On Wed, 10 Oct 2001, James Allwright wrote: > > This is really a question about HTML and web browswers, not abc. Only > HTML files supports tags as far as I know, so you cannot put tags in > abc files, just as you cannot put tags in JPEGs, PNGs, Postscript > files or plain text files. However, if you are prepared to write a > few scripts to process abc files and produce HTML, you can probably > find a way to get what you want. > > On Wed 10 Oct 2001 at 02:50PM +0100, Jack Campin wrote: > > It would be handy if I could not merely configure a browser to start up > > an ABC application, but have it go to a particular tune in an ABC file > > using the HTML anchor syntax: > > > > <A HREF="NurseryRhymes.abc#OldMacDonald">Old MacDonald had a Farm</A> > > > > in the referring file, and a tagged line like > > > > X:<A NAME=OldMacDonald>42</A> > > > > in the ABC file. (Or some means of at least directing the application > > to the right tune, if not a specific point in it). > > > > Can any ABC application already do this? > > > > For which others is it feasible?
The idea is to have the web-browser start an abc-specific app, yes ? I think that what happens is that the browser saves the file to a temporary name, then starts up the configured app with that filename as an argument. I think that's all they can do, whereas the behaviour Jack wants would require a second argument, for the tag, whatever it be. So I don't think it could be done like that (unless somebody knows better, which is not impossible). It would be possible via CGI, of course. Run a http server locally, and call a script to parse an anchor-style URL into arguments appropriate for a suitable abc program. Or to pick the required tune out of a file and start the abc program on that. Or some such ... I've been wondering for ages about trying to build a full read-write interface to an abc collection via http (possibly via a perl::DBI module or somesuch) but it would require any user to install a raft of software, and is likely to be more trouble all round than it's worth. -- Richard Robinson "The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
