Thanks, Hudson, for microabc with Sagittal!

Hello, Hudson and all.

Thank you so much for all the effort that went into microabc!
I realize that all too often, users who are content with a
program may just use it and remain silent -- but this doesn't
give a developer the kind of feedback and encouragement so
richly deserved, especially for free open source software,
nor does it let the developer know that there _is_ a demand
for the software and that in fact it may be filling needs
that otherwise would go sadly neglected.

I was considering making my first comment after I had actually
generated some output, but found today that installing some
needed supported programs (like a newer version of abcm2ps,
which I'm familiar with in version 3, and abcpp) was the main
agenda. I also got abc2midi, which should have a great advantage
in being able to generate a PostScript score and midi file from
the same abc file.

Anyway, you should know that I operate 100% of the time in a
command line environment -- this is my everyday computing life,
however "everyday" or otherwise a user I might be. I'm actually
running for the most part in a framebuffer environment, since I
like to view graphics (including PostScript or PDF music scores,
of course) and also to get the advantage of more columns and
lines on a single screen in quasi-text mode. To view PostScript
or PDF scores I use ghostscript plus zgv with shell scripts.

It's so exciting that someone has actually developed Sagittal
software, with a nice Type 1 font option no less, and with a
command-line interface so that I can use it.

I notice that you've made some posts recently on the Sagittal
notation, and I'll try to follow those as well as the tutorials
and examples.

An important point is that one developer can only do so many
things, and each style of programming has its own requirements.
For example, I hear from or about various people developing
softsynths that require a GUI, and the fact that I can't run
them myself doesn't mean that they are less valuable to their
many enthusiastic users. However, as a Linux user, I would like
to thank you and many others who continue to develop text-based
software -- with ecasound, mpg123 and mpg321, madplay, ogg123,
the abc tools, timidity, and now microabc all as examples
relevant here.

Also, I'm thrilled to have a means of producing Sagittal scores,
given the long efforts of George Secor and David Keenan in this
direction. I'm considering notating a piece both in Sagittal and
in a more familiar (to me) "keyboard notation" style to illustrate
the differences between the systems.

Recently there was an inquiry on one of the newsgroups, I recall
rec.music.theory, about Sagittal support in abc -- and now it's
happened! Congratulations!

I'll let you know what happens with my first tests.

Peace and love,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@...

> Anyway, you should know that I operate 100% of the time in a
> command line environment -- this is my everyday computing life

Can I just say... HARD CORE.

;-D

-Chris

Dear Margo and all,

Many thanks for so kind words. We should also acknowledge the time and effort dedicated by other people. Thanks go to:

- Jean-Fran�ois Moine
Maintainer of abcm2ps
http://moinejf.free.fr/
Implemented support for microtone accidentals in his excellent music typesetter software abcm2ps.

- Seymour Shlien
Maintainer of abcMIDI
http://ifdo.pugmarks.com/~seymour/runabc/top.html
Implemented support for microtone accidentals (which are converted into MIDI pitchbends), as well as a command to insert Standard MIDI Tuning messages, in the program abc2midi, for MIDI rendering.

- George Secor
- Dave Keenan
Authors of Sagittal Notation System and Sagittal characters font
http://dkeenan.com/sagittal/
Created Sagittal and provided me with the informations required to implement support for that microtonal notation system in microabc.

- - -

Well, there are some more technical things it's opportune to say:

* Magnus Jonsson found a bug in microabc-2006-07-03 (wrong declaration of some math functions), fixed in the latest version:
http://br.geocities.com/hfmlacerda/abc/microabc-2006-07-05.zip

* With the latest version, one can use different tunings in a same ABC file, e.g.:

-----------------------------

%%format sagittal.fmt

X:1
K:C
%
T:72-ET
%%microabc: equaltemp:72
[Bb][Bb/][Bbf][Bv][Bt][B\][Be][B/][Bf][B^][B#t][B#\][B#]
%
T:Just Intonation
%%microabc: lineartemp:12 2/1 3/2 3
[Bb][Bb/][Bbf][Bv][Bt][B\][Be][B/][Bf][B^][B#t][B#\][B#]

