40 replies to this topic

[spindizzy]

Hi Chris,

Button layouts for all 48 button treble ECs are the same. (OK, small proviso, occasionally someone may have modified a reed, that bottom G# on the rhs was an F on one of the concertinas that I had.) Edeophones and Aeolas are just some of the deluxe models made, the notes and layout are standard.

Edited by spindizzy, 29 December 2012 - 06:36 AM.

[Wolf Molkentin]

I've cracked the staggered rows issue for the English Concertina but at the price of losing editability. I don't play it myself so the issue is please - does that matter? From what I've gathered so far the EC-48 is a very standard piece of kit - so perhaps not?

That's fine - just the standard layout; and IMO no need for editing (exept for renaming individual buttons where customized; which will be possible furthermore, as I have got it).

Besides, I felt no need for such a simulator before - but now I feel it may prove itself quite valuable when at hand!

Thanks for the effort anyway!

[chris ryall]

Thanks for that. The way to make it look like an EC was to use style sheet effect to nudge half the buttons up half a row. As (fundamentally) this page is trying to handle *any* squeezebox that meant either messy extra tags on the notes to be elevated or a special constructor for EC. I chose the latter as it fixed the D#<>Eb issue, but either way it de-simplified editing in a big way.

Present developments are a scratchbox to build up a chord or scale library ( pastable into word processor of your choice,) more modal scales such as the ones Gurdy players like, and split tonic/5th chord buttons. The last rather more useful to melodeonistas one suspects!

My daughter Dolly May said the control area was a mess - it will be much simplified in release 3! Sound effects are still a twinkle in Dad's eye but won't take 40 weeks to be heard!

[Michael Leitch-Devlin]

Is there any 'standard' for duets? C

Here's a layout for my Crane Duet.

>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> F# G
Ab A  C  B  Bb >> >> >> C# D  F  E  Eb
Eb E  G  F  F♯ >> >> >> Ab A  C  B  Bb
Bb B  D  C  C♯ >> >> >> Eb E  G  F  F♯
F♯ F  A  G  Ab >> >> >> Bb B  D  C  C♯
C♯ C  E  D  Eb >> >> >> F♯ F  A  G  Ab
Ab G  B  A  Bb >> >> >> C# C  E  D  Eb
F♯ >> F  >> >> >> >> >> >> >> B  >> Bb

=       67-key Wheatstone Crane Duet

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by Michael Leitch-Devlin, 08 January 2013 - 07:10 AM.

[chris ryall]

Thanks for that. I think need a duet on there (aren't there a lot?) and can probably now curve your rows for you. See below

TECHNICAL REPORT

The gnomes of Wirral have been busy over the past week and I think I've cracked the concertina layout issue and have a unified token system that covers all squeezeboxes. It's seen me abandon 'Good Ol' ASCII' and embrace UTF-8 character encoding. However www has been using this for well over 10 years and it is the de facto standard for web pages.

My testbed version uses UTF arrow character 'ꜛ,↑,ꜜ,' prefixes to specify 'nudges' of ¼-position, ½-position up and ¼-position down allowing the sort of 'curved' layouts common here (but of course, unknown to the melodeonista community)!

There's also progress on the knotty sound issue. Turned out that you can't simply use musical notes as they have to be voiced into octaves. Melodeon Explorer (apologies) doesn't know whether octaves lie left to right (anglo) or down to up (EC) and I think very few of us know how a bandoneón is played! Rather than make dubious assumptions, I've again used UTF prefixes: 'º,¹,²,³' to 'voice' the notes individually. Sounds hard work, but you only do it once and it is then 'right' Actually it's pretty quick - the octaves always lie in patterns

This technical change transferred the character encoding issue into its editor (UTF characters aren't keyboard typeable) But having crossed the Rubicon - all was well ME's edit box converts eg ^2Ab to ꜛ²A♭ in a jiffy.

The final Good News is that I've allowed eg a simple A♭♭ and G♯♯ token to overrule the underlying 'music' model's view that these notes are the same thing. They still 'sound' the same, but display as A♭ and G♯ without any conversion. This avoids the need for any 'processor directives' - always a pain.

Sorted! We seem to have a common encoding for all squeezebox layouts as per 'mission'. I've laid it out on http://squeezebox.ch...l.net/notes.htm

There is also progress on sound, as per actually 'hearing it' with sampled .ogg snippets plumbed in over 6 octaves. MSIA (as ever ) uses its own format, but sound 'sounds' on up to date Firefox, and should also work on Chrome and Opera. You can try it on the notes page, but the main 'Explorer' presets are not yet 'voiced'. Sound has to remain 'experimental' as it needs HTML5 (which officially deploys in 2016)!

