On 22 Sep 2007 at 11:13, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > On 22.09.2007 dhbailey wrote: > > The only way that files will ever be truly convertible with complete > > perfection and complete transparency in the process will be when the two > > companies sit down and agree on a file format that both will use. We know > > that will never happen. > > Well, I am not so sure. The only thing that has to happen is that Music > XML becomes so sophisticated that it can display a score completely > accurately, including layout, text, figured bass etc. Once that is > established it is simply a matter of time when every music program will > support it. Ideally there should also be a Music XML display > application, which can print, play, and display music files. Then Music > XML is going to be the standard for online publication of music.
The conversion to Music XML is not the problem, but the conversion from Music XML to a particular file format, such as Finale's or Sibelius's. A layout on a page can be perfectly described in the XML, but still has to be converted to whatever method in a particular music notation program is used to *get* that particular layout (my previous post mentioned figured bass, which is handled completely differently in Sibelius and Finale, so far as I understand Sibelius's approach). It's like PDF. PDFs display pretty much perfectly, but if you then tried to take a PDF and convert it into a word processing format, the results would not necessarily be very good. This is because all such portable formats have as their goal to display the WHAT but not the HOW. A converter has to figure out how to go from WHAT to HOW in a particular format. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
