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Messages - Mike Shawaluk

351
General Discussion / Re: Muted notes
If you are using the current version of NWC, you can accomplish a trill much easier by using the Trill.ms custom object. This will both play the trill as well as draw the squiggly line above the note.

If you post a score snippet with the trill you created, I can show you what the equivalent would be using the Trill object.

Again, this assumes you are running NWC 2.75 or later.
352
General Discussion / Re: Spacing out endings
Okay, I think I am getting it, but let me paraphrase things back, and you can tell me if I am on the right track.

Bill mentions that harps have 7 strings per octave, which I think is like saying a piano has 7 white keys per octave. And the 7 pedals are each connected to all of the octaves of a particular note. So if I use the piano analogy, when the pedals are in a particular position, strumming the strings will play a scale in a particular key. Except that there are more scale combinations possible than simple major, minor, etc.

After thinking about this for 5 minutes or so, it seems to me that to make this work with the Glissando object, it wouldn't really make sense to put the pedal settings inside the Glissando object, but maybe to have a separate Harp Pedal object, that records the pedal settings. And then the Glissando can "look back" at the most recent Harp Pedal to see where the pedals are set, so it knows what pitches to play. Or is it more customary in music to always include the pedal positions for each glissando that is played?

I did a little searching, and I found a sample harp pedal diagram as created by another music program, that I'm including here. It shouldn't be too hard to create an object that both draws pedal diagrams, and uses them for glissando playback purposes.  Assuming, of course, that there are actually people interested in such a thing.
353
General Discussion / Re: Spacing out endings
It sounds like the harp's sound is more of a glissando than an arpeggio, since the notes are generally consecutive notes of a scale, and not notes of a chord (if that makes sense). When I added playback to the Glissando object, I included three options: white keys, black keys, and chromatic (in addition to the continuous mode).  Perhaps for harp glissandos, I should have a way of specifying which pitches/notes to play. I am not a harpist, please educate me.
354
General Discussion / Re: Spacing out endings
Is it customary to write out a harp arpeggio as individual notes, rather than use the arpeggio notation (squiggly line)? The notation would obviously take up much less space in the score.
355
General Discussion / Re: Spacing out endings
I've read the above post, and it has a number of very good ideas. Here are a few quick thoughts on the approach.
  • I like the idea of having some sort of "marker" on the spacer, so specific ones can be distinguished from each other for subsequent operations. However, I don't like the idea of using the hundreths position of the width as a marker. The color should be sufficient for this, since it has no effect on the score appearance.
  • I had another more radical idea, related to this, that might bear investigation. Imagine a custom object, which behaves the same as a spacer, except that it is "dynamic". Recall that custom objects can have a width, and that that width doesn't have to be a constant. Now, imagine scattering these objects around a score, and these objects can each have properties that control their behavior. They could even take cues from one or more StaffSig objects.

Just something to think about.
356
General Discussion / Re: Spacing out endings
Currently, there is a checkbox on the Options tab in Page Setup labeled "Increase spacing for longer notes". When the box is checked, the score will have a "standard" density, with the amount of space after each note in proportion to the note's length. (But not directly proportional: I'm sure there is some formula that dictates the spacing, but I don't know what it is.)  When the box is unchecked, there is a bare minimum of spacing after each note.

In another thread, I (or someone else) suggested it might be nice if the checkbox were changed to a numeric value or slider, so we could adjust the note density. Or maybe a group of settings, one for each note/rest duration. This might give the user the ability to make the "beautiful scores" that @SEBC and @hmmueller are talking about. Of course it's possible to do this by manually adding spacers, but as they note, it's extremely tedious to do it that way.

