Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Tom Keays]

Jack Campin writes:
> I use A: for the author of the words.  This violates the 1.6 spec,
> but the "area" idea just doesn't work - you can't fit the geographic
> description of a tune into a one-liner.

And in another email continues:
> Better to use the O: field hierarchically:
> 
> O:Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
> O:Bradford and Bingley, Yorkshire, England

There is a corpus of music that uses both the A: and O: fields.  In these
cases "origin" O: is used not as a country or province name, but in the
sense of "nationality" and "area" A: is used as the geographic designator.

This example (slightly edited) from Steve Allen's "An ABC Library of Morris
Tunes"  shows how tunes have been
transcribed out of Lionel Bacon's "Handbook of Morris Dancing".

Why not use "composer/author" C: like the standard specifies rather than
bullying it into A:?  Are you using "author" in some special sense?  How
about:
C: John Lennon, music
C: Paul McCartney, words

%abc
X:1
T:Beaux of London City
M:9/8
C:
S:Bacon (News)
N:transposed from F to G
A:Adderbury
O:English
R:Slip Jig
P:A.(AB3)6
K:G
P:A
|:\
   D | G>GG BAG BGG BAG BDG B2A  G2 :|\
P:B
%?: the music demands a rest, but it is not in Bacon
|: d2c  BAG Bd2   | A2A  A2B  c3 |\
   d2c  BAG BDG B2A  G2 :|

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(Getting OT) Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Frank Nordberg]

John Chambers wrote:

Yeah, and there has been a  slow  inflation  of  "standard"
pitch  over  the  several  centuries  that we've had such a
concept.
...

One of the explanations that  I've  heard  is  that  string
players tend to be leaders in this race.
...

They do, and singers suffer the most. As standards of living increase, 
the singers gets more well-fed and their voices drop in pitch. At the 
same time, the notes they are supposed to sing go the other way. 
(Everybody who has tried to sing the tenor in a choir perfoming a Bach 
cantate probably winces from bad memories at this point. ;-)

Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com
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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[John Chambers]

Frank Nordberg writes:
| John Chambers wrote:
| > I can't think of a way to make a funny tie-in to music for this  now.
| > Maybe someone else can.
|
| Not so funny perhaps, but US orchestras tend to tune their instruments
| slightly higher than waht is common in the rest of the world.
|
| This is sometimes a problem for wind players and for wind instrument
| manufacturers who have to make special models for the US market.

Yeah, and there has been a  slow  inflation  of  "standard"
pitch  over  the  several  centuries  that we've had such a
concept. And the real leaders here are in Norway, where the
hardingfele  players  often  tune  as  much as a whole step
sharp.  Highland pipers have an A that's about the same  as
everyone else's Bb.  And so on.

One of the explanations that  I've  heard  is  that  string
players tend to be leaders in this race. The reason is that
if you tune your instrument higher, you get  a  louder  and
brighter sound.  It also destroys the instrument faster, of
course, but for a few decades you might not notice.

Orchestras don't seem to have as much  variability  as  the
smaller groups, though. When you're tuning to the oboe, you
don't have as wide a range. And an all-string group has few
limits other than when the strings (or the neck) break.

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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Frank Nordberg]

John Chambers wrote:


I can't think of a way to make a funny tie-in to music for this  now.
Maybe someone else can.
Not so funny perhaps, but US orchestras tend to tune their instruments 
slightly higher than waht is common in the rest of the world.

This is sometimes a problem for wind players and for wind instrument 
manufacturers who have to make special models for the US market.



Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com
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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Bruce Olson]

John Chambers wrote:
> 
> Bruce Olson writes:
> | John Chambers wrote:
> 

Sorry for that; I clicked the wrong button.

NIST studies a situation and makes reccomendations to Congress. 
Congress, not NIST, then considers, and decides what will be a legal
definition.
 
Bruce Olson
-- 
Roots of Folk: Old British Isles popular and folk songs, tunes, 
and broadside ballads at Bruce Olson's website http://www.erols.com/olsonw";> Click 
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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Bruce Olson]

John Chambers wrote:
> 
> Bruce Olson writes:
> | John Chambers wrote:
> | > There  was  a  rather  funny  NRP  article in the late 80's about the
> | > non-celebration of the 100th anniversary of the  US  "going  metric".
> | > They explained what they meant by this, of course, and in the process
> | > explained  a  lot  about  the  peculiar  understanding  of  the  term
> | > "standard" in this country.  It seems that, since the late 1880s, the
> | > legal US definition of the inch is 2.54 cm.  That's exact, because it
> | > actually  is the definition of "inch".  Similarly, "pound" is defined
> | > as so many grams, and so on with other measurements.
> |
> | I don't think that is quite right. My recollection is that
> | 39.37 inches was one meter until some time in the 1970s.
> |
> | I was one of many scientists at the US National Bureau of
> | Standards who was appalled, to say the least, when the US
> | government decided to abandon their highly publicized campaign to
> | convert to metric. Much had already been done, at no small
> | expense, and had to be abandoned for an expensive reconversion
> | back to 'English' units [e.g., all the new gasoline/petrol pumps that
> | delivered in liters had to be abandoned, and old (US) gallon pumps
> | reinstalled].
> 
> Actually, part of the NPR article was a curious  fact  that  lots  of
> legal  types  have  also pointed out:  The US actually has no legally
> required system of  measurement,  except  for  a  very  few  specific
> products.   What  the  NBS  (or  NIST or whatever they're called this
> month) does is provide legal definitions of  measurements.   They  in
> effect  say  "If  you  measure something in inches, you mush use this
> definition of an inch.  But if you measure it in,  say,  attoparsecs,
> this  is  the  definition of a parsec (and of the atto- prefix)." The
> claim that the US had "gone metric" in the 1880's was shorthand for a
> more  complex  thing:   The  NBS  redefined  a  whole lot of units of
> measurement in terms of the "metric" standards in  Paris.   They  did
> this  because  they decided that those were the best-calibrated units
> at the time. Americans were still free to use whatever godawful units
> they liked; the NBS merely defined those units in metric terms.
> 
> Funny thing is that in recent years, they  have  abandoned  any  such
> calibrated  units  for  most  measurements.   Units  of time, length,
> voltage, etc.  are now defined in terms such as the wavelength  of  a
> specific  spectral  line in a specific isotope.  So you don't have to
> depend on a physical copy of a physical  object  halfway  around  the
> world; you can determine the units in the privacy of your own lab. In
> most of the world, this is now the situation. So the US abandoned the
> metric  system  in the 70's, in the same sense that it was adopted in
> the 1880's. And it had no real effect on anything outside a few labs.
> 
>
-- 
Roots of Folk: Old British Isles popular and folk songs, tunes, 
and broadside ballads at Bruce Olson's website http://www.erols.com/olsonw";> Click 
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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[John Chambers]

