Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Anselm Lingnau]

Gianni Cunich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Given this, If I really wish to use a flexible, user friendly notation
> package, like Melody Assistant (another software I am satisfied I have
> registered) or the NoteWorthy Composer, that's the rule...one tune = one
> file. To store a whole tune book you have to use a typesetting
> package... yet, none of those currently avalable really supports the abc
> notation except for the all too limited original standard 

Too bad. I use abc2ps (which does support multivoice music, for example)
to create EPS files which I can include in my LaTeX documents just fine.
In fact, I'm typesetting Scottish country dance books which look every
bit as nice, if not nicer (if I say so myself) than most of what is on
the market. See

  http://www.tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/~lingnau/pmbook/

for an example (and yes, it would be possible to put all the ABC
notation for the tunes in that book in a single ABC file and typeset it
from there). I do keep every tune in its own file but even so this
approach is far superior to the point-and-click packages on the market,
since the music formatting is governed by a single parameter file which
is common to all the ABCs. If I do change parameters like the staff
width or distance, all I need to do is start a `make' run and go to the
kitchen for a drink. When I come back the whole book is re-done with the
new settings. I don't have to go through every single file by hand,
which is a great time-saver.

> Finally, yes again, Zel is only available for Windows. What a pity!
> Yet a number of abc related softwares are available for other platforms
> only, but nobody did seem to care about it so far...

Most of the important programs like abc2ps or abcMIDI can be gotten to 
run on most any platform that supports a C compiler. The worst that can 
happen to you is that you have to try and find somebody to compile the 
software for you.

> P.S: BTW, I was told that quality, and not quantity, is what actually
> matters... anybody wish to argue about the quantity of relevant/vital
> informations about the musical stuff uploaded on the web has got lost
> because of the quite_but_not_really_yet_updated abc standard compliance?
> Or, to say better, about what this means in terms of quality? There is
> hardly any sense in telling that a midi file is a rather poor exchange
> musical medium when what we have to compare with it doesn't even supply
> any universally agreed symbol for a mordent or a fermata!

ABC was originally intended for a type of music where mordents or
fermatas aren't usually notated at all, since every musician will put in
their own decorations anyway. It turns out that most of the music
available on the web in ABC format (which incidentally *is* rather a
lot, most of which is quite useful, thank you very much) is of that
genre, so not having any universally agreed symbols for those doesn't
really hurt the `quality' of the material all that much. This is of
course not to say that it wouldn't be nice to have agreement, but
apparently if it was a big important issue we would have standardised on
something long ago.

Incidentally, MIDI files are a lousy medium for exchanging notation
because among other things they don't have the notion of a bracketed
repeat, which again for the type of music ABC excels at representing
would be a major drawback. They may be nice for exchanging musical
arrangements that you can play on your synth if you never do intend to
go back to sheet music, but claiming that a text format geared towards
MIDI generation is better than one meant for representing sheet music is
comparing apples to oranges.

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I sometimes wonder if Microsoft keeps beating this application-OS-lovefest
drum because they really have no idea how to write an OS API, so they just do
whatever their apps people ask for and call it one.   -- Peter da Silva

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Gianni Cunich]

*** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***

On 11/07/01 at 10.27 Phil Taylor wrote:

>Gianni Cunich wrote:
>
>>It's plain to see that the total lack of cooperation among the 
>>developers subscribing to this list has a lot to do with this, 
>>although I don't think there's anything we could do about it at this 
>>stage. If anybody still believes the abc notation could be taken in 
>>serious consideration outside the folk circles, the best for him. 
>>IMO, the endless debate on the sex of angels that has being going on 
>>this list for the past four years, and that has made any update of 
>>the standard impossible so far, was what actually gave it the kiss 
>>of death. How long those who are responsible for the notation demise 
>>will need to face this basic thruth is of course their own 
>>problem... not mine!
>
>I don't think the facts bear out what you are saying here Gianni.
>Over the last four years the popularity of abc has increased enormously.
>A few days ago I dug out all of John Chambers reports on his web crawler's
>results and plotted the estimated number of tunes on the web against
>time.  You can see the results at:
>
>http://rbu01.ed-rbu.mrc.ac.uk/abcstats.gif
>
>(Bear in mind John's own reservations about the accuracy of this data>)
>The number of tunes on the web has grown in a consistent logarithmic
>fashion for the last four years.  Add to that the fact that the abc
>home page gets the top rating of any music notation site on Google
>and you conclude that despite all evidence to the contrary we must
>have been doing something right.