It seems to me that it would not be terribly difficult to make a user tool that would assist the user in doing this. You could highlight a range of notes, and then run the tool to add a particular spacer after each note, or before each bar line (or some other rule). If you didn't like the results, there could be an option in the tool to remove all of the spacers in the range. Or, if I recall correctly, the "Undo" mechanism should also work.  However, one of the pain points in using spacers to adjust note spacing in this way is that you often need to add them in each staff of a multi-staff score. But, not always! (There is probably a simple rule which dictates when they are needed in each staff, or in just one staff)
357
General Discussion / Re: How to fix this measure
I AM using cueheads on a rest chord. Is it possible to update the Cueheads to do this (says someone who has no understanding of the wizardry behind such a request!) ?
Well, the CueHeads object could certainly draw in a cue-sized rest, if the rest on the rest chord were hidden. But, how would it know when it should draw the rest? The user might have marked the rest as hidden because they didn't want it showing. It would take some other object or marker to indicate that a cue-sized rest is needed... in which case you might as well just add one as text.

I don't know if the above makes sense to any one else but me...
358
General Discussion / Re: Spacing out endings
Every now and then I revisit the topic: Should I switch from using NWC to one of the more common programs? Mostly, it does everything I have needed to do so far.  One thing that annoys me is having to figure out the best way to evenly space out the endings. Is it possible for someone to develop a tool that would do this automatically? I know how to use the "insert" method, but it takes a long time sometimes, and if I have single staff prints, sometimes I end up redoing them multiple times to work better for different instruments.

Thoughts?
It depends what you mean by "space out the endings". Do you mean the final system of the score?  If so, there's a fairly easy trick for that: just put a bar line at the end of the score, with its properties set to "Force System Break".

If you are talking about something else, perhaps you can share an example, that we can fix.
359
General Discussion / Re: How to fix this measure
At first I thought that you were using CueHeads on a RestChord (which does work, but the rest would be full-size). So I was envisioning an upgrade to CueHeads that would draw a cue-sized version of the rest... except that there's not an easy way to tell it do that. It's probably easiest to draw the cue rest as text, as Rick has done.
360
General Discussion / Re: How to fix this measure
Text description of Rick's technique (which I remember discovering in a long-ago forum post): Sometimes when you are using split voices, you need to convert a note to a rest chord with an invisible rest to make the beats come out.  It's hard to describe where to make the change, but if you count the beats in the top and bottom parts, you will generally see which note (or notes) need to be changed to rest chords, and what the duration of the rest should be. Remember that the rest duration determines how many beats the rest chord will occupy in the measure.
361
General Discussion / Re: Use of the Slur button
I'm not sure when NWC implemented "Persistant Tools", but that is what you need to change. Go to menu Notes > Persistant Tools... and uncheck Slur to get your desired behavior back.
363
Object Plugins / Re: BarCounter.nw
Also the "help" could be enhanced - for instance, you can choose "all eligible bars" - what does that mean?  On my current score, the bar count prints only at bar 5 of the first page, the first bar of the first system on pages 2 to 5, but then it normalizes on pages 6 to 50.  showing on each bar.  I thought it had something to do with notes on the first system being in leger-line land, but high notes are on that staff throughout the score.
I assume you inserted the object at the very beginning of your score, and not in a later measure. Its effects will only show in measures that follow it. It will probably also not show if the staff it is in is collapsed/hidden.  If you would be willing to share your score, perhaps we can troubleshoot.

Mike
364
General Discussion / Re: Object for turns
I had briefly considered writing a Turn.ms object, after completing the one for trills, but I didn't know the rules for how they are played. As someone said in that other thread, there are apparently different types of turns, depending on the time period.

I don't think it would be very difficult to make one based on the Trill object, from what I am seeing in various web pages. Oddly, I can't seem to find any mention of them in Behind Bars, unless she calls them something else.

As far a resources for writing custom objects in Lua, there really aren't that many, other than looking at ones that other people have written. I would probably not recommend that people look at objects I've written as learning tools, because I tend to use a lot of tricks that might not be obvious to the casual observer. The BarLabel.ms object that I wrote might be a good example, because it's fairly short and to the point, but it doesn't do any playback. Trill.ms would make the most sense to use as a starting point, but that object has a bit of complicated muck to deal with system spanning, which I don't think would be needed for turns.