Bruce Olson writes:
| John Chambers wrote:
| > There  was  a  rather  funny  NRP  article in the late 80's about the
| > non-celebration of the 100th anniversary of the  US  "going  metric".
| > They explained what they meant by this, of course, and in the process
| > explained  a  lot  about  the  peculiar  understanding  of  the  term
| > "standard" in this country.  It seems that, since the late 1880s, the
| > legal US definition of the inch is 2.54 cm.  That's exact, because it
| > actually  is the definition of "inch".  Similarly, "pound" is defined
| > as so many grams, and so on with other measurements.
|
| I don't think that is quite right. My recollection is that
| 39.37 inches was one meter until some time in the 1970s.
|
| I was one of many scientists at the US National Bureau of
| Standards who was appalled, to say the least, when the US
| government decided to abandon their highly publicized campaign to
| convert to metric. Much had already been done, at no small
| expense, and had to be abandoned for an expensive reconversion
| back to 'English' units [e.g., all the new gasoline/petrol pumps that
| delivered in liters had to be abandoned, and old (US) gallon pumps
| reinstalled].

Actually, part of the NPR article was a curious  fact  that  lots  of
legal  types  have  also pointed out:  The US actually has no legally
required system of  measurement,  except  for  a  very  few  specific
products.   What  the  NBS  (or  NIST or whatever they're called this
month) does is provide legal definitions of  measurements.   They  in
effect  say  "If  you  measure something in inches, you mush use this
definition of an inch.  But if you measure it in,  say,  attoparsecs,
this  is  the  definition of a parsec (and of the atto- prefix)." The
claim that the US had "gone metric" in the 1880's was shorthand for a
more  complex  thing:   The  NBS  redefined  a  whole lot of units of
measurement in terms of the "metric" standards in  Paris.   They  did
this  because  they decided that those were the best-calibrated units
at the time. Americans were still free to use whatever godawful units
they liked; the NBS merely defined those units in metric terms.

Funny thing is that in recent years, they  have  abandoned  any  such
calibrated  units  for  most  measurements.   Units  of time, length,
voltage, etc.  are now defined in terms such as the wavelength  of  a
specific  spectral  line in a specific isotope.  So you don't have to
depend on a physical copy of a physical  object  halfway  around  the
world; you can determine the units in the privacy of your own lab. In
most of the world, this is now the situation. So the US abandoned the
metric  system  in the 70's, in the same sense that it was adopted in
the 1880's. And it had no real effect on anything outside a few labs.

I can't think of a way to make a funny tie-in to music for this  now.
Maybe someone else can. Something along the lines of how we no longer
need to calibrate our instruments to any mundane physical objects  in
this  world;  we can align our music with the very basic phenomena of
the cosmos.  But there's gotta be a better  (i.e.,  funnier)  way  to
express the idea ...



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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Phil Taylor]

John Chambers wrote:
>Phil Taylor writes:
>| John Chambers wrote:
>| >An interesting example:  Sears is still one of the biggest seller  of
>| >tools  in  the US, and they still sells tools labelled "Standard" and
>| >"Metric".  You folks in the rest  of  the  world  may  find  yourself
>| >bewildered by this, but yes, they actually get away with it.
>|
>| Well, they can't exactly call the system of measurement based on the
>| inch, pound and gallon "Imperial" can they?  Or maybe they can...
>
>Well, they could, and you do still see this in the US.  But "English"
>is  the  more  common  term  used  by people who understand that such
>measures are no longer the standard anywhere.

Not even in England - well you can still buy milk and beer in pints,
and the road signs are still in miles,  but I think those are the only
exceptions.  Kids are only taught S.I. units in school now.  When I
was in primary school there were zillions of obscure units of
measurement to be remembered - 22 yards = 1 chain, 10 chains = 1 furlong
and 5 feet = 1 rod, pole or perch.  I never figured out what rods/poles
/perches were used to measure, but I still remember what they are.
It was pre-decimal currency too, so 12 pence to the shilling and
20 shillings to the pound.  1/3 of a pound was 6/8d (no, it's not
a fraction, it's an exact number of pennies).  Now it's an irrational
number.  At least by the time you got taught about base systems you'd
already been doing mental arithmetic in multiple bases for years, so
it was no big deal.  I wonder if that makes me better at hex arithmetic
than my kids are?

>The legal situation in the US is more complex than you might imagine.
>There  was  a  rather  funny  NRP  article in the late 80's about the
>non-celebration of the 100th anniversary of the  US  "going  metric".
>They explained what they meant by this, of course, and in the process
>explained  a  lot  about  the  peculiar  understanding  of  the  term
>"standard" in this country.  It seems that, since the late 1880s, the
>legal US definition of the inch is 2.54 cm.  That's exact, because it
>actually  is the definition of "inch".  Similarly, "pound" is defined
>as so many grams, and so on with other measurements.
>
>I have this vision of a "standard American" music notation.  It would
>look  much  like  the European notation.  But a quarter note would be
>0.27 times the length of a whole note, and an eighth  note  would  be
>1/3 the length of a quarter note. Rests would be 1.5 times the length
>of the corresponding notes.  And  we'd  call  these  "standard"  note
>lengths.   We'd think the "metric" note lengths are very difficult to
>learn, because they are all such strange multiples of the  "standard"
>lengths.   And  we'd expend a huge effort in our printing industry to
>constantly convert between the two systems.

Ho Ho!