Considering we are at it, maybe we could compare as well the logarithmic growth of the 
abc tunes availble on the web with the exponential growth of the erotic web sites!   
Also, considering the abc home page is an unreliable, rarely (and never 
comprehensively) updated source of informations, I am not really sure about if its 
inclusion among the top rating music notation site in Google is anything positive. For 
instance, when I first browsed thru it about four years ago, I read that to use 
abc2mtex or even abc2ps I had to own a C compiler and know how to use it! Actually, I 
needed a few weeks to realize that abc2mtex and abc2ps portings were available for all 
the major platforms... yet, the statment is still there! And what about the software 
list? I could name at least four programs - one of them is at least an half decent 
one, and another one a pretty excellent product -, yet the only update I have seen 
recently is...ABC Improvisor!? And, of course, you'll find no mention of !
the fact that there is an almost virtual, self appointed committee in charge of 
updating the standard...

Who are you trying to fool, Phil? Be serious, please ! I do not wish to be 
deliberately offensive, but a friend of mine was known to comment your sort of 
statements with a clear: "Millions of flyes feed themselves with...(you know 
what!).How can they be wrong?" - I fear he had plenty of reasons to!

>>What makes me feel sick (those who have read my last postings kown 
>>its my pavlovian reaction when I start discussing about the abc 
>>notation) is that, while we have been throwing away the baby with 
>>the bath water, someone else has built in concrete on Chris 
>>Walshaw's original intuition to create some excellent software.
>>
>>If you wish a nice example of what I mean, have a look at this web site:
>>
>>http://www.zelsoftware.com/
>>
>>Zel, in fact, it's described as a language to create midi files from 
>>a text file, eventually to load them in a sequencer for further 
>>editing.. Everybody, having a look at the quick tutor on the site 
>>(the page is called Learn Zel in 10 minutes), will be able to see 
>>how much it has in common with the abc notation.
>>
>
>Zel is a commercial product controlled by one person, who can change the
>format in any way he wants.  It is _very_ midi orientated, making no
>concessions whatsoever to music notation.  So, as far as I can see,
>it has no way of representing beams, slurs or repeats.  It is much more
>sophisticated than abc when it comes to generating midi (but then that's
>a relatively minor part of what abc is about).  Zel (the program) is
>only available for one platform (windows).  Zel files can hold only
>one tune, and since Zel tunes have no defined start or end markers
>you cannot embed them in ordinary text as you can for abc.  While there
>are around 100 K abc tunes on the web, there are about a dozen in Zel
>format.
>
>These are conclusions reached after about fifteen minutes reading the
>Zel site, and my not be entirely accurate, but even so it's no contest.

Yes, Zel is a commercial program, and is controlled by one person/software house. And 
so what? If a commercial program is an excellent bit of software, made by a competent 
developer, that for a reasonable price I can use to achieve my own goals, what's wrong 
with it? I'd love to have a number of free abc related software of half that quality! 
I would

Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Phil Taylor]

Gianni Cunich wrote:

>It's plain to see that the total lack of cooperation among the 
>developers subscribing to this list has a lot to do with this, 
>although I don't think there's anything we could do about it at this 
>stage. If anybody still believes the abc notation could be taken in 
>serious consideration outside the folk circles, the best for him. 
>IMO, the endless debate on the sex of angels that has being going on 
>this list for the past four years, and that has made any update of 
>the standard impossible so far, was what actually gave it the kiss 
>of death. How long those who are responsible for the notation demise 
>will need to face this basic thruth is of course their own 
>problem... not mine!