Thanks for your continuing input, I've learned a lot. Please don't rely on the main Explorer page for edit/builds for the next few days. The sound changes and edit will most certainly have introduced bugs.

Is anyone going to Whittlesea?

Edited by chris ryall, 09 January 2013 - 04:41 AM.

[chris ryall]

Crane duet as 'nudged' (done graphically) - would this sort of thing be acceptable?

.. and a wild guess at its voicing If anything like correct it would make a good testbed for me - it requires all of the new features

→→ →→  →→   →→  →→   →→   →→ ²F♯♯ ꜛ³G 
²A♭♭ ꜛ³A  ↑³C  ꜛ³B  ³B♭♭ →→→→ ²C♯♯ ꜛ²D ↑³F ꜛ³E  ³E♭♭ 
²E♭♭ ꜛ²E  ↑²G  ²F  ²F♯♯ →→→→ ²A♭♭ ³A  ↑³C  ꜛ³B  ³B♭♭ 
²B♭♭ ꜛ²B  ↑²D ꜛ²C  ²C♯♯ →→→→ ²E♭♭ ꜛ²E  ↑²G  ꜛ²F  ²F♯♯ 
¹F♯♯ ꜛ¹F  ↑²A  ꜛ¹G  ¹A♭♭ →→→→ ²B♭♭ ꜛ²B  ↑²D  ꜛ²C  ²C♯♯ 
¹C♯♯ ꜛ¹C  ↑¹E  ꜛ¹D  ¹E♭♭ →→→→ ¹F♯♯ ꜛ¹F  ↑²A  ꜛ¹G  ¹A♭♭ 
ºA♭♭ ꜛºG  ↑ºB  ꜛ¹A  ¹B♭♭ →→→→ ¹C♯♯ ꜛ¹C  ↑¹E  ꜛ¹D  ¹E♭♭ 
ºF♯♯ →→  ↑ºF  →→   →→  →→  →→   →→  →→ ↑ºB   →→  ºB♭♭ 

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by chris ryall, 09 January 2013 - 05:40 AM.

[Michael Leitch-Devlin]

Crane duet as 'nudged' (done graphically) - would this sort of thing be acceptable?

.. and a wild guess at its voicing If anything like correct it would make a good testbed for me - it requires all of the new features

→→ →→  →→   →→  →→   →→   →→ ²F♯♯ ꜛ³G 
²A♭♭ ꜛ³A  ↑³C  ꜛ³B  ³B♭♭ →→→→ ²C♯♯ ꜛ²D ↑³F ꜛ³E  ³E♭♭ 
²E♭♭ ꜛ²E  ↑²G  ²F  ²F♯♯ →→→→ ²A♭♭ ³A  ↑³C  ꜛ³B  ³B♭♭ 
²B♭♭ ꜛ²B  ↑²D ꜛ²C  ²C♯♯ →→→→ ²E♭♭ ꜛ²E  ↑²G  ꜛ²F  ²F♯♯ 
¹F♯♯ ꜛ¹F  ↑²A  ꜛ¹G  ¹A♭♭ →→→→ ²B♭♭ ꜛ²B  ↑²D  ꜛ²C  ²C♯♯ 
¹C♯♯ ꜛ¹C  ↑¹E  ꜛ¹D  ¹E♭♭ →→→→ ¹F♯♯ ꜛ¹F  ↑²A  ꜛ¹G  ¹A♭♭ 
ºA♭♭ ꜛºG  ↑ºB  ꜛ¹A  ¹B♭♭ →→→→ ¹C♯♯ ꜛ¹C  ↑¹E  ꜛ¹D  ¹E♭♭ 
ºF♯♯ →→  ↑ºF  →→   →→  →→  →→   →→  →→ ↑ºB   →→  ºB♭♭ 

Nice layout... that is what it looks like.

The left hand should be voiced an octave lower... so that the highest C in the left hand is an octave higher than the lowest C in the right hand.

There is a small error in the voicing, I think. Given octaves starting at A, then '2Abb' is the note just below '2A'? (and is the same as '1G##')
...or are you starting octaves at C? I may have confused myself there.