Phil Taylor


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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Richard Robinson]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 07:04:02PM -0400, Bruce Olson wrote:
> John Chambers wrote:
> > Phil Taylor writes:
> > | John Chambers wrote:
> > | >An interesting example:  Sears is still one of the biggest seller  of
> > | >tools  in  the US, and they still sells tools labelled "Standard" and
> > | >"Metric".  You folks in the rest  of  the  world  may  find  yourself
> > | >bewildered by this, but yes, they actually get away with it.
> > |
> > | Well, they can't exactly call the system of measurement based on the
> > | inch, pound and gallon "Imperial" can they?  Or maybe they can...
> > 
> > Well, they could, and you do still see this in the US.  But "English"
> > is  the  more  common  term  used  by people who understand that such
> > measures are no longer the standard anywhere.
> > 
> > The legal situation in the US is more complex than you might imagine.
> > There  was  a  rather  funny  NRP  article in the late 80's about the
> > non-celebration of the 100th anniversary of the  US  "going  metric".
> > They explained what they meant by this, of course, and in the process
> > explained  a  lot  about  the  peculiar  understanding  of  the  term
> > "standard" in this country.  It seems that, since the late 1880s, the
> > legal US definition of the inch is 2.54 cm.  That's exact, because it
> > actually  is the definition of "inch".  Similarly, "pound" is defined
> > as so many grams, and so on with other measurements.
> > 
> >
> 
> I don't think that is quite right. My recollection is that 
> 39.37 inches was one meter until some time in the 1970s.

In Britain, certainly, the inch was redefined some time around then.
In the mid-80s, my brothers wrote a DTP package, which involved digging
up the exact details of units. They discovered, rather to their suprise
(since we'd none of us ever heard any public announcement of the fact)
that the UK inch had previously been been equal to 2.54 cm,
which was what we thought we knew, but had been redefined a few years previously,
to be exactly equal to 2.54 cm.

-- 
Richard Robinson
"The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes" - S. Lem
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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Bruce Olson]

John Chambers wrote:
> 
> Phil Taylor writes:
> | John Chambers wrote:
> | >An interesting example:  Sears is still one of the biggest seller  of
> | >tools  in  the US, and they still sells tools labelled "Standard" and
> | >"Metric".  You folks in the rest  of  the  world  may  find  yourself
> | >bewildered by this, but yes, they actually get away with it.
> |
> | Well, they can't exactly call the system of measurement based on the
> | inch, pound and gallon "Imperial" can they?  Or maybe they can...
> 
> Well, they could, and you do still see this in the US.  But "English"
> is  the  more  common  term  used  by people who understand that such
> measures are no longer the standard anywhere.
> 
> The legal situation in the US is more complex than you might imagine.
> There  was  a  rather  funny  NRP  article in the late 80's about the
> non-celebration of the 100th anniversary of the  US  "going  metric".
> They explained what they meant by this, of course, and in the process
> explained  a  lot  about  the  peculiar  understanding  of  the  term
> "standard" in this country.  It seems that, since the late 1880s, the
> legal US definition of the inch is 2.54 cm.  That's exact, because it
> actually  is the definition of "inch".  Similarly, "pound" is defined
> as so many grams, and so on with other measurements.
> 
>

I don't think that is quite right. My recollection is that 
39.37 inches was one meter until some time in the 1970s.

I was one of many scientists at the US National Bureau of
Standards who was appalled, to say the least, when the US
government decided to abandon their highly publicized campaign to
convert to metric. Much had already been done, at no small
expense, and had to be abandoned for an expensive reconversion
back to 'English' units [e.g., all the new gasoline/petrol pumps that
delivered in liters had to be abandoned, and old (US) gallon pumps
reinstalled].  

Bruce Olson
-- 
Roots of Folk: Old British Isles popular and folk songs, tunes, 
and broadside ballads at Bruce Olson's website http://www.erols.com/olsonw";> Click 
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Re: [abcusers] About the choice of '!'

[Wil Macaulay]

Please don't think me rude, but I think you've missed a very large 
category of users
completely.  These are people who record large collections of tunes 
(admittedly,
each tune is likely to be a 'simple folk melody' with or without lyrics),
often in the hundreds or  thousands of tunes, related by genre or origin.
They will use abc instead of or in addition to tunebooks.  These people 
collect tunes
and transcribe them, exchange them via email, publish them as a resource
on the internet or as a collection on CD-ROM and also want to print them as
dots or play them when required.  They need software to proofread or 
proofhear
what they've entered, to index, to search, to compare tunes, etc.   
Sophisticated
typesetting is not likely to be a first-order requirement, certainly not 
at the
expense of readability.

Arent Storm wrote:

Having read the discussion about bang & co for quite a while
I' d like to add my two (euro)cents.
I have more or less implemented a full abc import/export of
ABC in MusiCAD based on 1.6 and beyond, trying to accommodate
as much extensions as possible (words/multivoice/etc).
When implementing linebreaks the CR/LF, I took the approach of
ignoring CR/LF at all. MusiCAD determines clustering, barlines, linebreaks
pagebreaks and so on, so the information abc provides in this respect
was simply ignored without much consequenses.
I guess the same will hold for other notation software using abc as second
language.
 

agreed

As far I can see there are two main visions within the abc-community

1)
People using ABC for sight reading, in fact not in need of any software
whatsoever.
replace 'sight reading' by 'exchange, archival and reference format' and 
rethink your statement

When you are using abc this way (where it has its roots) the need for ! as
forced line-break is obviously very low. I guess that a lot of other header
info will not be used either. Music thus written has to be as concise and
clear formatted as possible; linebreak equals CR/LF is a perfect solution
for that job.
other header info is remarkably important

All bells&whistles like multiple staves, fancy !trill! symbols
in-line words and so on will also disturb the ease of human reading
that was the power of abc.
A line continuation is more or less nessecary because the
paper (screen) that they're writing on is also limited.
For group1 the upcoming standard will be more or less ignorable...
as long as ABC2.0 compliant software will read/play/display
their abc's albeit with linebreaks at different places
2)
People who use abc mainly as a language to engrave music
(the majority?) might look at it differently.
 

Not the majority if you weight the users by the amount of published 
material,
I suspect.

