M-Tx 0.55c is now available. Follow the links on
http://icking-music-archive.org/software/
You will need one of the three program zip files, depending on your
system.
1. If you have the Free Pascal compiler, download the Pascal source
and compile it.
2. If you are using MS-Windows, download the Win32 binary.
3. If you have an ANSI C compiler, download the C source and compile
it.
You will also need the PDF file of the documentation. The zip file of the
documentation source is useful if you want to see how to integrate music
examples with LaTeX; the mtxlatex.sty file mentioned in the documentation
is in there.
BE SURE TO USE AN UNZIPPER THAT CONVERTS TEXT FILES TO YOUR SYSTEM'S FORMAT.
New users of M-Tx must read the first few sections of the manual first.
It is fast going if you already know PMX; if not, a careful reading
now will save you a lot of time later. Old users can just follow the
"NEW 0.55" references in the index.
The README is mainly directed at people who wish to know how to compile
from source. It says nothing about how to use M-Tx. That is in Appendix
C of the documentation.
New features: include files, improved slur and tie handling, improved
implementation of the Space: command, human-friendly feature selection.
Include files
You can now say e.g.:
Include: part1.mtx
at any point of the score. The included file may itself include
other files.
Slur and tie handling
1. The meaning of {...} and (...) slurs, vague in previous releases,
is now fixed: (...) are ordinary slurs, {...} are ties. Because of
this feature, you will need a very recent PMX: 2.502 or later.
PMX 't' slurs are no longer used, except those that you code yourself.
Except in the case of continuation slurs )( and ties }{, PMX 's'
slurs are not used either.
2. You can have as many levels of nested slurs as you like, subject only
to the restriction of how many open slurs there may be. For example,
( c ( d ( e { f f } g ) a ) b )
is allowed. To turn this into legal PMX, labels are automatically
inserted, so that the above is equivalent to
(S c (Q d (O e {T f f }T g )O a )Q b )S
Note that the labels are chosen in a part of the alphabet which
(one hopes) few people have been using for their own labels.
Spacing between systems
A different method is now being used to implement the spacing between
systems. You will no longer need to make a vertical adjustment to the
lyrics on the bottom line when Space: has been changed. Unfortunately,
this is not backward compatible with old scores in which you needed to
do that -- you will probably need to take out all lyrics adjustments of
the bottom voice. This change is at the mtx.tex level only and if you do
not like it, you can just put back the mtx.tex file from an older version.
Features rather than options
The Options: directive with Unix-like letters for options is being
phased out, and has been supplanted by Enable: and Disable: directives
that have descriptive feature names. E.g. you can say
Enable: solfaNoteNames
rather than
Options: f
Enjoy!
Dirk Laurie
_______________________________________________
TeX-music mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://icking-music-archive.org/mailman/listinfo/tex-music