The instrument range exceeds 4 octaves (just!), so...
adding in another UTF prefix ' ‾ ', I think we end up with something like...

→→ →→  →→   →→  →→   →→   →→ ³F♯♯ ꜛ³G 
²A♭♭ ꜛ²A  ↑²C  ꜛ²B  ²B♭♭ →→→→ ³C♯♯ ꜛ³D ↑³F ꜛ³E  ³E♭♭ 
¹E♭♭ ꜛ¹E  ↑¹G  ꜛ¹F  ¹F♯♯ →→→→ ³A♭♭ ꜛ³A  ↑³C  ꜛ³B  ³B♭♭ 
¹B♭♭ ꜛ¹B  ↑¹D ꜛ¹C  ¹C♯♯ →→→→ ²E♭♭ ꜛ²E  ↑²G  ꜛ²F  ²F♯♯ 
ºF♯♯ ꜛºF  ↑¹A  ꜛºG  ¹A♭♭ →→→→ ²B♭♭ ꜛ²B  ↑²D  ꜛ²C  ²C♯♯ 
ºC♯♯ ꜛºC  ↑ºE  ꜛºD  ºE♭♭ →→→→ ¹F♯♯ ꜛ¹F  ↑²A  ꜛ¹G  ²A♭♭ 
ºA♭♭ ꜛ‾¹G  ↑ºB  ꜛºA  ºB♭♭ →→→→ ¹C♯♯ ꜛ¹C  ↑¹E  ꜛ¹D  ¹E♭♭ 
‾¹F♯♯ →→  ↑‾¹F  →→   →→  →→  →→   →→  →→ ↑¹B   →→  ¹B♭♭

I am not sure which C is 'ºC' in your scheme. If it is middle C then the above scheme needs to be an octave lower ... (From '‾²F' to '²G')
If '¹C' is middle C, then the above scheme is correct.

For an absolute voicing reference, that bottom F in the left hand is the one just below the bottom of the Bass Clef, and sounds like the Queen Mary coming into port.

Edited to admit self-confusion!

Edited by Michael Leitch-Devlin, 09 January 2013 - 07:12 AM.

[chris ryall]

Don't think total number of octaves is a major issue. I've sampled from my Gaillard Saphir in single voice mode (to exclude nobody) and that has something over 4½ octaves with a little gap near the top. Change to medium voice - was an easy 5½ and I 'tweaked' that to 6 using Audacity.

Also the octaves number 0,1,2,3 - for which character codes are available and used 'n' for anything more. Does anyone know where I can find a UTF⁵? But never mind - that's 5 whole octaves you can voice to and as I say - the notes above this are needed to extend the chords etc into. My lowest note is A and I can confirm the foghorn quality of it. That's why the numbers go up one when you go A♭→A - it was what was to hand!

So yes - and importantly - the octaves start at A - thanks for pointing out the confusion. It would help a lot if you could find time to renumber on that basis as I'm sure I'll get it wrong. You really need the instrument to hand. Find it's lowest 'A' and call that ¹A, anything below is in octave zero. Going up is easy - just change the number after every A♭

"Everything is relative" and internally the model sees ºA=0 ¹A=12 ²A=24 ³A=36 and ⁿA=48 - hence the easy 'play an octave higher' button. I just add 12 As for middle C .. probably about ²C - but it isn't an absolute scale as I say above.


I feel it covers most bases as say a tenor EC could simply use the lower register and a treble in the higher. Anyway - fundamentally and philosophically it is a scale/chord finder with a note add in. If you want to play - you should use real kit!

Will make the nudges you suggest and plough on - keep 'em coming. TIA Chris

Step by step guide (going into the 'notes' soon)

Importantly octaves run from ºA-ºG♯, ¹A -¹G♯ etc.
The best way to voice an instrument is with it in your hands.

1. Find your lowest 'A' - that should be ¹A (rarely ºA if it is your lowest note)
2. Scale notes below this pitch are in octave #0 - ºE ºF ºG ºA ♭ etc
3. Notes from ¹A up run ¹B♭ ¹B ¹C ¹D♭ ... ¹A♭
4. From then on it's ²A ²B♭ ²B ²C ²D♭ ... ²A♭
5. etc etc working upward. This makes most efficient
use of your range (unless A is lowest note)
6. If you don't like it on simulation - press the next octave up option!

Edited by chris ryall, 09 January 2013 - 06:32 PM.