As soon as abc is fed into software to
engrave it on paper, the layout *CANNOT* be assumed
to fit on paper (which size paper/screen should it fit on?)
Software will of course take care of linebreaks (and should
do the same for barlines...) When using abc this way a
forced-linebreak-device other than CR/LF is simply nessecary
and the layout should not be cluttered by CR/LF linebreaks.
Luckily notation software can easily be instructed to ignore
CR/LF and place linebreaks where nessecary for the job
based on layout instructions in the program itself or meta-comments
in the file itself like
%%FMT-BarsPerLine 4
%%FMT-LinesPerPage 11
%%FMT-TitleFont Roman 11 bold
(all instructions not meant for goup1) ;-)
Thus the original abc remains unbroken, and musically intact, 
be it that the beforementioned layout will be different than perhaps
intended by the author, which seems a minor issue.
 

agreed

I am afraid that you cannot have everything of both worlds
simple abc as in thge average reel or a multi-voice symphony
In fact the current standard tries to describe the layout of a tune using
CR/LF which is IMO undesirable; it should describe the music only
not the way it must fit on paper.
Arent

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agreed

wil
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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[John Chambers]

Phil Taylor writes:
| John Chambers wrote:
| >An interesting example:  Sears is still one of the biggest seller  of
| >tools  in  the US, and they still sells tools labelled "Standard" and
| >"Metric".  You folks in the rest  of  the  world  may  find  yourself
| >bewildered by this, but yes, they actually get away with it.
|
| Well, they can't exactly call the system of measurement based on the
| inch, pound and gallon "Imperial" can they?  Or maybe they can...

Well, they could, and you do still see this in the US.  But "English"
is  the  more  common  term  used  by people who understand that such
measures are no longer the standard anywhere.

The legal situation in the US is more complex than you might imagine.
There  was  a  rather  funny  NRP  article in the late 80's about the
non-celebration of the 100th anniversary of the  US  "going  metric".
They explained what they meant by this, of course, and in the process
explained  a  lot  about  the  peculiar  understanding  of  the  term
"standard" in this country.  It seems that, since the late 1880s, the
legal US definition of the inch is 2.54 cm.  That's exact, because it
actually  is the definition of "inch".  Similarly, "pound" is defined
as so many grams, and so on with other measurements.

I have this vision of a "standard American" music notation.  It would
look  much  like  the European notation.  But a quarter note would be
0.27 times the length of a whole note, and an eighth  note  would  be
1/3 the length of a quarter note. Rests would be 1.5 times the length
of the corresponding notes.  And  we'd  call  these  "standard"  note
lengths.   We'd think the "metric" note lengths are very difficult to
learn, because they are all such strange multiples of the  "standard"
lengths.   And  we'd expend a huge effort in our printing industry to
constantly convert between the two systems.


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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Phil Taylor]

John Chambers wrote:

>An interesting example:  Sears is still one of the biggest seller  of
>tools  in  the US, and they still sells tools labelled "Standard" and
>"Metric".  You folks in the rest  of  the  world  may  find  yourself
>bewildered by this, but yes, they actually get away with it.

Well, they can't exactly call the system of measurement based on the
inch, pound and gallon "Imperial" can they?  Or maybe they can...

Phil Taylor


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[abcusers] Abacus 2.1.0 release

[Bryancreer]

Abacus 2.1.0 is available for download.  (2.0.0 never made it into the public arena.)

I've been tinkering with it for so long that I can't remember all the new things since 1.0.0 but it's got a much whizzier interface and things like selecting print size and transposition.  Oh yes, it doesn't fall over under Windows XP any more (probably).

It is shareware with a registration fee of £10/$16 but you can play with it for quite a while before you register it.

It is available from http://www.abacusmusic.co.uk/

Constructive comments, useful suggestions and even intelligent criticism are welcome.  Abuse and carping will be ignored.  My response to "It doesn't do..."  will probably be  "No, not yet."

Bryan Creer

Re: [abcusers]New standard(s)

[John Chambers]

Bryan Creer wrote:
|
| John Chambers wrote:
|
| >I should maybe mention that this is a somewhat old W98=A0 box
| >.=A0 And reboot is several times per day.
|
| Perhaps it's gone into a sulk because it's heard you being rude about=20
| Microsoft.

Maybe.  And note that a  lot  of  the  recent  Microsoft  EULAs  have
included  a  term  making  it  illegal for a licensed user to publish
anything derogatory about the product.  At least in the US, where  we
have  the DMCA, this is now a legal restraint of free speech.  And if
you don't have a license to use the product, you can't  legally  test
it.  So publishing a negative product review is either a violation of
the EULA or it's a public admission of software piracy.

This is widely believed to be one of the main reasons that  the  DMCA
was  passed.   It  wasn't  really  about  stopping piracy, protecting
copyright, and all that.  It was passed to outlaw all those  critical
reviews of shoddy products that were causing so many problems.

(For example, in the Dmitri Sklyarov case, many lawyers have  pointed
out  that  he wasn't charged with decrypting a copy-protection scheme
used with commercial recordings.  That's legal.  He was charged  with
publishing  the  fact that his company had broken the encryption, and
that's illegal.  It's an announcement that the encryption scheme  was
weak, and letting potential customers know such things is a violation
of the DMCA and other laws.)

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[abcusers] Re: New standard(s)

[Bryancreer]

John Chambers wrote:

>I should maybe mention that this is a somewhat old W98  box
>.  And reboot is several times per day.

Perhaps it's gone into a sulk because it's heard you being rude about Microsoft.

Bryan Creer

[abcusers] Dotted elements

[I. Oppenheim]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, John Chambers wrote:

> What  some editors will do with music like this, to
> preserve the original measures but make counting easier,  is  to  use
> broken bar lines (here a ':') like this:

What has been proposed, is to notate dotted bars,
dotted slurs and dotted ties as follows:

.|  .(  .-

Seems sensible to me.


 Irwin Oppenheim
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 ~~~*

 Chazzanut Online:
 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/
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Re: [abcusers]ABC sects

[John Chambers]

Bernard Hill writes:
| In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, I. Oppenheim writes
| >On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, John Chambers wrote:
| >> For that matter, I've  often  wished  that  abc  officially
| >> supported a bare :  in the middle of a staff. In some other
| >> kinds of music, this is used inside  long  measures,  as  a
| >> sort of weak, "editorial" bar line
| >
| >This is a completely different matter.
| >
| >You're talking about having dotted bars and dotted
| >slurs for editorial purposes. Both are indeed quite
| >useful.
|
| I'm not sure - is he? What about split bars, ie ones where the first
| part is on stave 1 and the second half on stave 2. Stave 1 has no end
| barline.

