Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software
On Tuesday 19 June 2001 10:03, John Chambers wrote: > > The biggest single problem is the damage caused by email line > wrapping. This isn't caused by any single program. It's a systemic > problem caused by many of the email packages that have been released > in recent years. This isn't just a problem for abc; it is a serious > problem that programmers have been fighting for decades. Line > wrapping destroys code in most programming languages, and makes hash > out of a lot of plain-text data files. So even if we adopt the > abc2win approach to staff termination (not a bad idea), we don't even > start to solve the problems with line wrapping. Yup. It does hideous things to SQL code too. The scripts I routinely forward to our DBA at work *must* be sent as attachments because of this. > While working on my code to handle abc2win's variant syntax, it has > occurred to me that bringing abc2win into the main line wouldn't be > all that difficult. I haven't seen any messages from Jim Vint for > some time, and there aren't any in my archived mail for 2 years, so I > don't know whether he's even working on it. In any case, we have no > way to demand that he do anything; he gave his program out for free, > so all we can do is thank him for his work and then ask that he do > some more work for us (for free). If he's too busy, we could also > encourage someone with a Windows C development environment to take it > off his hands and work on it. I could be wrong, but I think it's in VB. IIRC it requires vbrun300.dll (?) Wendy To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software
On Tuesday 19 June 2001 10:03, John Chambers wrote: > > The biggest single problem is the damage caused by email line > wrapping. This isn't caused by any single program. It's a systemic > problem caused by many of the email packages that have been released > in recent years. This isn't just a problem for abc; it is a serious > problem that programmers have been fighting for decades. Line > wrapping destroys code in most programming languages, and makes hash > out of a lot of plain-text data files. So even if we adopt the > abc2win approach to staff termination (not a bad idea), we don't even > start to solve the problems with line wrapping. Yup. It does hideous things to SQL code too. The scripts I routinely forward to our DBA at work *must* be sent as attachments because of this. > While working on my code to handle abc2win's variant syntax, it has > occurred to me that bringing abc2win into the main line wouldn't be > all that difficult. I haven't seen any messages from Jim Vint for > some time, and there aren't any in my archived mail for 2 years, so I > don't know whether he's even working on it. In any case, we have no > way to demand that he do anything; he gave his program out for free, > so all we can do is thank him for his work and then ask that he do > some more work for us (for free). If he's too busy, we could also > encourage someone with a Windows C development environment to take it > off his hands and work on it. I could be wrong, but I think it's in VB. IIRC it requires vbrun300.dll (?) Wendy To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software (was:midi2abc [was: Wanted: ABC transcription...])
On Monday 18 June 2001 12:19, Frank Nordberg wrote: > Sorry Steve, your way behind modern times too. Fact is, we already have > perfectly good (or so the ads say) ways to get computers to compose and > play the music without any subjective and emotional human interference > at all. Yeah, seems your radiostation plays the same music as mine :-) -- Atte To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] superscript in abcm2ps 2.3.3
On Sunday 17 June 2001 18:14, Jean-Francois Moine wrote: > I looked at the french printed music I have, and I choosed to let the > \# and \b aligned with the other text, as it was. You might be right with this, I see both (should I post some tiny gif's with examples to discuss??) In my sheetmusic. But as far as I can tell the accidentals are either quite a bit larger than abcm2ps' or they are superscripted... > But now, I check for > '#' or 'b' as the 2nd character in the guitar chords, and these ones are > printed as accidentals and super-scripted. This is done in abcm2ps-2.5.0. > Is it OK for you? You make it sound like I'm just an angry guy killing you with my suggestions, surely not the case, and I hope you don't take it as such... Maybe this would be the right time to (once again) express my enthusiasm about abcm2ps: I love it! Anyway; I'll get 2.5.0 ASP, but it sounds nice! But what else can b and (esp) # mean in a guitarchrod? Why not just typeset all appearances with accidentals to get stuff like Db7(b9, #11)? -- Atte To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software