In any case, I would be more than happy to assist in troubleshooting, if someone out there wants to take a shot at this.  Or, I'm sure my arm wouldn't require too much twisting to create an object for this.
365
General Discussion / Re: measures notation
Hi Guido,

What you are describing does not ring any bells for me - could you share a sheet music sample that contains it?  What you are describing sounds like it should be able to be created using the available fonts, but I want to see it so I can be sure.

Mike
366
General Discussion / Re: Strange music typeface
FWIW the semibreve notehead in the system font is larger than the minim notehead - maybe the object can use the semibreve notehead rather than draw one.  That way if someone is using an alternative system font the notehead will still match.
Here's a poor-man's demo:
Code: (nwc) [Select · Download]
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single)
|Text|Text:""|Font:StaffSymbols|Pos:0|Justify:Right
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:0z
|Text|Text:""|Font:StaffSymbols|Pos:1|Justify:Right
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:1z
|Text|Text:""|Font:StaffSymbols|Pos:-4|Justify:Right|Placement:AtNextNote
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:-4z
|Text|Text:""|Font:StaffSymbols|Pos:-3|Justify:Right|Placement:AtNextNote
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:-3z
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
367
General Discussion / Re: Strange music typeface
Yeah, maybe one of you "object creators" can help.  As NWC draws the stems they aren't in any fonts, only the noteheads themselves, so you would need to make the stem length zero and maybe use an object to draw the stem on the required side.

It doesn't seem that hard in my head, but then I'm no programmer so perhaps you should ignore me  ;)
I noticed that in addition to the minim noteheads being on the "wrong" side of the stem, they were also significantly larger than the solid noteheads. The custom object approach I had considered was to change the noteheads to "blank space" and then let the object draw them in, as is done for CueHeads.ms.  This would also give the option to draw the minim noteheads a bit larger.


368
General Discussion / Re: Sull'arco and Giu arco
The symbols you mention are present in the NWC staff symbols font. Here is an example:
Code: (nwc) [Select · Download]
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single)
|Text|Text:""|Font:StaffSymbols|Pos:7|Justify:Center|Placement:AtNextNote
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:2
|Text|Text:""|Font:StaffSymbols|Pos:7|Justify:Center|Placement:AtNextNote
|Note|Dur:4th|Pos:2
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
369
General Discussion / Re: Triplet Notation
Yes: You can add a "Marker" object before the first triplet note (Insert->Marker; on the keyboard, press @), where you select the checkbox "Triplet" (and de-select the "Slur" checkbox). The marker is shown by a (very) small grey triangle in the staff.

Then, by moving up and down the marker (either directly by selecting it and then pressing Ctrl-Shift-Up/Down; or by opening its properties = selecting it and then pressing Alt-Enter, and then changing its "Pos"), you can force the 3 to be at certain positions above or below the notes.

H.M.
In addition to what @hmmueller has said, there are additional things you can do, if you also insert a Marker object before the third triplet note. When both markers are present, you can change the angle of the triplet bracket.  Building on Rick's example:
Code: (nwc) [Select · Download]
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single)
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=End|Pos:0
|Marker|Pos:0|Target:Triplet
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet|Pos:0
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=End|Pos:0
|Marker|Pos:7.5|Target:Triplet
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:4
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet|Pos:6
|Marker|Pos:11|Target:Triplet
|Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=End|Pos:8
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
370
General Discussion / Re: What happened to my last bars?
Flurmy, you wrote "That's why I hate the things invisible in edit mode. "

Have you tried changing the colour for hidden objects in the editor?  Go to Tools, Options, Color, and edit the active and inactive hidden object colours.
He's not talking about hidden objects (e.g. those with Visibility set to Never). He's talking about the Transparent bar line, which is truly invisible in the editor, regardless of the colors chosen for active and inactive hidden objects in Settings.  I have to agree with him; it can be tricky to find those bar lines during editing. The only way to tell they are there is on the bar counter in the top margin.

