The other problem would be in figuring out how to write a CGI | to run on a unix machine which can assemble and transmit | AppleEvents to a remote Mac. I'm sure it can be done, but | I haven't a clue how. Ah, I can see it now. Someone asks my Tune Finder for a tune that happens to be in BarFly format. So my CGI scripts, running here on trillian, locate a nearby Mac that some poor victim is busily using, and downloads BarFly into it (if it's not already there from an earlier request). The victim's screen then goes into split-screen mode, and displays a page of music, which is then saved on the victim's disk, while the victim sits there wondering why the Mac has suddenly gone berserk. My CGI script then downloads the PICT file and send it off to the person who asked for it. After a while, all the Macs at MIT will have their disks cluttered with these mysterious PICT files that contain pages of music. This would make me really popular around the campus, once they traced these events and files back to my Tune Finder! (Actually, I wonder if a Mac could be commandeered this way. It does seem to be possible with Windows, as all the recent email macro virii have demonstrated. Can Apple have missed such a powerful feature? ;-) To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
RE: [abcusers] Egregious example of line wrapping
I would pay money to watch that scenario. "Richard L Walker"[EMAIL PROTECTED] Pensacola, FL 32504-7726 USA -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] ...Ah, I can see it now... To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] free Finale
Philip Rowe wrote: ... Otherwise, it would be hard work to use it as anything other than a viewer for Finale files created by other people. I think that was Coda's idea - a Finale viewer rather than a music editor. An ABC-to-Finale converter would change that drastically, of course ;) It would be wise to make sure that this Finale text format will import into free Finale before putting any effort into a converter. It does. Is the printed output better than anything the ABC community can offer? Yes. Guido Gonzato wrote: I have made a few quick tests, and although I must say that FinaleNotePad is a nice gift for undemanding users, abc is IMHO better. One thing for all: FinaleNotePad does not do PostScript unless you have a PostScript printer. Not to mention that actually typing notes is (to many of us, at least) quicker and more fun. That seems to me as an argument in favour of a ABC-to-ETF converter. Then we can type in ABC *and* get the Finale output. But I have to say I agree to some extent. I had a look at Finale NotePad, and although I was aware it was a scaled down version of Finale, I didn't expect a *butchered* version. So, to sum up: I think we should spend our time improving and completing abc, instead of writing convertion tools of questionable value. IMHO. (FYI: I definitely can't claim to have an unbiased view here. I convert ABC to Finale most every day and I'd love to have a direct route instead of being forced to go through midi.) I guess that depends on how much work it would mean. I'd definitely say we need a path from ABC to some high-end notation system - or preferably paths to as many high-end systems as possible. The main attraction of the Finale solution is that it ought to be fairly simple. After all we're "only" talking about remapping clearly defined parts of one text file to clearly defined parts of another text file. Also, Finale (the full-scaled version, that is) is at the moment the most complete notation system in existence. Neither Lilypond nor MusicTex nor Sibelius is even close when it comes to sheer number of functions. (I'm not sure if that is too important, though. I have difficulty imaging that anybody'd ever need Finale's full arsenal for processing something that started out as a simple ABC file.) That being said, there already is a convertion path from ABC to Lilypond. Lilypond produces very nice postsrcipt output, probably has all the functions needed for the music commonly notated in ABC and unlike Finale it is an Open Source program. (Personally I couldn't care less about the latter, but I understand it is *very* important to many here at abcusers). Laura Conrad wrote: I wouldn't waste my time on conversion to a non-free, questionably stable format, no. I don't know what you mean with "stable", Laura. Finale has been around for more than ten years now and has remained more or less the industial standard for most of that period. I don't think any other notation software system can claim anything like that. ETF files writeen ten years ago are still fully readable by today's versions of Finale (and soon Lilypond as well). There definitely is a compatibility problem, but that's the other way round (older versions of the program can't read newer files), and hardly relevant in this context. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is rather similar to the ongoing debate between plain text and all the various proprietary word-processor document formats. At first glance, word processors look flashy and impressive. But only people with compatible software can read them. And in a very few years, those fancy documents will become unreadable as new versions of the word processor programs come out. But plain ascii text from 30 years ago is readable just about anywhere, and will be readable a century from now. These are some of the reasons that so many people keep insisting on plain text in public mailing lists and archives. And those are very good reasons. Of course all music ought to be stored in a universal, standardized file format, equivalent to ascii. But there simply ain't no such thing, and the chances is that there won't be for a while. ABC in its present form certainly doesn't fulfill that need. XML might, but at the moment it looks more like a dream than reality. In many ways ETF is the format that comes closest to that goal. It was originally developed for that very purpose, and it seems to include everything needed. Unfortunately it never cught on and right now Finale and (to some degree) Lilypond are the only programs that support it. Formatting isn't important, and if we lose it, we don't lose much. The important thing is the information content. Yes, but in music notation it's usually impossible to draw a clear line between information content and formatting. Frank Nordberg To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Gonna be off-list for a while