No, Irwin was right.  Split bars should just be drawn without  a  bar
line  at  the end of the staff.  But consider for example the opening
bars of this well-known work of Bach:

X: 1
T: Sonata in G for two flutes and continuo
T: BWV 1039
C: J.S.Bach (1685-1750)
N: Also published as a sonata for viola da gambo and cembalo.
N: Voice 2 is the gamba part.
Q: "Adagio"
M: 12/8
L: 1/16
K: G
V: 1
[| d24- | d12- d2 c6 B4- |
| B2A4- A2d2F2 G6- GBA^cdA | FBAGFE F2D2EF/G/ F2AGFE FDA2B^c/d/ |
| ^c2dcBA d2A2AB/=c/ B2cBAG A2d2FG/A/ | G2AGFE FEDEFG AGBAGF E4e2- |
V: 2
[| B2dcBA B2G2AB/c/ {c}B2dcBA BGd2ef/g/ | f2gfed g2d2de/=f/ {f}e2fedc d2a2Bc/d/ |
| {d}c2dcBA BAGABc dcedcB AGFED2 | a24- |
| a12- a2 g6 f4- | f2e4- e2a2T^c2 d6- dcedcB |


The long bars were common then, and this  makes  for  some  difficult
counting at times.  When you realize how much syncopation there is in
this music, you can see that it's very easy to get lost in the middle
of  a  measure.   What  some editors will do with music like this, to
preserve the original measures but make counting easier,  is  to  use
broken bar lines (here a ':') like this:

[| d12- : d12- | d12- : d2 c6 B4- |
| B2A4- A2d2F2 : G6- GBA^cdA | FBAGFE F2D2EF/G/ : F2AGFE FDA2B^c/d/ |
| ^c2dcBA d2A2AB/=c/ : B2cBAG A2d2FG/A/ | G2AGFE FEDEFG : AGBAGF E4e2- |
V: 2
[| B2dcBA B2G2AB/c/ : {c}B2dcBA BGd2ef/g/ | f2gfed g2d2de/=f/ : {f}e2fedc d2a2Bc/d/ |
| {d}c2dcBA BAGABc : dcedcB AGFED2 | a12- : a12 - |
| a12- : a2 g6 f4- | f2e4- e2a2T^c2 : d6- dcedcB |

I hope I counted right. ;-)

This is a small change, but it can add a lot to  the  readability  of
such  music.   One  could, of course, just use regular bar lines, and
some editors will do that. But that's being less true to the original
composer's  notation.   Experienced  Baroque  musicians  usually like
"urtext" editions better than modernized editions, so  they  can  see
what  musicians  of  the time saw without being misled by an editor's
additions. Those grace notes - apoggiaturas actually - may or may not
have been in the original, but they're in both of the editions that I
have, so I've kept them.

Broken bar lines are sometimes shown as four dots or vertical  dashes
in  the  staff's  spaces.   They  are more often shown as a string of
vertical dashes, a bar line with a gap in each staff space. You can't
draw that too well in ascii, though.

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Re: [abcusers] About the choice of '!'

[Arent Storm]

Having read the discussion about bang & co for quite a while
I' d like to add my two (euro)cents.
I have more or less implemented a full abc import/export of
ABC in MusiCAD based on 1.6 and beyond, trying to accommodate
as much extensions as possible (words/multivoice/etc).

When implementing linebreaks the CR/LF, I took the approach of
ignoring CR/LF at all. MusiCAD determines clustering, barlines, linebreaks
pagebreaks and so on, so the information abc provides in this respect
was simply ignored without much consequenses.
I guess the same will hold for other notation software using abc as second
language.

As far I can see there are two main visions within the abc-community

1)
People using ABC for sight reading, in fact not in need of any software
whatsoever.
When you are using abc this way (where it has its roots) the need for ! as
forced line-break is obviously very low. I guess that a lot of other header
info will not be used either. Music thus written has to be as concise and
clear formatted as possible; linebreak equals CR/LF is a perfect solution
for that job.
All bells&whistles like multiple staves, fancy !trill! symbols
in-line words and so on will also disturb the ease of human reading
that was the power of abc.
A line continuation is more or less nessecary because the
paper (screen) that they're writing on is also limited.
For group1 the upcoming standard will be more or less ignorable...
as long as ABC2.0 compliant software will read/play/display
their abc's albeit with linebreaks at different places

2)
People who use abc mainly as a language to engrave music
(the majority?) might look at it differently.
As soon as abc is fed into software to
engrave it on paper, the layout *CANNOT* be assumed
to fit on paper (which size paper/screen should it fit on?)
Software will of course take care of linebreaks (and should
do the same for barlines...) When using abc this way a
forced-linebreak-device other than CR/LF is simply nessecary
and the layout should not be cluttered by CR/LF linebreaks.
Luckily notation software can easily be instructed to ignore
CR/LF and place linebreaks where nessecary for the job
based on layout instructions in the program itself or meta-comments
in the file itself like
 %%FMT-BarsPerLine 4
 %%FMT-LinesPerPage 11
 %%FMT-TitleFont Roman 11 bold
(all instructions not meant for goup1) ;-)
Thus the original abc remains unbroken, and musically intact, 
be it that the beforementioned layout will be different than perhaps
intended by the author, which seems a minor issue.

I am afraid that you cannot have everything of both worlds
simple abc as in thge average reel or a multi-voice symphony
In fact the current standard tries to describe the layout of a tune using
CR/LF which is IMO undesirable; it should describe the music only
not the way it must fit on paper.

Arent

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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[John Chambers]

Frank Nordberg writes:
| Bernard Hill wrote:
| >>Why shouldn't it?
| >
| > Er, why *should* it?
|
| Hmmm
|
| Seems you're right. I was so sure the copyright symbol was a part of the
| ascii standard I didn't even bother to check. It's certainly a part of
| the Mac's standard character set! But iturns out it's not even included
| in the "official unoffical" extended ascii.
| Seems ascii is even worse than I suspected!