I just noticed he said "things" (plural) in his original message. What other things are completely invisible in edit mode? The only other thing I can think of is an "all spaces" text object with "Preserve Width" checked (which behaves sort of like a spacer).
371
Object Plugins / Re: Arpeggio.ms (2.1)
As you observed, when you have two consecutive arpeggios which have the same notes, and the second arpeggio is anticipated, some of the "note on" events for arpeggio #2 are inserted before the corresponding "note off" event for arpeggio #1.  Sort of like the following picture, where 1 represents a "note on", and 0 represents a "note off":
Code: [Select · Download]
       1        0|1        0
     1         10|         0
   1         1  0|         0
 1         1    0|         0
The net result is that the "note off" events for the 2nd arpeggio are making the 1st arpeggio notes end early for all but the top (final) note, so that note "sticks out".

I can't think of an easy way to fix this. As has been noted previously, anticipated arpeggios (and guitar chords) are sort of primitive time travel devices, since they place MIDI events in the past, relative to the location of the object. In the above example, I guess what you are hearing is the result of the causality violation that I refer to in the documentation :)

One workaround to get normal playback would be to create a second layered staff and alternate the like chords between the two staves, making sure to use a different MIDI channel for each staff. Something like this:
Code: (nwc) [Select · Download]
!NoteWorthyComposer(2.751)
|AddStaff|Name:"Staff"|Group:"Standard"
|StaffProperties|EndingBar:Section Close|Visible:Y|BoundaryTop:12|BoundaryBottom:12|Lines:5|WithNextStaff:Layer|Color:Default
|StaffProperties|Muted:N|Volume:127|StereoPan:64|Device:0|Channel:1
|StaffInstrument|Trans:0|DynVel:10,30,45,60,75,92,108,127
|Clef|Type:Treble
|Key|Signature:Bb|Tonic:F
|TimeSig|Signature:4/4
|Rest|Dur:4th|Opts:Stem=Up
|Bar
|User|Arpeggio.ms|Pos:-3|Anticipated:Y
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-6,-3,-1,1,4|Opts:Muted
|Bar
|Rest|Dur:Whole|Visibility:Never
|Bar
|User|Arpeggio.ms|Pos:-3|Offset:0|Anticipated:Y
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-6,-3,-1,1,4|Opts:Muted
|Bar
|User|Arpeggio.ms|Pos:-3|Offset:0|Anticipated:Y
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-7,-5,-3,0,2|Opts:Muted
|Bar
|User|Arpeggio.ms|Pos:-3|Offset:0|Anticipated:Y
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-6,-3,-1,1,4|Opts:Muted
|Bar
|Rest|Dur:Whole|Visibility:Never
|AddStaff|Name:"Staff-1"|Group:"Standard"
|StaffProperties|EndingBar:Section Close|Visible:Y|BoundaryTop:10|BoundaryBottom:10|Lines:5|Color:Default
|StaffProperties|Muted:N|Volume:127|StereoPan:64|Device:0|Channel:2
|StaffInstrument|Trans:0|DynVel:10,30,45,60,75,92,108,127
|Clef|Type:Treble
|Key|Signature:Bb|Tonic:F
|TimeSig|Signature:4/4
|Rest|Dur:4th|Opts:Stem=Up
|Bar
|Rest|Dur:Whole|Visibility:Never
|Bar
|User|Arpeggio.ms|Pos:-3|Offset:0|Anticipated:Y
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-6,-3,-1,1,4|Opts:Muted
|Bar
|Rest|Dur:Whole|Visibility:Never
|Bar
|Rest|Dur:Whole|Visibility:Never
|Bar
|Rest|Dur:Whole|Visibility:Never
|Bar
|User|Arpeggio.ms|Pos:-3|Offset:0|Anticipated:Y
|Chord|Dur:Whole|Pos:-6,-3,-1,1,4|Opts:Muted
!NoteWorthyComposer-End
372
Object Plugins / Re: Side effects
When there is a suite of arpeggios on the same notes and the arpeggios must be played anticipated, then the note off of the previous notes arrive after the note on of the anticipated following arpeggio, leaving only the topmost note with an awful effect.
Try this:
{snip}
Any idea on how to circumvent this without big impact on the visible score (beside using a playing hidden layer, of course)?
Congratulations! You've found a bug that has been in the plugin almost forever! I'm trying to figure out how the best way to fix this.

