ABC Transcription Tools

[Michael Eskin]

I know some of you would prefer ABC text incipits...
 

Now available under the PDF Tunes/Page options:

 

 

[Michael Eskin]

Modified the sorting so that sorted table of contents and index pages move any initial "The " in the tune names to the end before sorting:
 

So if you use:

%addsortedtoc (your table of contents title here)
or
%addsortedindex (your index title here)

you'll get something that looks like:

https://flic.kr/p/2oq3HZd

Standard unsorted table of contents or index pages don't do the pre-processing of the tune names, they just list them in page order.

So if you use:

%addtoc (your table of contents title here)
or
%addindex (your index title here)

You'll get something that looks like:

https://flic.kr/p/2oq3ZSZ

 

[Michael Eskin]

As long as I'm sorting all the things, added a new button that will sort all the tunes in the ABC area alphabetically by tune name.
 

For tunes that start with "The ", the sort algorithm moves the "The" to the end before the sorting, but the resulting ABC doesn't change.

[John Wild]

11 minutes ago, eskin said:

For tunes that start with "The ", the sort algorithm moves the "The" to the end before the sorting, but the resulting ABC doesn't change.

The principle could be extended to tunes beginning with "A" or "An"

[Michael Eskin]

No, I don't like that idea and won't be adding those. It's common in the Irish repertoire that you'll have a mix of tunes with "The" or no "The", but in most cases, "A" or "An" actually matters. You'll have to take care of those yourself. 

For example:
 

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

OK, this seems like a reasonable compromise:
 

If you hold down the Shift key while clicking the "Sort ABC" button, it will also treat "A " and "An " the same way as "The ".

Also explained in the user guide.

Edited March 31, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

I'm going to be pretty much exclusively concentrating on supporting the traditional Irish music community as far as my future updates, if there are any. Decided to leave the ABC Notation group on Facebook, just too stressful. The tool more than meets my needs, I hope it is useful to others.

If you want a specific feature, the full source code is available at the GitHub site for you to modify to your heart's content:

https://github.com/seisiuneer/abctools

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by eskin

[Michael Eskin]

Latest "Power User" tips:
 

1) Injecting Note names under notation

2) Example PDF headers injection - So you don't have to remember all the possible PDF header options for title pages, table of contents, index, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoPOXQAVbVE

[Michael Eskin]

New "Power User" tip for those of you who use the playback feature and would prefer something nicer than the default piano sound used by the ABC Quick Editor.

You could have done this manually as described in the User Guide section on "Changing the instrument for playback" but I've added a simple way to automate it for you.

If you now Shift-click on the "Play" button, it will prompt you for a MIDI program number (offers some suggestions) and will then inject a:

%%MIDI program <your selected program number here>

directive into every tune. You can then save the ABC if you want to reuse the directives later.
 

 

[Michael Eskin]

Just posted an invisible but significant change to the ABC Transcription tools behavior.

I’m now saving all the tool settings to browser local storage so you don’t have to reset the settings every time you use the tool.

It will now launch with the same settings you last used as far as tablature, PDF tunes/page, page number location, capo, line spacing, etc.

If you are opening the tool from a ShareURL or QR code, the values in the ShareURL override the default values from the browser local storage.

[Michael Eskin]

Looks like Firefox pushed out an update this morning that, at least on Macs, completely messes up the output of abcjs.
 

I'm seeing the same result on Paul Rosen's reference decoder at:

https://editor.drawthedots.com/

For now, I suggest using Chrome instead.

PDF generation on Firefox seems fine, just the on-screen display is cutting out staff lines and note stems. I've sent an email to Paul to see if there might be a way to fix it on Firefox.

Firefox bug report: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1827699

[alex_holden]

9 hours ago, eskin said:

Looks like Firefox pushed out an update this morning that, at least on Macs, completely messes up the output of abcjs.

 

FWIW, Firefox 112.0 seems to have the same problem on Linux and Windows 11.

[Michael Eskin]

Alex, thanks for verifying! 

Looks like the Firefox devs have a fix, so it may show up in a near-future update.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1827699

[David Barnert]

Michael, thank you for all the work you’re putting into this project.

 

Back when BarFly was the go-to abc program for the Mac (it has been incompatible with MacOS since OSX 10.7 Lion in 2011), its creator, Phil Taylor, was proud of the fact that it was the only music software that understood the difference between music notation and graphics in general, in terms of what was important (eg., consistent staff lines at any resolution) and what was not.

[Michael Eskin]

Some new features for those who have requested more control over the Table of Contents and Index page appearance in the PDF tunebooks generated by my ABC tool:

 

Table of Contents and Index Font Size and Line Spacing Overrides

 

You may override the top offset to title, offset from title to the index or table of contents entries, default tune name font sizes and line spacing, by adding the following comment-based annotations anywhere in your ABC:

 

Table of Contents offset and font overrides:

 

%toctopoffset (your top offset goes here) - 72 dpi offset from the page header for the top of the table of contents title. Default is 30.

 

%toctitleoffset (your title offset goes here) - 72 dpi offset from the title to the first entry in the table of contents. Default is 35.

 

%toctitlefontsize (your font size goes here) - Font size for the table of contents title. Default is 18.

 

%tocfontsize (your font size goes here) - Font size for tune names in the table of contents. Default is 13.

 

%toclinespacing (your line spacing goes here) - Line spacing for tune names in the table of contents. Default is 12.

 

Index offset and font overrides:

 

%indextopoffset (your top offset goes here) - 72 dpi offset from the page header for the top of the index title. Default is 30.

 

%indextitleoffset (your title offset goes here) - 72 dpi offset from the title to the first entry in the index. Default is 35.

 

%indextitlefontsize (your font size goes here) - Font size for the index title. Default is 18.

 

%indexfontsize (your font size goes here) - Font size for tune names in the index. Default is 13.

 

%indexlinespacing (your line spacing goes here) - Line spacing for tune names in the index. Default is 12.

 

As with all previously described annotation, only the first instance these annotations are processed, any additional instances are ignored.

 

Power User Tip:

 

Holding down the Shift key while clicking on the "PDF Tunes/Page" label will inject examples of all of the above PDF headers at the top of the ABC.

 

You can then remove the headers you don't need and edit the others to meet your requirements.

 

I've also made the text incipits generation a bit more compact.

 

[Michael Eskin]

Looks like the Firefox 112 issue will be fixed soon, either by an update to abcjs and/or a new Firefox release! Stay tuned!

 

[Michael Eskin]

Paul Rosen issued an abcjs fix for Firefox 112, and I’ve updated my tools with his code and a few additional bug fixes and visual improvements.

[Michael Eskin]

Firefox 112.0.2 is out this morning and fixes the thin line issue for earlier versions of abcjs. I've updated my tool to remove the previous Firefox hack that Paul Rosen came up with to work around the 112.0 and 112.0.1 versions. Looks good now.