On 17 Nov 2007 at 16:31, John W. Kennedy wrote: > The Directory wrote: > > please make a MUSIC NOTATION program (like how you made a math > > notepad in OO.org Math) as an OpenOffice suite component. It might > > even have the text editor version of the program, similar to > > LilyPond. > > Music notation is an intrinsically hard problem, still more "black art" > than engineering. That's an area that the open-source model doesn't seem > to do well; the "one or two mad geniuses" style of programming seems > more successful. I wish Sibelius had a Linux version, but it's not > expected anytime soon. > > And it would have nothing to do with OpenOffice.org's mission.
Well, /almost/ nothing. I've recently had the task of creating a couple of booklets involving music notation for my wife - varying from straight music typesetting to arranging fragments of music, words, rhythmical symbols and so on for a tutorial. While I certainly wouldn't expect OOo (or any other WP or DTP system) to handle the amazing intricacies of music formatting (it is, as you suggest, something of a black art), I /would/ expect to be able to use a standard DTP program to assemble part-documents created by other applications. In my case, I use abcm2ps for the music entry, from which epsi image files can be created with some extra effort. However, although postscript can be imported into OOo as an image, the facilities for viewing and printing this turned out to be disappointingly limited, and verging on useless. It took far longer to complete the booklet projects than I had expected. Someone was asking (on [EMAIL PROTECTED]) recently about a chemical-oriented drawing package to be added. While specialist requirements such as these are clearly outside the immediate scope of OOo, nevertheless it should be possible to import material from other programs much more easily than at present. My present feeling is that because postscript is producable (if only by print-to-file using a postscript printer driver) by most external programs, maybe ps could usefully be better supported by OOo. Just my 2d-worth -- various incoming sites blocked because of spam; see http://www.scottsonline.org.uk for a list and openpgp crypto key (key fingerprint 2ACC 9F21 5103 F68C 7C32 9EA8 C949 81E1 31C9 1364) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mike Scott, Harlow, Essex, England --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