As a side note, the same bug is present in the GuitarChord.ms object, when you select consecutive chords with the same final note and anticipated playback (which is not surprising since the code is almost identical for strum playback).

Thanks,
Mike
373
Object Plugins / Re: Glissando.ms (2.11)
According to Behind Bars, this would be achieved notationally by shortening the line. You can do this by using the Start Offset X and Start Offset Y parameters.

Originally when I created the Glissando object, I had no idea that it would ever be able to achieve playback. The playback code currently handles a number of playback options, and has gotten fairly complex; I don't think it will ever be able to achieve every possible playback contingency. For the time being, you may be better off using the standard NWC "tricks" for glissando playback, for your particular situation. If you do come up with a sample score that does what you want, please share it here and I can attempt to model that behavior within the plugin code.

Thanks,
Mike
376
Tips & Tricks / Re: Triplets v. Duples, 3/4 v. 9/8, Hiding "3" in triplets
Well, please note this topic is quite old.
Today you can easily hide the "3" using a marker and adding the tuplet indication using TupletMarks.fso.nwcuser.lua
Thanks, I was going to make a similar comment. The hiding of augmentation dots is also something that was not possible in the version of NWC that was around when this thread was started.

There are a lot of older threads here, that I suspect people are still finding via searches, that give complicated workarounds that are now much easier with the current NWC version. Perhaps we should post a short reply, directing them to a newer thread that talks about the "better" method.
377
General Discussion / Re: Logo
Print your song as a PDF. Sign the PDF with Adobe Reader using your logo as the image file.
Just to be clear, you want to use "Fill & Sign", not "Adobe Sign" (which is a subscription-only feature).

I didn't realize that this was what the author of this thread was referring to in her message. But it does work quite nicely.
379
General Discussion / Re: With a little help from my friends...
Hello Bart,

That's a very nice tool. I have one suggestion that will help it deal with multi-staff scores a bit better.  Currently, if you have a staff which has a collapse section which is not followed by an end collapse, then the coloring will wrap around to the next staff. This is obviously not desirable. Adding a single line of code, at the top of the for loop, will address this:
Code: [Select · Download]
-- $NWCUT$CONFIG: FileText $
nwcut.setlevel(2)
nwcut.status = nwcut.const.rc_Succes
--nwcut.status = nwcut.const.rc_Report

local progname = 'change_collapse_color'
local HelpMsg = [[
This tool changes the color of items in a collapse boundery
]]

--------------------------------------
-- Main processing -------------------
--------------------------------------
assert(nwcut.getprop('Mode')       == nwcut.const.mode_FileText, "Input type must be 'File Text'")
assert(nwcut.getprop('ReturnMode') == nwcut.const.mode_FileText, "Under 'Options', check 'Returns File Text'")

collapse_color = nwcut.prompt("collapse_color N ", "#",0,5)
collapse = 0

for item in nwcut.items() do
    if item:Is('AddStaff') then collapse = 0 end--if
    if collapse == 1 then item.Opts.Color = collapse_color ; end--if
    if item:Is('Boundary') then
         if item.Opts.Style == 'Collapse'    then collapse = 1  end--if
         if item.Opts.Style == 'EndCollapse' then collapse = 0  end--if
    end--if
nwcut.writeline(item) 
end--for   

380
General Discussion / Re: Working with *.nwctxt files
I'm sorry your reply was lost; I am interested in knowing what features are missing from the NWC Viewer that your users need. Is there any chance you could post a "short and sweet" version of your previous reply?
381
Object Plugins / Re: Tremolo.ms (2.1)
I thought that I had implemented the same beam spacing for tremolos as NWC did for regular beams, but I now see that I did not. It is fairly easy to change this. If you don't mind tweaking code, the spacing you desire (as specified by Behind Bars) can be done by changing the line 121 of Tremolo.ms.nwcuser.lua from:
Code: (lua) [Select · Download]
local beamHeight, beamSpacing, beamOffset = .8, 1.8, .6
to:
Code: (lua) [Select · Download]
local beamHeight, beamSpacing, beamOffset = 1, 1.5, .6
It would be nice if there was an easy method of specifying global "configuration" settings that would apply to all instances of a plugin. so that an additional parameter would not be needed for this under normal conditions.
382
Object Plugins / Re: Trill.ms (1.0)
The Trill.ms object has been updated, with the following changes:
  • Change the "Playback Note Type" dropdown parameter (Sixteenth, Thirtysecond, Sixtyfourth) to a numeric "Playback Rate" parameter (as is also done for Arpeggio.ms and Acciaccatura.ms). Scores which reference the older parameter value will be automatically upgraded to the rate parameter.  (Thanks to @Flurmy for the enhancement request.)