I don't think the facts bear out what you are saying here Gianni.
Over the last four years the popularity of abc has increased enormously.
A few days ago I dug out all of John Chambers reports on his web crawler's
results and plotted the estimated number of tunes on the web against
time.  You can see the results at:

http://rbu01.ed-rbu.mrc.ac.uk/abcstats.gif

(Bear in mind John's own reservations about the accuracy of this data>)
The number of tunes on the web has grown in a consistent logarithmic
fashion for the last four years.  Add to that the fact that the abc
home page gets the top rating of any music notation site on Google
and you conclude that despite all evidence to the contrary we must
have been doing something right.

>What makes me feel sick (those who have read my last postings kown 
>its my pavlovian reaction when I start discussing about the abc 
>notation) is that, while we have been throwing away the baby with 
>the bath water, someone else has built in concrete on Chris 
>Walshaw's original intuition to create some excellent software.
>
>If you wish a nice example of what I mean, have a look at this web site:
>
>http://www.zelsoftware.com/
>
>Zel, in fact, it's described as a language to create midi files from 
>a text file, eventually to load them in a sequencer for further 
>editing.. Everybody, having a look at the quick tutor on the site 
>(the page is called Learn Zel in 10 minutes), will be able to see 
>how much it has in common with the abc notation.
>

Zel is a commercial product controlled by one person, who can change the
format in any way he wants.  It is _very_ midi orientated, making no
concessions whatsoever to music notation.  So, as far as I can see,
it has no way of representing beams, slurs or repeats.  It is much more
sophisticated than abc when it comes to generating midi (but then that's
a relatively minor part of what abc is about).  Zel (the program) is
only available for one platform (windows).  Zel files can hold only
one tune, and since Zel tunes have no defined start or end markers
you cannot embed them in ordinary text as you can for abc.  While there
are around 100 K abc tunes on the web, there are about a dozen in Zel
format.

These are conclusions reached after about fifteen minutes reading the
Zel site, and my not be entirely accurate, but even so it's no contest.

Phil Taylor
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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[James Allwright]

On Wed 11 Jul 2001 at 12:00AM +0200, Gianni Cunich wrote:
> 
> 
> On 06/07/01 at 13.02 James Allwright wrote:
> 
> >. Perhaps we need someone to write a noddy
> >front-end that invokes an abc2ps clone, ghostscript and then an image
> >viewer to bring free abc typesetting to the masses.
> 
> Seymour Shlien has been doing that for quite a few years, and that currently Runabc 
>is an excellent GUI for abc2ps, abc2mps, yaps, abc2midi and abc2abc, offering at the 
>same time an excellent abc aware editor packed with a number of intersting features? 
>And obviuosly calls GosthScript (from which you can converte the PostScript in Pdf 
>format), and a couple of midi players to listen to the midi files generated thru 
>abc2midi.
> 

Very true. I was thinking of how to do things in DOS without any
reliance on Windows. I have included my batch file to run Ghostscript
in yaps.txt in the abcMIDI distribution. Using pictview (a free image
viewer program for DOS), you can look at the dots on-screen without
having to boot Windows or even have it installed. This is all fairly
low-tech, but it works. The only tricky bit is installing Ghostscript.

James
(treading carefully so as not to set off any OS wars).

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Gianni Cunich]

On 06/07/01 at 13.02 James Allwright wrote:

>. Perhaps we need someone to write a noddy
>front-end that invokes an abc2ps clone, ghostscript and then an image
>viewer to bring free abc typesetting to the masses.

Seymour Shlien has been doing that for quite a few years, and that currently Runabc is 
an excellent GUI for abc2ps, abc2mps, yaps, abc2midi and abc2abc, offering at the same 
time an excellent abc aware editor packed with a number of intersting features? And 
obviuosly calls GosthScript (from which you can converte the PostScript in Pdf 
format), and a couple of midi players to listen to the midi files generated thru 
abc2midi.

In fact the addition of abc2mps is fairly recent - months I guess -, and made 
available for the first time in three or four years the progrma in a compiled version 
fo Windows users.

As someone underlined:

>One of the basic ideas behind ABC is that it's for everyone, and - as
>hard as it is for us to believe - there is, even today, a small minority
>of computer users that feel slightly uneasy when asked to compile the
>software themselves...