[Michael Leitch-Devlin]

Ah... now I understand. There is only one thing I would quibble about.

I understand how you arrived at your numbering, but surely flattening a note should not change its octave number... that seems confusing to me!
Coming from a musical perspective ²A flattened has to be ²A♭ which would be the same as ¹G♯.
This makes the notation for flattening an A the same as for other note.

That said... I can see that your note numbering schema would run into trouble with ºA♭

Here is the Crane renumbered but with A♭♭ replaced by G♯♯ to avoid the quibble.

→→ →→  →→   →→  →→   →→   →→ ⁿF♯♯ ꜛⁿG 
²G♯♯ ꜛ³A  ↑³C  ꜛ³B  ³B♭♭ →→→→ ⁿC♯♯ ꜛⁿD ↑ⁿF ꜛⁿE  ⁿE♭♭ 
²E♭♭ ꜛ²E  ↑²G  ꜛ²F  ²F♯♯ →→→→ ³G♯♯ ꜛⁿA  ↑ⁿC  ꜛⁿB  ⁿB♭♭ 
²B♭♭ ꜛ²B  ↑²D ꜛ²C  ²C♯♯ →→→→ ³E♭♭ ꜛ³E  ↑³G  ꜛ³F  ³F♯♯ 
¹F♯♯ ꜛ¹F  ↑²A  ꜛ¹G  ¹G♯♯ →→→→ ³B♭♭ ꜛ³B  ↑³D  ꜛ³C  ³C♯♯ 
¹C♯♯ ꜛ¹C  ↑¹E  ꜛ¹D  ¹E♭♭ →→→→ ²F♯♯ ꜛ²F  ↑³A  ꜛ²G  ²G♯♯ 
ºG♯♯ ꜛºG  ↑¹B  ꜛ¹A  ¹B♭♭ →→→→ ²C♯♯ ꜛ²C  ↑²E  ꜛ²D  ²E♭♭ 
ºF♯♯ →→  ↑ºF  →→   →→  →→  →→   →→  →→ ↑²B   →→  ²B♭♭

Edited by Michael Leitch-Devlin, 10 January 2013 - 05:58 AM.

[chris ryall]

I'd agree that 'in standard CDE notation' flattening a note doesn't change octave number. 'C♭' would be a rare cypher, though it makes sense in say an A♭ minor scale - A♭,B♭,C♭ ..

But that isn't the issue. This isn't a 'simulator' really, and the notes 've I managed to cull - start and end on 'A'. While I 'could' change that .. knock on is to run out of prefix characters as UTF provides an incomplete set, and HTBL button faces don't allow <sup> tags. The art of the possible ...

'ºA♭' doesn't exist (I could make one in audacity, but ºA already reattles the floorboards)! I honestly think 5 octaves and an octave up facility might be enough. enough said anyway - things to do ...

Thanks for the layout. Am presently working on moving descriptions out of the code area into a proper XML library. That will also allow a description paragraph and links (in this instance, to this site )and will much simplify maintenance.

I didn't know that Crane and Sons were here in Liverpool - or the Salvation Army bit!!

Edited by chris ryall, 11 January 2013 - 06:25 AM.

[Michael Leitch-Devlin]

I look forward to seeing it all updated on-line.

[chris ryall]

As posted in 'the other place ... Apologies here for calling it 'melodeon explorer' but I needed a title and it is generic'.  You know where I come from?

 

ME does "do" concerinas Row shifting and enharmonic notation is fiixed. Please post any bugs here. Will be back 'next week'. Chris

 

--oo00oo--

 

Been a while but the Gnomes of Wirral have been busy building and testing.  Version 4 is now loaded

  http://chrisryall.net/chords/

Sound now works (ogg codec browsers only), but as ever one browser is not compliant with what the rest of the Web do and that's caused problems. Can't even get MP3 working on MSIE and 'standard' XML library loads are also blocked (I could go on..) is so I've simply ploughed on without Microsoft >

It will be called 'melodeon explorer' and the similarity to to this place honestly reflects melnet's respected position in squeezebox discussion.  For melodeonistas, ME4 now has facility to' split' the left end chords. While that might sound silly (you can't actually play the notes separately) .. if both  notes in a T+5^th pair are 'in scale' a 'crossed' chord with a different but 'in scale' bass is likely to sound cool - otherwise -  "don't bother"   :-\

Discussions in 'the other place' have shown that the concertina aficionado needs 'off row buttons' and regards A# and B♭ as 'different', even though these play the same enharmonic note. Rodec (qv below)  allows him to tokenise these as A## and B♭♭ - not musical I know but at least it's concise and intuitive!