384
Object Plugins / Re: Trill.ms (2.0c)
The current speed options available are: 'Sixteenth', 'Thirtysecond', 'Sixtyfourth'.
In some cases I find Thirtysecond too slow and Sixtyfourth too fast. In others Sixtyfourth is still too slow.
Since in both Arpeggio and Acciaccatura Mike used the much more flexible parameter "Rate" (and surreptitiously allowed the fusa  ;) ) I'm wondering if the same could be done in Trillo too.
The code could certainly be changed to use a Rate value instead of the specific note types, but of course there would be the issue of backward compatibility. That too can be handled by the "audit" event, which would convert the note type to a corresponding Rate value when the score is opened.  I assume you would want values of 16, 32 and 64 to correspond to those three note types?

It seems that you want to have faster trill options, so I assume that 16 would be an acceptable minimum value. Would 128 be a fast enough top value?
385
General Discussion / Re: Easy Search-Replace for 1 shape in a 7-shape shape-note score?
I have noticed that where there are courtesy accidentals, the script turns those notes into ties in the conversion process.  Maybe there is a place on here to submit suggestions for fixes, but I've lost track of it if there was.
Since courtesy accidentals are a new feature added since the user tool was written, it's not a surprise that the tool is misinterpreting them. The user tool was written by @NoteWorthy Online so hopefully by tagging him here, he will see this thread and be aware that a fix is needed.
386
General Discussion / Re: Easy Search-Replace for 1 shape in a 7-shape shape-note score?
That is more efficient than the "brute force" change that I mocked up here. (I didn't realize that the "o" note shape had the same effect as a blank one).

Rick's change will make the tool always leave "sol" notes unchanged. One could instead add another item to the $AllShapeNotes array,  called "7-shape-no-sol" for example, so that the user can choose either behavior. (The command line options would also need to be updated to allow the addition prompt drop down).
387
General Discussion / Re: Easy Search-Replace for 1 shape in a 7-shape shape-note score?
At some point in the future, I would also like to make alterations to all of those 7-shape noteheads, (as well as to other symbols such as the "flags" for eighth, sixteenth notes, etc.)  but I believe I recall reading somewhere in the forum that those shapes aren't produced like other fonts and a font editor would not be of use?
I'm not sure where you read this, but I don't believe that statement is correct. When you click on the "Char Map..." button in the Insert Text function (with Staff Symbols as the chosen font), you can see the various open and closed versions of the shape noteheads. You can also see the various flags. The fact that you noticed that there are slightly different shapes for those noteheads in the NWCMusicDingsSans font shows that these characters CAN be customized using a font editor.

If you want to know how to create a new custom font for NWC, I would guess that @Lawrie Pardy (who created the MusicDings and SwingDings fonts) would be a good starting place.