And this has nothing to do with blaming the developers because they don't supply 
binaries for a number of platforms.

The first real problem to bring the abc notation "to the masses" is the abc notation 
in itself - in other words the lack of un updated standard able to turn a limited 
number of conventions which works well for a quick transcription of simple 
(simplified?) melodies into an all purpose typsetting system.  

The second real problem, beyond the unavailability of precomplied softwares, is the 
quality of the available  ones (or rather their lack of it). The last Windows version 
of abc2ps is pretty old, and doesn't support a number of draft useful features that 
abcm2ps has implemented so far; yaps is simply a real mess; abc2midi insists on 
playing broken rythms with as 2:1 rather than a 3:1 ratio...

The evidence is under anybody's eye. Just a look at Frank's Nordberg comprehensive abc 
related software list at the musicaviva web site will show more than 60 different 
programs. Yet, once you have selected those which: 
a) aren't clones of other entries listed (not compatible of course with the prototype);
b) aren't abandoned full of bugs betas;
c) are cross platform projects which are really meant to be useful for the whole abc 
users community;
d) do something everybody needs (i.e. not just something their developers need, or 
eventually other programs don't);
e) are user friendly (i.e. they don't need a GUI to be useful to your average non 
computer addict folk musician);
..well you probably are lucky if you'll end up with an handful of them.. and a few, 
reliable but unfortunately not cross platform, notation packages that 'speak' abc! 

It's plain to see that the total lack of cooperation among the developers subscribing 
to this list has a lot to do with this, although I don't think there's anything we 
could do about it at this stage. If anybody still believes the abc notation could be 
taken in serious consideration outside the folk circles, the best for him. IMO, the 
endless debate on the sex of angels that has being going on this list for the past 
four years, and that has made any update of the standard impossible so far, was what 
actually gave it the kiss of death. How long those who are responsible for the 
notation demise will need to face this basic thruth is of course their own problem... 
not mine!  

And I don't see the point in asking why the standard committee keeps silent... the 
best for it!

Yet, I can't help regretting. As I can't help dreaming about what might have become 
the notation if only a number of developers rather than producing clones of one single 
program (or of other of its clones), introducing new fwtures that in turn the non 
standard abc written for it uncompatible with the original and the other clones, had 
been able to work together toward the goal of producing an all purpose tool for the 
whole community of the users.

What makes me feel sick (those who have read my last postings kown its my pavlovian 
reaction when I start discussing about the abc notation) is that, while we have been 
throwing away the baby with the bath water, someone else has built in concrete on 
Chris Walshaw's original intuition to create some excellent software.

If you wish a nice example of what I mean, have a look at this web site:

http://www.zelsoftware.com/

Zel, in fact, it's described as a language to create midi files from a text file, 
eventually to load them in a sequencer for further editing.. Everybody, having a look 
at the quick tutor on the site (the page is called Learn Zel in 10 minutes), will be 
able to see how much it has in common with the abc notation. 

Window users are warmly suggested to download the Zel Free edition - it's limited to 
1500 notes, which is probably not that much for classical or even pop music, but 
should be enough for most of the tunes available 

Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[bob]

At 10:26 AM 07/09/2001 +0100, flos wrote:
>Right, where do I get a C compiler for Windows 98 SE?
>Flos

Borland have made the command line version of their C++ compiler free. 
It's a bit of a download if you're on a modem but worth it.

http://www.borland.com/bcppbuilder/freecompiler/

Bob

--
-- Bob Archer  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Laura Conrad]

> "flos" == flos  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

flos> Right, where do I get a C compiler for Windows 98 SE?

Try http://www.cygwin.com


-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[flos]

Right, where do I get a C compiler for Windows 98 SE?
Flos

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Frank Nordberg]

D-Man wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Jul 08, 2001 at 01:39:16PM +0200, Frank Nordberg wrote:
...

> | Isn't there a programming language named ABC? And shouldn't we all
> | use that?
> 
> I don't know if it is still around, but it was the language that Guido
> van Rossum (Python's creator) worked on before he created python.