I wanted ME to handle 'any squeezebox' (despite the name) and concertinas do basically lay out 'in rows'  albeit  these are not straight!  This eventually led to the concept of a 'rodec' meaning a notation that describes rows. It is the same as what we started with, but with nudges 'up' and 'down' for a button's location. NB 'rodec' is merely the 'descriptor'; the actualyamount of nudge is in the implementation. I've gone for ¼ and ½ button width ..

   C  Eꜜ  G↑  Cꜛ - first button is on its row, the others up or down a bit (intuitively)

 Sound was basically held up by the 'voicing' issue; a web browser has no clue as to which octave the 'C's above play in, and a generic descriptor cannot safely make assumptions (eg the EC's octaves below .. rise 'upwards')!

Having made my step away from 1970's ASCII, to modern character sets - rodex uses a simply numeric prefix to specify octave.  Note that ME octaves run A..G♯!  It reflects that note 'A'=0 internally, but also'that 'low A' was the lowest I could actually sample on my Gaillard.

Hope I've I might have got the underlying model right. The rest is 'simply implementation' which has whittled a few evenings.

I think it's debuggered enough for a new version and offer it to the squeezebox community for beta test. I'm off later this week for a few weeks having an 'op', and will pick up once I'm home (and able to  sit straight again)  :-\  I've made ME's entry box a DG 4th start melodeon but you might like to try concertina presets to see what can be done.  It you want to type in your own -the 'test' button is [?] and 'build' is [‼]  Here's a couple of 'rodec' descriptors.  (Rodec will be public domain should it catche).

Rodec for a DG 4th start melodeon (note: 'nudged' graphics pull/push)

→ push↓ → ©  ºD  ©  ºG
→→→→ →→ ©  ºB  ©  ºC
→ ²F  ¹B  ¹D  ¹G  ²B  ²D  ²G  ³B ³D  ³G
¹A♭ ºF♯ ¹A  ¹D  ¹F♯ ²A  ²D  ²F♯ ³A  ³D  ³F♯
=
→ pull↓ → ©  ºA  ©  ºD
→→→→ →→ ©  ºE  ©  ºC
→ ²E♭ ¹D  ¹F♯ ²A  ²C  ²E  ²F♯ ³A  ³C  ³E
²B♭ ¹A  ¹C♯ ¹E  ¹G  ²B  ²C♯ ²E  ²G  ³B  ³C♯

English concertina rodec

³A♭♭ ³G *B↑ *B♭♭↑ →→→→ ³F♯♯ ³F *A↑ ³A♭♭↑
³C♯♯ ³C ³E↑ ³E♭♭↑ →→→→ ³B♭♭ ³B ³D↑ ³D♯♯↑
²F♯♯ ²F ³A↑ ²A♭♭↑ →→→→ ²E♭♭ ²E ²G↑ ²G♯♯↑
²B♭♭ ²B ²D↑ ²E♭♭↑ →→→→ ¹A♭♭ ²A ²C↑ ²C♯♯↑
¹E♭♭ ¹E ¹G↑ ¹A♭♭↑ →→→→ ¹E♭♭ ¹D ¹F↑ ¹F♯♯↑
ºA♭♭ ¹A ¹C↑ ¹C♯♯↑ →→→→ ºA♭♭ ¹G ¹B↑ ¹B♭♭↑
=

Click the buttons to hear sound - it works in Firefox, and Chrome. Opera not tested. Safari plays ME's generic sounds but I haven't copied the notes samples into MP3 yet.  MSIE (latest version) remains obstinately silent

Whoops - spotted a 'wee bug' in the enharmonics - gotta go 

Edited by chris ryall, 28 January 2013 - 02:50 AM.

[chris ryall]

Could people here eyeball the EC layout please. I'm not sure it meets the 'accs relate to adjacent button' test, but will implement whatever works for its players. Chris

[Simon H]

Ryanair? On my iPad that button made a crashing sound and scattered all the buttons all over the page. Nice. Can't get the simulator to do anything on iPad in the way of sound. Using safari, chrome, or Mercury browsers. (Other than the crash sound that is) EC layout looks good to me.

Edited by Simon H, 28 January 2013 - 08:29 AM.