One other final note (I think it's a "SOL" :) ) to consider. User tools are not difficult to create or change, and it should be fairly straightforward to modify the user tool you are using to replace shape noteheads so that it uses a standard notehead for SOL. Are you running the tool named "Shape Notes (nwsw)" (which comes with the starter pack)? If so, let me know and I'll see if I can create a version of that tool that would do what you are looking for.
388
General Discussion / Re: Graphic score notation
Code: (nwc) [Select · Download]
!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single)
|Note|Dur:4th,Slur|Pos:b0|Opts:StemLength=0
|User|Glissando.ms|Pos:-1|Class:Span|Weight:4|Text:|StartOffsetY:0.3|EndOffsetY:0.3|ap:2|StartOffsetX:0.2|EndOffsetX:-0.3
|Spacer|Width:1000
|Note|Dur:4th,Slur|Pos:b-1|Opts:Stem=Down,StemLength=0
|User|Glissando.ms|Pos:-1|Weight:4|Text:|StartOffsetY:0.4|EndOffsetY:0.4|ap:1|StartOffsetX:0.2|EndOffsetX:-0.2
|Spacer|Width:225
|Note|Dur:4th,Slur|Pos:b-2|Opts:Stem=Down,StemLength=0
|Spacer|Width:50
|Note|Dur:4th,Slur|Pos:-4|Opts:Stem=Down,StemLength=0
|Spacer|Width:50
|Note|Dur:4th,Slur|Pos:-3|Opts:Stem=Down,StemLength=0
|User|Glissando.ms|Pos:-1|Weight:4|Text:|ap:2|EndOffsetY:-1.5|StartOffsetY:-0.6|StartOffsetX:0.1|EndOffsetX:0.9
|Spacer|Width:450
|Marker|Pos:6
|Chord|Dur:4th|Pos:b-1,b3|Opts:StemLength=0
|Spacer|Width:475
|User|Glissando.ms|Pos:-1|Weight:4|Text:|StartOffsetY:4|EndOffsetY:4|StartOffsetX:0.2|EndOffsetX:-0.2|ap:2
|User|Glissando.ms|Pos:-1|Weight:4|Text:|StartOffsetY:0.1|EndOffsetY:0.1|StartOffsetX:0.2|EndOffsetX:-0.2
|Rest|Dur:4th|Visibility:Never
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
389
General Discussion / Re: Graphic score notation
Another approach that might work for the proportional extender marks would be to use the Glissando.ms object. You can remove the text, change the line weight, and change the X and Y offsets to keep the line horizontal (or, you could add hidden mute notes to serve as the anchor points). The only problem is that the line drawing function for NWC plugins draws the ends of the lines as rounded. It would probably make sense to create a separate "extender" object that draws them as rectangles with sharp corners (and makes it easier to keep them horizontal).

I've attached another example I was playing around with. The one with the fancier curve was created using a SlurCubic where I allow negative Strength values. You could create the same effect with two back-to-back slurs with an invisible note between them.
390
General Discussion / Re: Neumes and more
I am attaching my version of your first file, with a few alterations/corrections. A few notes of explanation are in order.

1. I found a font online called Medicea, that has the chant clef character, which I have used in place of your "C" character. In order to use that font, you would need to install it on your system, which you might not want to do. If that's the case, delete that character and replace it with your original "C". If you want to install it, I am including the font as a separate attachment to this message (it is a freely redistributable font.) You might also note that it has a number of other chant characters, but I chose not to explore their usage.

2. I found better versions of the versicle (℣.) and response (℟.) characters that you used; they are Unicode characters that are present in the Windows Times New Roman font.

3. Regarding those two pieces of text, there is an easier way to place text and preserve space, rather than adding separate spacers. Just check the "Preserve Space" checkbox on the Placement tab. I added a few spaces to the end of each letter to make the spacing look right.

4. For the vertical mark between "Christ" and "ac-cor-ding", I have used another trick: insert a mute quarter note with a blank notehead, and adjust the stem length to 2.5.  Then position it as needed.

5. Finally, for the first phrase, you want multiple syllables on a single note. The easiest way to do this is to put underscore characters between the words in the lyrics, so NWC will treat it as a single word.  Also, on the lyrics Configuration tab, you want to select Align Syllable Using: Start of Accidental/Note.

As you and others have indicated, there are other ways of producing better looking Gregorian notation, but you wanted to stick with NWC :)  I have considered something like CueHeads that would find blank space noteheads and render single note neumes at their locations, Another idea (that I don't know how to do, but perhaps Lawrie will chime in) is that an alternative font could be created, along the line of his SwingDings, that would replace the standard "modern" noteheads with neume shapes. This wouldn't handle the full range of chant notation, but it would probably do well for your examples.
391
General Discussion / Re: Graphic score notation
In general, I would say that what NWC offers is the facility for creating a custom plugin that will draw just about anything you can imagine. And some things you can't imagine until you see them :)

If you can figure out how to share that example, I am sure one of us can suggest an approach that should work. If the forum won't let you upload the image, you should still have my email address, and you can try sending it to me that way.