That's what I thought too. Just imagine all the wonderful confusion we
could get if people started writing ABC applications in ABC ;-)


Frank


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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[D-Man]

On Sun, Jul 08, 2001 at 01:39:16PM +0200, Frank Nordberg wrote:
| 
| 
| D-Man wrote:
[snip]
| > Personally Python is my favorite language :-).
| 
| Isn't there a programming language named ABC? And shouldn't we all
| use that?

I don't know if it is still around, but it was the language that Guido
van Rossum (Python's creator) worked on before he created python.

-D

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Frank Nordberg]

D-Man wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 12:11:11AM +0100, Jack Campin wrote:
> | >(I have been tempted to translate abc[m]2ps to  perl,  just  for  the
> | >yuks,  and  for  extra  portability.   Then  it  wouldn't  have to be
> | >compiled.  But I  bet  I'd  get  flamed  because  perl  doesn't  come
> | >pre-installed on all possible computer systems.  ;-)
> |
> | Wouldn't the most portable language for it be PostScript itself?
> 
> I once found a web server written in Postscript.  It was started
> mainly as an academic challenge and a bet.  Since postcript doesn't
> have socket or file access a C wrapper is used to implement HTTP and
> pass the data bewteen ghostscript (the interpreter) and the socket.
> 
> Personally Python is my favorite language :-).

Isn't there a programming language named ABC? And shouldn't we all use that?


Frank Nordberg


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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[D-Man]

On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 12:11:11AM +0100, Jack Campin wrote:
| >(I have been tempted to translate abc[m]2ps to  perl,  just  for  the
| >yuks,  and  for  extra  portability.   Then  it  wouldn't  have to be
| >compiled.  But I  bet  I'd  get  flamed  because  perl  doesn't  come
| >pre-installed on all possible computer systems.  ;-)
| 
| Wouldn't the most portable language for it be PostScript itself?

I once found a web server written in Postscript.  It was started
mainly as an academic challenge and a bet.  Since postcript doesn't
have socket or file access a C wrapper is used to implement HTTP and
pass the data bewteen ghostscript (the interpreter) and the socket.

Personally Python is my favorite language :-).

-D

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Frank Nordberg]

John Chambers wrote:
> 
> Great! Someone provides a program that solves the problem  of  binary
> incompatibility  by  supplying  the source in ANSI C.  Several people
> report compiling it on various obscure systems without any  problems.
> So the programmer gets criticised for writing a program that needs to
> be compiled.
> 
> Ya sure can't win at this game.  ;-)

I had started to write a reply, but it seems Phil and Bryan got ahead of
me, and there's no need repeating what they said.

So let me come up with a challenge instead:

Whenever you (that is anyone) ports an ABC application, post it on the web!!!

Doesn't matter how obscure the OS is, there are always somebody else
who'd like to have it.

And e mail me about it so I can include it in the ABC applications datbase.

Haven't got a web site to put it? No worries. Just send it to me and
I'll add it to the Musica Viva software library.

---

That being said, the main issue shouldn't really be software
portability, but *ABC* portability. Sure, it would be possible for any
abc user to have a dozen different applications to cope with various
incompatible abc dialects, but for some reason I feel that that would
defy the original intentions of the abc standard.

Frank Nordberg
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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[John Chambers]

Bryan Creer writes:
| I'm in a state of shock.  I find myself totally agreeing with something Phil
| Taylor has said -

Hmmm ... Maybe you need to adjust your medication.

| John Chambers had said -
|
| >Great! Someone provides a program that solves the problem  of  binary
| >incompatibility  by  supplying  the source in ANSI C.  Several people
| >report compiling it on various obscure systems without any  problems.
|
| Nice to have maybe but the only thing that really has to be portable across
| all systems and all software packages is abc itself and at the moment it
| isn't.

True, but not quite what I was getting at.  Critisizing a  programmer
for  not  investing  in  the  hardware  and software that it takes to
provide everyone with binaries is hardly appropriate. The right thing
to  do  is  to  call  for  volunteers to compile the code and produce
downloadable binaries.