Just to get this one out of the way... John Chambers says - >This is presumably the source of his use of the term "hypocrisy". I've just done a quick check and I can't find the term "hypocrisy" in any posting of mine I've still got on file (and I don't tidy up very often). I didn't actually make any comment at all but just compared the statements. The point I was actually making was that you were saying that abc2win was a minor player and that there were thousands of tune to be corrected. Well, perhaps thousands is minor. >If abc2win is 5% of the tunes and half >its output causes problems, then this could easily account for all >the problems that I see. >In fact, abc2win isn't nearly this bad. This is, in part, because >I've added code that notices some of its variant syntax and handles >it most of the time. So in fact a very small proportion of its output causes problems which suggests that it must be a very major player indeed if it still causes so much trouble. I don't use abc2win much so I'm not being partisan. What worries me is the hostile attitude. You are hardly going to get Jim Vint on board with lines like - >abc2win, which seems be the >current record holder for gratuitous violations of the standard ... and as for what you said about www.irishtunes.net! Be nice to people. Bryan
Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software
Phil Taylor says - >Does ABCcheck report a space in the M: field as an error? No it doesn't. This is a specific problem to do with abc2win (so it will give you another stick to beat it with.) The problem was not with ABCcheck but with abc2nwc. abc2win allows inline commands just by plonking them in and terminating them with a space. A good idea not very well realised. Standard 1.6 makes no allowance for this and the draft standard suggests putting them in square brackets. Better, but yet another meaning when you hit [ in a tune. The line in question was - !:M: 6/8 F2A ABc|ded cBA|Bcd AGF|BGE EFG| (Interesting use of !) abc2nwc read the M: and then read everything up to the next space (ie nothing) and failed to make sense of the result. If the space is edited out, it works. Hence my comment about abc2win's error checking not being perfect. ABCcheck successfully reports this as an error and, if the space is removed reports it as an abc2winism. Don't get me wrong, this was not the only error ABCcheck found. There were 704 in the whole file, mostly to do with bar lines and repeat starts and ends. >And does it fail to report all those lines which start with a single colon instead of |:? No. It reports all those. >Or all the extra spaces at the ends of lines and between the tunes? Are these against the standard? >How about all the reels marked at Q:180? I'm not a music critic. Nice to have you being polite to me Phil. Bryan
Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software
Frank Nordberg said - >Hi Bryan - I had begun to wonder if you were on a vacation trip or something. Hi Frank- no, but after Phil Taylor's descent into puerile personal abuse and the subsequent failure of anyone else to tick him off for breach of etiquette I decided I'd had enough for a while and there's only so much you can say to people who don't want to listen. It is only the value I place on abc and the belief that there are some sensible people on this list that brings me back. >Do you mean poor John is supposed to offer free personal tutoring to >anybody who wants to write ABC? John has given a lot of good advice on >the subject both here at abcusers and on his web site, so I don't think >you should criticize him for that. and Wendy Galovich said - >I'll add my voice to Frank's on this one. John's contributions of ideas and >help both on and off list have been invaluable. Thanks John! I utterly agree. John's tune finder is invaluable and he is the source of excellent advice both on this list and through his website. He contributes some excellent ideas for the development of abc which he generally posts for discussion on the list before implementing them rather than presenting them as fait accompli. Apart from some slightly odd interpretations of my views (I've never believed there was a conspiracy of developers, John) he has been invariably polite in his dealings with me. All of which makes his negativity towards www.irishnet.com and his antagonism against abc2win all the more surprising. I don't expect him to give free personal tutoring but if he'd put as much effort into being positive as he has into his recent negativity it might have been more use. I presume that the developers of www.irishnet.com are unpaid volunteers and Jim Vint is hardly profiteering with abc2win nor is their intent likely to be deliberately malicious. Don't they deserve more respect? >> >> but do many of the developers care or >> are they >> only interested in their own "extensions to"/"gratuitous violations >> of" the >> standard regardless of the affect on anybody else? >The latter, I'm afraid. Can't really blame them, though. After all most >of them are doing this programming for fund - and for free. This really strikes at the point I've been trying to make all this time. I said some time ago that just because developers were working for free that didn't give them the right to dictate to others, either developers or users. Their software is their own but abc is communal property; it calls for a cooperative approach. The V: command provides an excellent example. A great idea that different developers went off and implemented in different ways before agreeing on a common standard. I doubt if it will ever become part of the standard now since quite a few people will have to back down and change their software. >You forgot to mention gender, though. Mea Culpa. Laura has already compared (her interpretation of) my views to male chauvinism. >Why is Laura the only profilic *female* abcuser? I genuinely have no idea. Is it true? >unsubscribe messages Totally unjustified speculation, but I couldn't resist it. Bryan Creer (My spellchecker offers abusers and accusers for abcusers. How delightful.)
Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software
On Tuesday 19 June 2001 04:34, Frank Nordberg wrote: > > Do you mean poor John is supposed to offer free personal tutoring to > anybody who wants to write ABC? John has given a lot of good advice on > the subject both here at abcusers and on his web site, so I don't think > you should criticize him for that. I'll add my voice to Frank's on this one. John's contributions of ideas and help both on and off list have been invaluable. Thanks John! Wendy To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software
Bryan Creer wrote: >Yes, it is true that www.irishnet.com makes a bit of a pigs ear of the >individually displayed tunes but I downloaded the whole collection and it >only gave me one significant problem, an M: 6/8 command imbedded in the tune. > There shouldn't be a space after the :. So abc2win's error checking isn't >perfect. I've never come across this error before. > >Advertising feature - >To see whether your ABCs conform to the standard, try ABCcheck. Does ABCcheck report a space in the M: field as an error? It isn't as far as I can see. A space _before_ the colon would be an error. And does it fail to report all those lines which start with a single colon instead of |:? Or all the extra spaces at the ends of lines and between the tunes? How about all the reels marked at Q:180? I suppose that's not really an error; you might want to play like that at an Old Folks Ceilidh:-) Phil Taylor To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] New BarFly release ...
John Chambers wrote: >Phil Taylor wrote: >> If you want to see the BarFly version of the tune, it's at: > >It occurs to me: If Phil were to write a version of BarFly >that also worked with lilypond, the first releases would >probably not do too good a job of it, and would mess up a >lot of both abc and lilypond files. The wags on this list >would inevitably start referring to it as BarfLy. Aaaargh! (If anybody's been trying unsuccessfully to look at that tune, my apologies. The site was down overnight. Back up now though.) Phil Taylor To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] abc compliant software
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I had planned to watch this thread for a while before adding my > thoughts... Hi Bryan - I had begun to wonder if you were on a vacation trip or something. > > John Chambers said - > > Did it occur to you, John, as an experienced and knowledgeable abc > user and > member of the standards committee, that it might have been more > constructive > to offer some helpful advice rather than slagging them off as wilfully > incompetent? Do you mean poor John is supposed to offer free personal tutoring to anybody who wants to write ABC? John has given a lot of good advice on the subject both here at abcusers and on his web site, so I don't think you should criticize him for that. ... > > I agree that there are some irritating deviations from the standard in > abc2win but they are documented and consistent so they can be worked > round > without too much trouble. No doubt. The question is: does people take the trouble working around it? > > Yes, it is true that www.irishnet.com makes a bit of a pigs ear of the > individually displayed tunes but I downloaded the whole collection... I was wondering a bit about that too. Apparantly John must have missed the fact that all the tunes at irishnet.com are also posted in a separate file in addition to the embedded ABC tunes. > > It seems a little strange that, given the reactions to Gianni's > description > of abc2win as the de facto standard [a lot of text omitted] Seems we're comparing oranges and apples here. John and Phil were both talking about whether the ABC tunes posted on the web were specially formatted for some particular software. What program people who download the stuff actually opens it in, is another matter. ... > > Interesting, then, that, in reply to Hartmut Wiechern's problems with > Personent Hodie, Frank Nordberg said - ... Just for the record: The incompatibility problems I was talking about were all related to the V: field who isn't actually a part of the standard at all. > > ABC's great strength is as a means of communication between musicians > regardless of race, colour, creed, religious affiliation, hardware, > operating > system or software preference... Amen to that. (You forgot to mention gender, though. Why is Laura the only profilic *female* abcuser?) > > but do many of the developers care or > are they > only interested in their own "extensions to"/"gratuitous violations > of" the > standard regardless of the affect on anybody else? The latter, I'm afraid. Can't really blame them, though. After all most of them are doing this programming for fund - and for free. > > PS. I notice that there has been a little flurry of unsuscribes > lately. There has been a number of unsubscribe messages posted at the list recently. But since these aren't supposed to appear here at all, you can't draw any conclusions from that - except that something might be wrong with the maillist system, of course. Frank Nordberg To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] MIDI cat ?
On Mon 18 Jun 2001 at 05:07PM +0100, Phil Taylor wrote: > > I don't think you can do this by simply concatenating the MIDI files. I agree with this. Concatenating single track MIDI files could perhaps be done without too much analysis, but concatenating multiple track MIDI files would require quite a bit of analysis. It might be possible to write a utility to do the job in a day or so, but I've never felt the urge to write one, and I've never come across a utility to do it. James Allwright To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