Heh.  Remember that ASCII was published back in '63, long before most
computer  people  could even spell "copyright".  (Well, a lot of them
still spell it "copyrite" or "copywrite",  so  maybe  we're  still  a
rather  clueless  lot).   Even  in  1967,  when they made the radical
extension that included (gasp!) lower-case letters, it would still be
decades  before the RIAA and Disney lawyers would descend on us.  The
main use of copyright was to prevent publisher A from reprinting  the
top-selling books from publisher B and selling them as their own.

As a sign of how little the concept was  known,  the  public  started
using  "Mickey  Mouse"  as  an adjective, and Disney didn't file suit
against anyone.  A suggestion that they use up a precious slot in the
7-bit  character  set for the publishers' copyright symbol would have
been taken as a bit of light humor by the ASCII committee.  Then they
would  have  gone on to something important, like whether they needed
both open- and close-double-quote chars, or would a single code do?

| Btw, here's a reference site that might be useful to some:
| http://www.asciitable.com/
|
| Only the first 127 are really safe for cross-platform purposes (or even
| between theoretically "identical" DOS/Win computers)
| This is the original set that a bunch of dyslectic engineering school
| drop-outs came up with over their 6th round of beer at the local strip
| joint late one Saturday night, and eventually managed to foist onto the
| ASA (The Anti-Standards Association)

That just might a more accurate  depiction  than  what  the  texbooks
would have you believe.

Of course, there's a long history, especially in the computer biz, of
using "standard" to mean "whatever we do here".

An interesting example:  Sears is still one of the biggest seller  of
tools  in  the US, and they still sells tools labelled "Standard" and
"Metric".  You folks in the rest  of  the  world  may  find  yourself
bewildered by this, but yes, they actually get away with it.

One of the ongoing points of terminological friction in the  computer
world  is that the mostly unixoid crowd that among other things built
the Internet uses "standard"  to  mean  "whatever  is  decreed  by  a
(preferably  international)  standards  organization".   But  to most
American corporations, include Microsoft and Apple, "standard"  still
means "whatever we are marketing (this month)".

If we want our software and tunes to work on everyone's computers, we
really need to understand this, and continually bring it up.  The big
computer firms are not going to support us on this issue.   (If  your
computer  uses  any code other than hex A9 for a copyright symbol, it
is in fact not following any official standard.

(I still contend that, with all its warts, ABC still provides  better
interoperability than almost anything in the computer industry.  It's
amazing that a gang of musicians could actually do even this  good  a
job of it.  ;-)


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[abcusers] Re: New standard(s)

[Bryancreer]

John Chambers wrote:

>So I tried it.  Got the Character Map  window,  found  the  copyright
>char,  double  clicked  on it, went to another window, clicked on it,
>went to the Edit menu and selected Paste ...  and a capital O with an
>acute accent appeared at the cursor point in the window.

There's a step missing in what you say there.  After double clicking the character you should click Copy on the Character Map window.  Failing that, what application are you pasting in to?  It works all right for me.

Bryan Creer

Re: [abcusers] Announcement: ABC 2.0.0 draft online

[MCPearce0]

In a message dated 21/07/2003 11:59:49 GMT Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Subj: Re: [abcusers] Announcement: ABC 2.0.0 draft online 
 Date: 21/07/2003 11:59:49 GMT Standard Time
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent from the Internet 




>1. In the accents I think it should be made clearer that multiple accents are 
>allowed. !pp!!trill! etc.

And what do you expect to see in this case?


In this particular case I expect to see a trill mark over the note and a pp indication somewhere near it. That was only an example. The standard, as I read it, allows this already (I was using accent to refer to the general accents/annotations). It was just the wording in the 2.0 draft document I wanted making clearer; IIRC the only indication that more than one is allowed is the use of the plural  in the Order Of Symbols section.

>
>2. While the accents list is now fuller than formerly, there are some others 
>I think should be added:
>
>  a) !diamond! to place a small diamond over the note

*where* above the note? What does it mean musically? Artificial
harmonics can be at different places to mean different harmonics.


Above the staff the same as other accent marks. (There are many other ways to notate harmonics, but usually involving 2 notes on the stem - the playing note (usually with a string indication) and an open diamond showing the sounding pitch for example. This would need writing as a chord with 2 different note-heads for example -  see below).


>  d) !tremolo1! !tremolo2! and !tremolo3" to draw a note with 1, 2 or 3 
>diagonal lines over them to indicate tremolo

Isn't that what ~ is for? A roll?


Repeated note playing eg 4 1/8 notes can be indicated by a 1/2 note with a single diagonal line through the stem or 8 x 1/16 notes by a 1/2 note with 2 diagonal lines through the note stem and so on. Not usually what the roll symbol is for.


>
>3. The thing I find most desirable to include which is not here is varied 
>note head types , for me most often the cross-head 'x' to indicate unpitched 
>spoken words or noises (taps, bangs) , but diamond note heads are used to show 
>harmonics in guitar music. These could be included as formatting options:
>
>  %%notehead x or %%notehead cross
>  %%notehead / or %%notehead slash
>  %%notehead <>   or %%notehead diamond
>  %%notehead [] or %%notehead square
>  %%notehead + or %%notehead plus
>  %%nothead standard   % to reset to normal

Triangles/inverted triangles/circles, x-in-circle, white heads, black
heads...

And different heads on the same stem - how?


If you wanted to go down this route, then written as chords with a change of note-head style for the different notes. My own need for notating songs has, not often admittedly, but sometimes needed a cross-head note for marking rhythmic but unpitched spoken words in a song. If you allow one different note-head type there's no need no to allow others. I gave example, but modern notation has used a whole variety of other.




imo these (and many others) are going further than abc ought to. It's
not a general-purpose music notation standard: for that MusicXML or NIFF
or another completely new one should be used.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software


I couldn't agree more. When I write classical guitar or other guitar music I don't use abc - I do use a notation program. I use abc to notate and distribute songs and tunes - single line melody with or without words. I  thinks it's a good simple descriptive notation for that purpose but for anything more complex I abandon it for a notation program. However if the standard is being extended for other purposes, then I think my suggestions are not unreasonable in that context (Extra annotations/diacritics are not difficult to add, though I agree algorithms for placement of multiple ones may be troublesome for implementors). The suggestion recently that abc split up into a version for just notating songs and tunes and a version for notating and typesetting classical music is not without merit.