Very few programmers have the time or funds to provide  binaries  for
everyone.   This  should  be  a  job  for  the  users on this list to
coordinate.

As a programmer, I find that I don't have time to try to keep up with
all the complications of the commercial binary software market.  If I
tried to do that, I wouldn't have any time for programming  (or  even
for  playing  music).   I  probably  don't  have  the  money, either,
considering what it  takes  to  support  a  development  and  testing
environment that even covers the most popular commercial platforms. I
work mostly on unix-type systems, where most compilers are  available
free  and  the  runtime  libraries  don't  change every six months in
incompatible ways.  But even there, buying  the  hardware  needed  to
create  binaries  for everyone would be beyond my funds (or the space
in my house).

Providing binaries for musicians who aren't computer geeks is a  good
idea.   But  it  isn't going to be done by the few people writing the
programs, and they shouldn't be criticised for not  doing  it.   This
pretty  much  has  to  be  done  by  the users who have access to the
hardware and who have compilers and such.

One possibility is that the sourceforge repository can hold  binaries
for lots of systems.  This would take a bit of coordinating, but it's
a very reasonable use of this facility.  Anyone want to organize  it?
(Beware - it could suck up a lot of your time.  ;-)
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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Bryancreer]

I'm in a state of shock.  I find myself totally agreeing with something Phil 
Taylor has said -

>Nobody's criticising the author of the program.  However, the explosion
>in computer use over the past few years has mainly come about as the
>result of GUI interfaces like Windows and MacOS which don't require
>users to mess with the works.  Most users don't understand the difference
>between source and object code and wouldn't have a clue what to do with
>a C compiler.  Neither do they want to learn - they are not interested
>in computers per se, only in what they can do with them.

YES!   Imagine trying to sell a wordprocessor and saying "You'll have to find 
a C compiler and compile it yourself.  It usually works."

A lot of potential abc users are going to look at abc2ps (and its multiple 
clones) and say "bung that for a lark".  They will look for something they 
can download, install and use (abc2win for instance?).

John Chambers had said -

>Great! Someone provides a program that solves the problem  of  binary
>incompatibility  by  supplying  the source in ANSI C.  Several people
>report compiling it on various obscure systems without any  problems.

Nice to have maybe but the only thing that really has to be portable across 
all systems and all software packages is abc itself and at the moment it 
isn't.

Bryan Creer

Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Phil Taylor]

>| >(I have been tempted to translate abc[m]2ps to  perl,  just  for  the
>| >yuks,  and  for  extra  portability.   Then  it  wouldn't  have to be
>| >compiled.  But I  bet  I'd  get  flamed  because  perl  doesn't  come
>| >pre-installed on all possible computer systems.  ;-)
>|
>| Wouldn't the most portable language for it be PostScript itself?
>
>You might think so, but it seems that  Windows  systems  still  don't
>come out of the box with a postscript viewer.  Pretty much everything
>else does, though. The idea of doing it in postscript is interesting.
>I wonder how difficult it would actually be?

Postscript is a threaded interpreted language.  I don't know Postscript,
but I do know Forth, which is a close relative.  The joke which everybody
knows about Forth is that it's a write-only language.  Code which you
wrote yesterday is unreadable today.  It's very terse and quick to write
but impossible to understand later, and it makes programs impossible to
maintain.  I would guess that Postscript, which is designed to be written
by software rather than humans, will be even worse in this respect than
Forth.

On the Mac, Postscript as a graphics format is a serious pain in the
posterior.  The only thing you can do with it out of the box is to print
it, and that only if you have a Postscript capable printer. Most users
don't even know how to do that, and even for those that do there are
other problems.  Because sending Postscript files to the printer bypasses
the normal Page Setup and Print dialogs you are stuck with the layout
which is written into the file.  If the file was created for a larger
page size than your paper the margins are going to be cut off, and there's
nothing you can do about it, other than go back to the original program
and recreate the file (if possible).  Hardly any of the graphics software
can import Postscript, so if you want to look at the contents of the file
you have to install Ghostscript/MacGS viewer.  This is a wierd program
which doesn't pay much attention to the MacOS user interface and has
menus full of incomprehensible and undocumented commands.  But it will
let you look at the pictures in the file (one at a time, and only in the
order in which they exist in the file), and it will let you convert them
to a more tractable graphics format, albeit at a fixed resolution.