------------------------------

* microabc documentation is still far from complete. http://br.geocities.com/hfmlacerda/abc/microabc.html (or microabc.txt) includes the complete list of commands; by the other side, the tutorial is still very limited. I hope the provided examples can be instructive. People should know the essential concepts -- macros, preprocessors, and the basics on ABC notation. These links can be useful:
http://abc.sf.net/
http://abcplus.sf.net/
http://staffweb.cms.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/
http://abcplus.sourceforge.net/#abcpp

I am writting examples of use with Sagittal. Fortunatelly, the easier way to use microabc is as a preprocessor of pitches in (ASCII) Sagittal notation.

* To listen to the MIDI files with timidity, disable MIDI Reverb (or reduce it to a very small value). It causes undesirable side effects at noteoffs. I use Global freeverb effect instead:

timidity --reverb=G,60 -R8 file.mid

- - -

I would like, again, to ask people with access to Windows or MacOS machines to consider building and sharing microabc binary executables (I guess that DEB, RPM or autopackage files for GNU/Linux would not hurt). Only don't miss GNU GPL requirements.

Best wishes for all,
Hudson Lacerda

Margo Schulter escreveu:
> Hello, Hudson and all.
> > Thank you so much for all the effort that went into microabc!
> I realize that all too often, users who are content with a
> program may just use it and remain silent -- but this doesn't
> give a developer the kind of feedback and encouragement so
> richly deserved, especially for free open source software,
> nor does it let the developer know that there _is_ a demand
> for the software and that in fact it may be filling needs
> that otherwise would go sadly neglected.
> > I was considering making my first comment after I had actually
> generated some output, but found today that installing some
> needed supported programs (like a newer version of abcm2ps,
> which I'm familiar with in version 3, and abcpp) was the main
> agenda. I also got abc2midi, which should have a great advantage
> in being able to generate a PostScript score and midi file from
> the same abc file.
> > Anyway, you should know that I operate 100% of the time in a
> command line environment -- this is my everyday computing life,
> however "everyday" or otherwise a user I might be. I'm actually
> running for the most part in a framebuffer environment, since I
> like to view graphics (including PostScript or PDF music scores,
> of course) and also to get the advantage of more columns and
> lines on a single screen in quasi-text mode. To view PostScript
> or PDF scores I use ghostscript plus zgv with shell scripts.
> > It's so exciting that someone has actually developed Sagittal
> software, with a nice Type 1 font option no less, and with a
> command-line interface so that I can use it.
> > I notice that you've made some posts recently on the Sagittal
> notation, and I'll try to follow those as well as the tutorials
> and examples.
> > An important point is that one developer can only do so many
> things, and each style of programming has its own requirements.
> For example, I hear from or about various people developing
> softsynths that require a GUI, and the fact that I can't run
> them myself doesn't mean that they are less valuable to their
> many enthusiastic users. However, as a Linux user, I would like
> to thank you and many others who continue to develop text-based
> software -- with ecasound, mpg123 and mpg321, madplay, ogg123,
> the abc tools, timidity, and now microabc all as examples
> relevant here.
> > Also, I'm thrilled to have a means of producing Sagittal scores,
> given the long efforts of George Secor and David Keenan in this
> direction. I'm considering notating a piece both in Sagittal and
> in a more familiar (to me) "keyboard notation" style to illustrate
> the differences between the systems.
> > Recently there was an inquiry on one of the newsgroups, I recall
> rec.music.theory, about Sagittal support in abc -- and now it's
> happened! Congratulations!
> > I'll let you know what happens with my first tests.
> > Peace and love,
> > Margo Schulter
> mschulter@...
> > > > Yahoo! Groups Links
> > > > > > > -- '-------------------------------------------------------------------.
Hudson Lacerda <http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/hfmlacerda/>
*N�o deixe seu voto sumir! http://www.votoseguro.org/
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== THE WAR IN IRAQ COSTS ==
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