Laurie Griffiths wrote: I have had an ambition to cross an ocean under sail for many years. I am now going to attempt to do it. Wow Have fun Laurie! Frank To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Gonna be off-list for a while
I meant to add: Any correspondence to do with Muse should go to [EMAIL PROTECTED] where there will be someone to answer (my daughter, Rachel) Laurie To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Gonna be off-list for a while
I have had an ambition to cross an ocean under sail for many years. I am now going to attempt to do it. [...] It isn't safe to leave much sooner; you have to wait for the hurricane season(*) to end. Here's something to sing on the way. It comes from a daily music broadside periodical produced in Leith around 1840 by R.W. Hume. It's obviously not Scottish, though; Hume printed a lot of English music (and even ventured into Russian once). X:1 T:One Night Came On a Hurricane S:R.W. Hume, The Lyre no. 7 N:Sung by T.P. Cooke Q:Non troppo presto M:C| L:1/8 K:G d|B G G G G G G G|A A d d B2 G||\ G|F A A A A A A A|d d e e f2 d|| d|d g g f e d c B|c c c e dc B||\ A|G G G A B A G F|G E A G GF ED|| G2 G2 G2 z2|d2 e f g e d B|A2 G2 G2|] One night came on a hurricane, the sea was mountains rolling, When Barney Buntline turn'd his quid, and said to Billy Bowling, A strong sou-wester's blowing, Billy, can't you hear it roar now, Lord help 'em, how I pities all unhappy folks on shore now. Bow, wow, wow, fal-lal-de-riddy-tiddy, bow, wow, wow. Fool-hardy chaps as live in towns, what dangers they are all in! And now they're quaking in their beds for fear the roof should fall in. Poor creatures, how they envies us, and wishes, I've a notion, For our good luck in such a storm, to be upon the ocean. Bow, wow, wow... Then as to them kept out all day on business from their houses, And late at night are walking home to cheer their babes and spouses, While you and I upon the deck are comfortably lying, My eyes! what tiles and chimney pots about their heads are flying! Bow, wow, wow... And often have we seamen heard how men are killed or undone, By overturns in carriages, and thieves and fires in London; We've heard what risks all landsmen run, from noblemen to tailors - So Billy let's thank Providence that you I are Sailors. Bow, wow, wow... === http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ === To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] free Finale
Guido Gonzato wrote One thing for all: FinaleNotePad does not do PostScript unless you have a PostScript printer. Maybe we should mention that - at least under Windows - you do not need a poscript printer to produce PostScript output (and that's true for EPS as well). The trick is having the drivers, and let Windows save to file the printer output. You end up with a file called *.prn, that you can rename (*.ps or *.eps, according to what you selected in the printer properties), and then easily handle with Gosthscript. Encore users already know this - that's the way Encore used to export to EPS -, but this can be done with any Windows program, even abc2win (especially it, I guess!). If you wish to spend half an hour to configure it, try Free PDF: saves time if what you actually look for are PDF files. Have a look at the web page http://www.webxd.com/zipguy/freepdf.htm, and after that have a look at the forum too - there is some debate about the best poscript printer drivers (I vote for the Adobe Poscript Printers with the Distiller PPD files, that handles colour images and let you define the dimensions of the sheet you are going to print). Regards Gianni To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
RE: [abcusers] free Finale
On Thursday, October 26, 2000 10:54 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: But plain ascii text from 30 years ago is readable just about anywhere, and will be readable a century from now. devil's advocate Provided it's on an accessible physical medium. 30 years ago punched paper or mylar tape and ibm cards were a common storage medium, nine-track tapes were probably the most common storage, and disk drives of any kind were "on the cutting edge." Now, you'd be hard pressed to find hardware to read your paper or mylar tapes and ibm cards outside of a museum and even equipment that can handle nine-track tapes is becoming rare outside of universities and government facilities. Finally, nothing stored on magnetic media is likely to be reliably readable a century from now even if you can find compatible hardware. Even some optical media (writeable CDs) suffers from loss over time. The best archival guarantee I've seen on "platinum" writable CDs is 100 years. In short, anything that is not in a human-readable, durable format (i.e. at least acid-free paper properly conserved) can't really be considered reliable for long-term archives. /devil's advocate All that said, I agree with everything you said ;-) I've been doing the family-history thing and what I finally settled on as the most probable format for longevity is HTML. This allows some formatting and graphics (using PNGs or JPGs). There is also a pretty good chance that basic HTML (the original HTML tags, no scripting or DHTML features) will remain backwards compatible for the forseeable future simply because so many companies have a lot invested in millions of pages of HTML. It also offers the advantage that any platform that can read whatever physical media the files are stored on can display them. John Atchley To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[abcusers] ABC Newbie questions
I'm a Brazilian composer and I've studied ABC a couple of hours, but my thinking is still based on the conventional music notation. Do ABC work, in practical terms, with more complex music, like "Bossa Nova", with a lot of sincopations, tuplets and ties ? Do ABC work with orchestral scores ? I'm asking it because the tunes I found in ABC are quite simple melodies, based in just one voice. The softwares I'm using is Muse and ABC2win. Is ABC a notation usefull just to send music in a free format, or is there a wish to use the ABC as a "real" music notation, so that people "think" directly in it ? Just one more :) Is there Bass clef in ABC notation ? (or octave lower indications ?) It seems bore to put lots of to get lower notes. regards Jorge --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