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Phil Taylor]

John Chambers wrote:
>Frank Nordberg wrote:
>| James Allwright wrote:
>| > Unless it has changed radically since I last looked, it is a source code
>| > distribution that will compile and run on anything with a C compiler...
>|
>| That's really great, but there's still a minor problem.
>|
>| One of the basic ideas behind ABC is that it's for everyone, and - as
>| hard as it is for us to believe - there is, even today, a small minority
>| of computer users that feel slightly uneasy when asked to compile the
>| software themselves...
>
>Great! Someone provides a program that solves the problem  of  binary
>incompatibility  by  supplying  the source in ANSI C.  Several people
>report compiling it on various obscure systems without any  problems.
>So the programmer gets criticised for writing a program that needs to
>be compiled.
>
>Ya sure can't win at this game.  ;-)

Nobody's criticising the author of the program.  However, the explosion
in computer use over the past few years has mainly come about as the
result of GUI interfaces like Windows and MacOS which don't require
users to mess with the works.  Most users don't understand the difference
between source and object code and wouldn't have a clue what to do with
a C compiler.  Neither do they want to learn - they are not interested
in computers per se, only in what they can do with them.

This is not just a problem for technophobes either.  I once spent a
whole day trying to install gcc on a Silicon Graphics Indy, eventually
giving up in disgust and trashing the whole thing.  I just don't have
the time to mess with a system which only delivers incomprehensible
error messages.  I still have the machine, but the only software on
it is stuff which is obtainable in binary form.

>(I have been tempted to translate abc[m]2ps to  perl,  just  for  the
>yuks,  and  for  extra  portability.   Then  it  wouldn't  have to be
>compiled.  But I  bet  I'd  get  flamed  because  perl  doesn't  come
>pre-installed on all possible computer systems.  ;-)

Sure.  Most MacOS users can't even use AppleScript (which has to be the
world's easiest scripting language) let alone perl.

It's a simple fact of life that no Mac user is going to be able to
use abcm2ps until I, or Wil Macauley or somebody else who knows how
to do it compiles it for them and hands out the binary.

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[John Chambers]

| >(I have been tempted to translate abc[m]2ps to  perl,  just  for  the
| >yuks,  and  for  extra  portability.   Then  it  wouldn't  have to be
| >compiled.  But I  bet  I'd  get  flamed  because  perl  doesn't  come
| >pre-installed on all possible computer systems.  ;-)
|
| Wouldn't the most portable language for it be PostScript itself?

You might think so, but it seems that  Windows  systems  still  don't
come out of the box with a postscript viewer.  Pretty much everything
else does, though. The idea of doing it in postscript is interesting.
I wonder how difficult it would actually be?

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Laura Conrad]

> "Jack" == Jack Campin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>> (I have been tempted to translate abc[m]2ps to perl, just for
>> the yuks, and for extra portability.  Then it wouldn't have to
>> be compiled.  But I bet I'd get flamed because perl doesn't
>> come pre-installed on all possible computer systems.  ;-)

Jack> Wouldn't the most portable language for it be PostScript itself?

Portability isn't the only virtue in a programming design --
maintainability is also important.  

-- 
Laura (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Jack Campin]

>(I have been tempted to translate abc[m]2ps to  perl,  just  for  the
>yuks,  and  for  extra  portability.   Then  it  wouldn't  have to be
>compiled.  But I  bet  I'd  get  flamed  because  perl  doesn't  come
>pre-installed on all possible computer systems.  ;-)

Wouldn't the most portable language for it be PostScript itself?

===  ===


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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[John Chambers]

Frank Nordberg wrote:
| James Allwright wrote:
| > Unless it has changed radically since I last looked, it is a source code
| > distribution that will compile and run on anything with a C compiler...
|
| That's really great, but there's still a minor problem.
|
| One of the basic ideas behind ABC is that it's for everyone, and - as
| hard as it is for us to believe - there is, even today, a small minority
| of computer users that feel slightly uneasy when asked to compile the
| software themselves...