Mick

Re: [abcusers]New standard(s)

[John Chambers]

Bryan Creer commented:
| John Chambers wrote:
| > But some people might have problems figuring out how to type this. On
| > many=A0 linux=A0 and=A0 *BSD systems, you can get the copyright symbol wit=
| h
| > the ALT-) (or ALT-SHIFT-0) combination, but I don't think=A0 this=A0 will
| > work on Windoze or Mac systems.
|
| >From the Windows Help files -
|
| >. open Character Map by clicking Start, pointing to Programs, pointing=20
| to >Accessories, pointing to System Tools, and then clicking Character Map.=20
| >Character Map works only with Windows-based programs.=20
| >In Font, click a font.=20
| >Double-click each character you want to insert.=20
| >Click Copy.=20
| >In your document, click where you want the characters to appear.=20
| >On the Edit menu, click Paste.=20
|
| Just like that.  Easy.

So I tried it.  Got the Character Map  window,  found  the  copyright
char,  double  clicked  on it, went to another window, clicked on it,
went to the Edit menu and selected Paste ...  and a capital O with an
acute accent appeared at the cursor point in the window.

Tried it with a few other chars.  The plus-or-minus sign worked.  The
rest  gave  a different glyph than I had selected.  The Character Map
window still showed all the chars that I had selected, but  only  the
one appeared the same in the other window.

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Re: [abcusers] Re: ABC sects

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David Webber
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>What is needed first and foremost is a *file standard* - so that
>software developers know what they *should* be doing.
>Unambiguously.   I don't really care whether some given program
>doesn't do justice to legal files - I can always use another one.
>What I want is an unambiguous definition of what a legal file may
>contain: *that* is the standard!

You tell 'em, Dave :-)

Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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[abcusers] About the choice of '!'

[Guido Gonzato]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Bernard Hill wrote:

> >Interestingly enough, I can't find any mention of the use of "*" for 
> >right justified line breaking in Guido's ABC 2.0 draft.  This draft 
> >spec tentatively calls for the use of "!" for this purpose.
> 
> Probably because it wasn't in 1.x...

whenever I considered adding a new feature in the draft, I turned my
attention to stuff already implemented by important applications. Being
'!' in abc2win, I supposed this was the way to go. It's also been added in
abcm2ps, too, and I suppose more applications will follow suit.

BTW - Jean-François, how do you tell whether '!' is a line break or the
start of a decoration?

Ciao,
 Guido =8-)

-- 
Guido Gonzato, Ph.D.  - Linux System Manager
Universita' di Verona (Italy), Facolta' di Scienze MM. FF. NN.
Ca' Vignal II, Strada Le Grazie 15, 37134 Verona (Italy)
Tel. +39 045 8027990; Fax +39 045 8027928 --- Timeas hominem unius libri

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Re: [abcusers] Re: ABC sects

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Mr Scott
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>On Thursday, July 17, 2003, at 04:59 PM, Frank Nordberg wrote:
>>
>> No it isn't. ABC2WIN's ! syntax is breaking (no pun intended) the 
>> "official" ABC standard (as Chris Walshaw published it).
>
>To clarify, according to the 1.6 spec, one should be really using the 
>asterisk symbol to indicate a hard right-justified line break.  Is that 
>correct?

Well I've never seen it written in the spec...

>Interestingly enough, I can't find any mention of the use of "*" for 
>right justified line breaking in Guido's ABC 2.0 draft.  This draft 
>spec tentatively calls for the use of "!" for this purpose.

Probably because it wasn't in 1.x...


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] Use of !

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David Webber
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>Forgive me if I have missed any other suggestion along the following
>lines but could we not define the syntax (something like)
>
>U:! newline
>U:! flag
>
>in the header to define whether ! means a newline or a !pp! type
>flag.   This would enable different writer to use either convention
>for future abc files as they wish.

Seconded.

Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] Announcement: ABC 2.0.0 draft online

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
>First congratulations to Guido on putting this together - it does seem to 
>include most of the updated features. I have stayed out of most of the 
>discussions on what to include/exclude from the standard, but would like to give 
>a group 
>of comments on this draft form (and I have counted to several hundred). 
>Although the list looks long it actually covers essentially only two topics: 1) 
>Additions to the accents  and 2) note heads, only the latter being a real 
>addition to the proposed standard.
>
>Mick
>
>
>1. In the accents I think it should be made clearer that multiple accents are 
>allowed. !pp!!trill! etc.

And what do you expect to see in this case?

>
>2. While the accents list is now fuller than formerly, there are some others 
>I think should be added:
>
>   a) !diamond! to place a small diamond over the note

*where* above the note? What does it mean musically? Artificial
harmonics can be at different places to mean different harmonics.
>
>   b) !circle! to place a small circle over a note
>   Both of these are used to indicate harmonics in various contexts
>
>   c) !glissando(!  and !glissando)! (after fashion of crescendo) to draw a 
>glissando line between notes

>
>   d) !tremolo1! !tremolo2! and !tremolo3" to draw a note with 1, 2 or 3 
>diagonal lines overthem to indicate tremolo

Isn't that what ~ is for? A roll?

>
>   e) !horizontal(! and matching !horizontal)! (after the fashion of the 
>crescendo) to draw a general horizonal line over a group of notes, usually to be 
>used with some accompanying text (eg position indicator: "^IV"!horizontal(! ... 
>!horizontal)!
>
>   f) Since chords are allowed arpeggiation markers (vertical wavy line, with 
>or without direction arrows) would also be useful !arpeggio! !arpeggioup! 
>!arpeggiodown! for directionless, up and down.
>
>   g) String indicators (usually a number in a circle) !(1)! etc
>
>   h) Right hand finger indicators. For the guitar the letters p,i,m,a,e are 
>used so perhaps !rhp!, !rhi! etc (As a guitarist I prefer to use a notation 
>package to do guitar music, 
>rather than abc which I use generally only for folk songs/tunes, but as 
>people are setting other types of music these may be useful).
>
>These may seem too many, but as pointed out, programs can just ignore accents 
>they don't recognise/wish to process. On the other hand the 
>Bartok/snap-pizzicato accent is included and is probably less commonly used than 
>some of these 
>others (glissando for instance).
>
>
>3. The thing I find most desirable to include which is not here is varied 
>note head types , for me most often the cross-head 'x' to indicate unpitched 
>spoken words or noises (taps, bangs) , but diamond note heads are used to show 
>harmonics in guitar music. These could be included as formatting options:
>
>   %%notehead x   or %%notehead cross
>   %%notehead /or %%notehead slash
>   %%notehead <> or %%notehead diamond
>   %%notehead []   or %%notehead square
>   %%notehead +   or %%notehead plus
>   %%nothead standard% to reset to normal

Triangles/inverted triangles/circles, x-in-circle, white heads, black
heads...

