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Forums => Tips & Tricks => User Tools => Topic started by: Opagust on 2020-11-09 02:45 pm

Title: Construct a medley
Post by: Opagust on 2020-11-09 02:45 pm
A new tool 'Construct a medley' is added to the multitool PYNWC (https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=10042.0) (version 1.1)

Combine several song files into 1 medley file.

    To create a medley file, you have to start this tool from a blank score:
    Choose 'File/New' and select <blank score> from the 'Song Templates/General' tab and save it before you go to 'Tools/User Tools'.
    This file will be the destination file, in which you add the songs that will make up the medley.
    You can create the medley file in several steps, so you can also start this tool from an earlier created medley file.
    (The tool checks the presence of 'song lines'(1) in the Comments section of the Song Info to decide whether it's a valid medley file.)

    Via the tool parameters you can specify:
   
     - Include song titles at the start of each song (top staff).
     - Position, scale and font for the Song Title text objects.
     - Type of separation bar between the songs (except when the previous song ends with a Repeat Close): Single, Double or Section Close.
     - Page break, System Break or no break between the songs.

    The tool consists of several stages:

     - A popup window 'Select Songs'.
        - If you press 'Add a file', a Windows Explorer window will be opened.
        - Important: Only files in NWC Text format can be processed. So maybe you'll have to open and 'save as' one or more of your songs first.
        - A selected song can be removed from the list by clicking on it.
        - In this stage you can also set or change the Medley Title.
        - 'Cancel' will exit the tool without any changes.
        - If you have chosen your files, press 'Continue >'.

     - A popup window 'Arrange Staves'. Via this window you can:
        - Reorder the staves
        - Change song titles(2)
        - Change staff names and labels
        - Join staves (by assigning the same name and label)
        - Press '?' to see more detailed help info
        - Press '< Back' to return to the 'Adding Songs' window.

     - Review of the staff properties:
        - For each staff that appears in several songs, the properties from the different songs are compared.
          For each mismatch(except for 'visibility' and 'muted'), a popup window is presented where you can choose which values to retain(2).
          If there are to many mismatches, you may want to  press 'Cancel', in which the tool is ended without any change.
          When there's a mismatch for 'visibility', the part of the song with property invisible will be collapsed.
          When there's a mismatch for 'muted', the appropriate notes will be muted.

     - Construction of the medley, according the choices in the Tool Parameters:
        - Adding 'song lines(1)' to the Comments Section of the Song Info.
        - Adding song titles at the start of each song.
        - Creating delimiter objects: separation bar, new system or new page.
        - Inserting rests measures in staves that aren't part of every song, surrounded by boundary collapse and end collapse objects (3).

    Notes:
        (1) A 'song line' is of the form "Song:{song title}#{starting measure}-{ending measure}"
        (2) Changing the song titles and/or staff properties has only effect in the destination file. The original song files will not be modified.
        (3) The inserted boundary changes don't always give the expected result between the songs, so may be you'll have to delete or replace some of them.