[David Barnert]

Any chance of making the spaces predictable so that one can set up the alignment between lines without trial and error? I tried setting up a 46-key Hayden Duet but gave up on it because it looked so ugly.

[chris ryall]

<p>Sound is coded in .ogg format.&nbsp; Safari uses mp3 and it's a matter of me converting the 61 samples,&nbsp; Bit if the Ryanair sound works so will they (was a sort of test). You'll be please to hear that I did it all 'single reed'.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Layouts</strong> - fundamentally rodec notation maps tokens to horizonal rows avoiding complex x=1.234 y=5.568 and such. It draws from Chris Walshaw's ABC in a way, and indeed ABC input would be feasible.&nbsp; Only tokens matter, though you can use space for your own purposes.&nbsp; ie it ain't WYSIWYG (nor is ABC) - it's a markup (like the HTML markup used to code this forum, but further simplified to reduce the tags needed by about 80% <img class="bbc_emoticon" src="http://www.concertin...fault/smile.png" title=":)" />&nbsp; Markup basically lays out relationships as text.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp; '&gt;' (converst to '<span>&rarr;' </span>) is your 'move along row' tab and moves half a button</p>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp; the ^'^^/v,vv prefixes (or postfixes) move up or down 1/4 and 1/2 button</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>So unless you need 1/4 button precision 'on-row' all is possible.&nbsp; I'd emphasise that the fastest way is to take something else and tweak it. In this respect the editor also convers numeric 0,1,2,3,(4,5,6) to octave pre(post)fixes avery time you click outside and eb 1Ab to '<span>&sup1;</span><span>A</span><span>♭' </span>. It took me about 10 minutes to key in a Loomes chromatic, and about&nbsp; the same to 'voice' it. A 'rebuild'&nbsp; takes under a second here (2 year old computer). So apologies for those spaces - but you have to separate tokens with <u>something</u>! <img class="bbc_emoticon" src="http://www.concertin...default/dry.png" title="&lt;_&lt;" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>How about modifying a melodeon layout? <a href="http://www.concertina.com/hayden-duet/">If this is Hayden</a> then the B/C/C<span class="pln"><span class="pln">C</span></span><span class="pun"><span class="pun">♯</span></span> is its closest relative. Will get a bit wide (built 2 x 8 =16!) but basically a single tab inset on alternate rows does&nbsp; the job, plus a few in the middle to separate the sides.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>[edit]</strong> Now I've converted a set of MP3 samples ME works on iPad in its more respectable browsers (Safari, AtomicWeb). Sadly not in MSIE, which now fails to load. It has been mute throughout and I'll probably need to block it off to stop its present sulking.&nbsp; Apologies - complaints to Microsoft!</p>

Edited by chris ryall, 29 January 2013 - 02:41 AM.

[David Barnert]

If this is Hayden then the B/C/C is its closest relative. Will get a bit wide (built 2 x 8 =16!) but basically a single tab inset on alternate rows does  the job, plus a few in the middle to separate the sides.

Yeah, that's Hayden, all right. But the vertical alignment is critical. Every 2nd row must be lined up with the others, with the intervening rows similarly aligned. It's been a few months, but as I recall, the more I tweaked it, the worse the alignment got.

[chris ryall]

Eek - all I did was add a '# to C/C/C above an look what happens! (mods please note)!

 

HB's reply came as I was doing a quick repair, but I think this C.net bug is useful and certainly timely. This is a professionally coded forum, but still wheels fall off!

 

I am an amateur and have applied the KISS 'keep it simple, stupid' principle that has made Chris's ABC such a success, moving only to 1990's UTF font because of it's benefits in conciseness. That's to say that 'rows are rows', and  I preferred 2C^^ to  <octave>2</octave><note>C</note><nudge>+2<nudge> which is what you'd need to code this in a full XML schema.

 

OK - I can do your Hayden for you, but the whole idea was that the 1000 or so idiosyncratic box layouts (melodeons are the culprits in this respect) could be trwaeked in by their loving owners and then communicated in these text forums as need be - with facility to paste into the simulator.

 

Staggered rows are a doddle - the half button tabs are all measures to the pixel!

 

  >  A   B  C  D
    A  B  C  D  E  F
  >  G  A  B  C  ..
  >>  D  E   F  G  .. 

 

..and "Robert is your father's brother" as we say in Britain   Typing that took me 40 seconds. alignment should be perfect, and that Hayden doesn't have any off row buttons, so why use that facility  Chris