And different heads on the same stem - how?

>
>For my purposes this wouldn't be too bad - spoken sections in songs tend to 
>be only a few bars long. Other mechanisms would be possible.
>
>(4.Oh and the page numbers in the pdf file are currently incorrect!)
>

imo these (and many others) are going further than abc ought to. It's
not a general-purpose music notation standard: for that MusicXML or NIFF
or another completely new one should be used.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers]ABC sects

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, I. Oppenheim
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, John Chambers wrote:
>
>> For that matter, I've  often  wished  that  abc  officially
>> supported a bare :  in the middle of a staff. In some other
>> kinds of music, this is used inside  long  measures,  as  a
>> sort of weak, "editorial" bar line
>
>This is a completely different matter.
>
>You're talking about having dotted bars and dotted
>slurs for editorial purposes. Both are indeed quite
>useful.

I'm not sure - is he? What about split bars, ie ones where the first
part is on stave 1 and the second half on stave 2. Stave 1 has no end
barline.


Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Frank Nordberg]

Bernard Hill wrote:
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Frank Nordberg
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
John Chambers wrote:

©: 1998 Joe Smith ...

But some people might have problems figuring out how to type this. On
many  linux  and  *BSD systems, you can get the copyright symbol with
the ALT-) (or ALT-SHIFT-0) combination, but I don't think  this  will
work on Windoze or Mac systems.
Why shouldn't it?

Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com


Er, why *should* it?
Hmmm

Seems you're right. I was so sure the copyright symbol was a part of the 
ascii standard I didn't even bother to check. It's certainly a part of 
the Mac's standard character set! But iturns out it's not even included 
in the "official unoffical" extended ascii.
Seems ascii is even worse than I suspected!

Btw, here's a reference site that might be useful to some:
http://www.asciitable.com/
Only the first 127 are really safe for cross-platform purposes (or even 
between theoretically "identical" DOS/Win computers)
This is the original set that a bunch of dyslectic engineering school 
drop-outs came up with over their 6th round of beer at the local strip 
joint late one Saturday night, and eventually managed to foist onto the 
ASA (The Anti-Standards Association)

Frank Nordberg
http://www.musicaviva.com
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Re: [abcusers] copyright sign

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jack Campin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>This is one thing that can easily be written in ASCII, as "(c)" or
>"copyright" in some appropriate field; I use the Z: field most of
>the time because every time I've wanted to make the point I've been
>the copyright-holder, but it could go in C:, A:, D: or B: as well.

As long as you realise that (C) is not a copyright sign legally. The
situation varies in different countries: some insist on © and some on
the word "Copyright" which is why you sometimes see

Copyright © Bernard Hill, 2003

etc

Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Bernard Hill]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Frank Nordberg
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>
>
>John Chambers wrote:
>> 
>> ©: 1998 Joe Smith ...
>> 
>> But some people might have problems figuring out how to type this. On
>> many  linux  and  *BSD systems, you can get the copyright symbol with
>> the ALT-) (or ALT-SHIFT-0) combination, but I don't think  this  will
>> work on Windoze or Mac systems.
>
>Why shouldn't it?
>
>
>Frank Nordberg
>http://www.musicaviva.com

Er, why *should* it?

And in fact it doesn't on Windows unless the program has been explicitly
written to recognise these keystrokes.



Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland

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Re: [abcusers] New standard(s)

[Phil Taylor]

John Chambers wrote:

>With the Terminal on my new  Powerbook  (OSX)  it  beeps  at  me  and
>nothing appears on the screen. Now, this window is ssh'd to a FreeBSD
>box, but I know it's not the software there that's doing it.  I typed
>the earlier message via an xterm on a linux system, ssh'd to the same
>machine, and the ALT-) went right through without problems.   So  I'd
>have  to  say  that  the  Mac's  Terminal app is what's rejecting the
>OPTION-G char and beeping at me.  I've dug around in the help  stuff,
>but haven't found any clues.  Lots of idiot-level help for how to use
>the menus and set the font, which I guessed on my own.  But nothing I
>can find that let's me input the rest of the character set.

Terminal is a wierd application, sitting uneasily on the interface
between MacOS and Unix.  It doesn't do either thing quite properly.
You will find that Option-G works in any of the Mac editors, e.g.
TextEdit.  In BarFly you may find that it gives you g'' (the program
has a series of shortcuts for typing multi-character abc notes, and
that's one of them, but you can turn that off under General Preferences).

I haven't tried it (and I'm on OS 9 at the moment) but you could
try opening TextEdit at the same time as terminal, type any chars
that terminal won't accept into the TextEdit window, then select
and drag them into the Terminal window.

Congratulations, by the way, on figuring out that that key is called
Option, despite what it says on the key cap.  Calling it Alt would
mark you out as an amateur:-)

Phil Taylor


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[abcusers] Re: New standard(s)

[Bryancreer]

John Chambers wrote:
> 
> ©: 1998 Joe Smith ...
> 
> But some people might have problems figuring out how to type this. On
> many  linux  and  *BSD systems, you can get the copyright symbol with
> the ALT-) (or ALT-SHIFT-0) combination, but I don't think  this  will
> work on Windoze or Mac systems.

>From the Windows Help files -


>. open Character Map by clicking Start, pointing to Programs, pointing to >Accessories, pointing to System Tools, and then clicking Character Map. 
>
>Character Map works only with Windows-based programs. 
>
>In Font, click a font. 
>
>Double-click each character you want to insert. 
>
>Click Copy. 
>
>In your document, click where you want the characters to appear. 
>
>On the Edit menu, click Paste. 

Just like that.  Easy.

Bryan Creer