Mike
392
General Discussion / Re: A compliment!
I believe the red x's you are seeing under the bar numbers are "mute" indications. They will appear above each note that is muted in the highlighted staff. This new feature was added in NWC 2.75.
393
Object Plugins / Re: ConnectBarlines.hmm (0.4)
This is just a guess, but I would like to suggest a short-term workaround: for your layered staves, make sure that the upper and lower margins are the same for each staff in the same layer. That way, the ConnectBarLines object should draw things correctly.
394
General Discussion / Re: Things I Don't Know
Perhaps the easier way you are looking for is to go to Page Setup (the "open book" icon, or File > Page Setup...) and then navigate to the Contents tab. From there, you can mark individual staves as visible or invisible. If you have grouped your staves, then you can hide/unhide them by checking/unchecking the group.  There is also a checkbox where you can toggle layering on/off. From that tab, you can click the Preview... button to see how the score will look when it's printed.

If you save the score with certain staves hidden, it will remember those settings, so you would need to toggle the boxes back on later if you want a complete score again.

I hope that helps,

Mike
396
General Discussion / Re: Measure numbers in viewer
The NWC Viewer does not seem to have that option; however, if you insert the BarCounter.nw object at the start of your score, and check "Show on all bars", that will show you bar numbers. Unfortunately, it would also print them.
397
Object Plugins / Re: Primer for writing NWC Objects?
I am trying to grasp the trill object and while I understand parts of it, I am a long way for having a handle on it.  Is there a primer or template for creating an object to add, remove, or change what NWC would normally show or print?  Same for what happens during playback?  Is there a library of functions with instructions on how and when to use them?

TIA
Hello Warren,

As the author of the Trill.ms object (and a bunch of others), I can tell you that I wish there were a tutorial/primer for creating objects. The forums here are where I learned to write them, by looking at others' efforts. In the beginning, it was mostly @NoteWorthy Online, @Rick G. and me, although others have come on board since then.

There is documentation online which describes the API, which you can find here, but I assume you have looked this over already. Maybe if you have specific questions about Trill.ms, I can try to answer them. I won't pretend that my code is the easiest to follow, and some of the objects have evolved over time as new functions and capabilities were added to the plugin object API. For example, when the trill object began, it only knew how to draw them. Later, I added the ability to play them, and still later, I added the logic to allow trills to wrap to the next system. That last one was probably the most complicated to implement, and also the hardest to explain.

Let me know if I can help.
399
General Discussion / Re: Orchestration Template
I just realized that you said "user tool window", and I think you are talking about the RangePitchMarker.hmm plugin. As you probably remember, user tools and object plugins are two different animals. You might have downloaded the plugin file as though it was a user tool, but that won't work. The easiest way to install a new plugin is by doing the following:

  • Go to the forum page for that plugin (i.e. here).
  • Download the score or clip that the author has provided, and load that into NWC.  In this case, the score is named "20131027-31er.AveMariaFirstFewChords.nwc"
  • If the plugin isn't installed yet, you'll see a popup message of the form "Detected x unknown user objects in blahblahblah.nwc". Go to Tools > Manage Objects... and click "Online Synch..." which completes the installation process.
400
General Discussion / Re: Staff boundary discrepancies
I believe your assertion is correct.  I created a score with the same staff sizes as you have, and confirmed the numbers were the same as your observations.  Then, just for fun, I changed the number of staff lines from 5 to 0 (without changing the upper or lower boundaries). Now, entering a Boundary Change command shows the same values as Staff Properties.

I do agree with you about the difference in values - it would be nice if they were shown in the same units of measure. However, there are backward compatibility issues to deal with. (And yes, I know that the software could "fudge" the values, but people are used to entering the values that are there currently.)