Great! Someone provides a program that solves the problem  of  binary
incompatibility  by  supplying  the source in ANSI C.  Several people
report compiling it on various obscure systems without any  problems.
So the programmer gets criticised for writing a program that needs to
be compiled.

Ya sure can't win at this game.  ;-)

(I have been tempted to translate abc[m]2ps to  perl,  just  for  the
yuks,  and  for  extra  portability.   Then  it  wouldn't  have to be
compiled.  But I  bet  I'd  get  flamed  because  perl  doesn't  come
pre-installed on all possible computer systems.  ;-)

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Frank Nordberg]

James Allwright wrote:
> 
> Unless it has changed radically since I last looked, it is a source code
> distribution that will compile and run on anything with a C compiler...

(and various people have commented on this...)

That's really great, but there's still a minor problem.

One of the basic ideas behind ABC is that it's for everyone, and - as
hard as it is for us to believe - there is, even today, a small minority
of computer users that feel slightly uneasy when asked to compile the
software themselves...


Frank Nordberg
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RE: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Christophe Declercq]

> De : James Allwright [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Envoyé : vendredi 6 juillet 2001 14:03
> À : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Objet : [abcusers] linux only ?
>
>
> On Fri 06 Jul 2001 at 11:36AM +0200, Frank Nordberg wrote:
> >
> > 1. As far as I know both programs are single platform applications:
> > BarFly is Mac only, and from Jean-Francois' site I gather
> that abcm2ps
> > is Linux only.
> >
>
> Unless it has changed radically since I last looked, it is a
> source code
> distribution that will compile and run on anything with a C compiler.

Yes, it compiles seamlessly on my Windows 95 box with MinGW, the
'minimalist GNU for Windows' (http://www.mingw.org/): just 'cd' to the
abcm2ps directory, 'make', 'make clean' and that's it.

> Maybe it needs someone to compile it with DJGPP and put the executable
> on the web.

Eric Mrozek has a web page
(http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~mrozek/abc/abc2ps.html) with a Windows port
of abcm2ps, but the last update was on 16 October 2000 and there is only
a very old 0.9.5 version of abcm2ps there.

I have no web site but if somebody wants to test the compiled version I
have and put it on his web site (Jean-François?), just ask me off list.

BTW, did somebody try to use 'tclabc' (a tcl/tk interface to ABC) on
Windows?

Christophe

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Re: [abcusers] linux only ?

[Markus Lutz]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2001 13:02:30 +0100, James Allwright wrote:

JA> On Fri 06 Jul 2001 at 11:36AM +0200, Frank Nordberg wrote:
JA> >
JA> > 1. As far as I know both programs are single platform applications:
JA> > BarFly is Mac only, and from Jean-Francois' site I gather that abcm2ps
JA> > is Linux only.
JA> >
JA>
JA> Unless it has changed radically since I last looked, it is a source code
JA> distribution that will compile and run on anything with a C compiler.
JA> Maybe it needs someone to compile it with DJGPP and put the executable
JA> on the web.
JA>

I don't know BarFly, but abcm2ps in fact is a source code distribution that can be 
compiled with 
GNU-CC on every system. On my own I'm using it under Atari TOS.

Greetings, Markus



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[abcusers] linux only ?

[James Allwright]

On Fri 06 Jul 2001 at 11:36AM +0200, Frank Nordberg wrote:
> 
> 1. As far as I know both programs are single platform applications:
> BarFly is Mac only, and from Jean-Francois' site I gather that abcm2ps
> is Linux only.
> 

Unless it has changed radically since I last looked, it is a source code
distribution that will compile and run on anything with a C compiler.
Maybe it needs someone to compile it with DJGPP and put the executable
on the web.

I've been playing with Ghostscript under DOS recently. It turns out to
be easy to make it generate image files which you can then view with
your favourite image viewer. Perhaps we need someone to write a noddy
front-end that invokes an abc2ps clone, ghostscript and then an image
viewer to bring free abc typesetting to the masses.

James Allwright
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