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Topic: I've had it! (Read 25576 times) previous topic - next topic

I've had it!

Hmm..

funny how I keep coming back to the same topics.

I tried installing fonts; THEY DIDN"T WORK.  It wasted a lot of time.  Maybe I don't know how to install fonts and make them usable, maybe I'm simply an idiot.  Believe me, I'm no idiot, but none of the fonts ever work for me (the things for the rests, for swing, for anything.)

I've about had it with NWC.  Yes, I think the Dark Side is beckoning.  A notation package that doesn't need tricks and secret handshakes to do what really are BASIC notation elements. 

And, yes, I know that multi-bar rests have been addressed in the latest version.  WHY DID IT TAKE 14 YEARS???  Why can't I notate and hear a trill without having to bend over and spread 'em?

I love this little package for real basic things, but it's to the point that I   1) am not doing as much writing as I used to 2)have less time to fuck around with this stupid package, try to make something work, and finally give up and either find a workaround or simply print it and manually write something in.


I'm no idiot, but I'm no geek either.  Finale has been able to do everything I want, aside from OCR.  I think I'm going that way.  I certainly got my money's worth from buying this package (actually TWICE, I lost my original floppy and all the information, and no one seemed to be able to help me with my authorization codes etc), but it's just not happening any more.

Re: I've had it!

Reply #1 –
G'day Eupher61,
I don't know that I can help with the other things, but maybe I can with the fonts...  I assume the fonts you're referring to are my suites (Swingdings et al).

To install them, assuming you're not using the installer made by Eric, simply expand the archive into a folder somewhere and then copy them into the x:\Windows\Fonts folder.  It is VERY important you don't extract the archive directly to the fonts folder as this will NOT install them into the registry.

Oh yeah, I wouldn't install them while NWC is running...

To use them, there are 2 possibilities:
a) the system fonts.  These start with NWC2... and are selected in the |File|Page Setup|Fonts (tab)|Staff Metrics (part of the dialogue).

Click the change button and you can select alternative system fonts and the size you want the systems to be.  Also whether or not the size change is reflected in an automatic change in the other fonts.

b) all other fonts.  Select them in the  |File|Page Setup|Fonts (tab) - lower portion of the dialogue box.  Each "Name" is selected and changed individually.  For myself, as I normally use SwingDings, I've setup templates that have these already in place, but you open each and then in the following dialogue select the installed font you want to use for the named function.

The "User" fonts are for purposes not defined in NWC.  This is where I use the *Dings font and the *Chord font, and this is done in the same way as mentioned in the preceeding paragraph.  Fonts installed as "User" fonts are most useful for text entries.  When making a text entry choose the font you want to use.

If the above is not sufficient please contact me, either in this topic (to help others who might have a similar problem and haven't spoken up) or via PM.  I'll respond as quickly as I can but please remember time zone differences may delay things - I live in Australia...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Install Font

Reply #2 –
So called "install" font is just a fancier way of saying "drag your font file into the window font folder."  

I do currently have a problem though.  Everytime when I start NWC2.5, I get an error saying that the font is missing, but if I restart NWC, it's fine.  This only occurs when I start NWC2.5 after system booting.  It seems that the fonts are not loaded until initially, could it be my startup config?

Re: Install Font

Reply #3 –
Quote from: kokocipher –
So called "install" font is just a fancier way of saying "drag your font file into the window font folder."  
In a way, yes, but the internal process is different.  Windows itself realises that you are installing a font and makes appropriate changes to the registry.  This is why extracting from the zip files directly into the fonts folder doesn't work - the zip extraction bypasses the installation process.

Quote
I do currently have a problem though.  Everytime when I start NWC2.5, I get an error saying that the font is missing, but if I restart NWC, it's fine.  This only occurs when I start NWC2.5 after system booting.  It seems that the fonts are not loaded until initially, could it be my startup config?
I'm not sure what this could be - which font is it complaining about?  It's most likely a problem with NWC2STDA.TTF which is updated for NWC2.5 - perhaps uninstalling/deleting the current NWC2STDA and reinstalling it will solve the problem.  It might be an idea to check rights and attributes: make sure your user has full rights to the fonts folder and that the font file is not write protected.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: I've had it!

Reply #4 –
Apologies in advance if this offends anyone, but it has to be said.

I agree completely with the original poster.  Please recall the long 'Fonts' thread we had here last year.  No need to recreate it in this thread; it's still there for anyone who doesn't recall it.

It was not resolved.  It merely petered out.  And through his dedication Richard revised _every_ music file's entry in the Scriptorium to list the extra fonts that are required to be installed to view that file correctly, and which are not supplied by NoteWorthy.

Principally -- Boxmarks, Boxmark2, and Crescendo, among others.

As was pointed out in that exhausting thread, and is again pointed out by the poster above, those are not exotic or far-fetched symbols.  They are absolutely standard, routine music notation elements.  In common use.

The PardyPack includes them for recent and new composition work.  But look at the older music files which require use of one or more of the fonts above.

It was suggested in the earlier thread that a solution might have been to simply include them in the standard NW Composer/Player download.  That went nowhere.

And again:  try to tell  _every_  person who is a singer in a 40-voice choir, preparing to use the NW Player, that he or she must also download additional things called "fonts", unzip them, and install them into the proper Windows Fonts folder for his/her Windows version -- just try it.  And again:  they are musicians, not Windows gurus.  And again:  they have never had to do it before; their "other" music notation/player software e.g. Brands "F" and "S" are simply complete.  Load a music file, and it plays.

And in case anyone wonders, I am a dedicated NWC user for 13 years who has done his damnedest to get the NW Player and ultimately Composer in front of local ensembles.  You can only get so far with several dozen individual folks whose "other" software is already familiar, works well for them, and doesn't require talking about add-ons and Windows paths to anyone.

Well prepared for flak if it comes.  But again, those are common, everyday notation elements.

Joe

Re: I've had it!

Reply #5 –
Joe,
ABSOLUTELY no flak.

I agree with you -
I've been using NWC since before V1.55,
 
but

with the continued absence of glyphs which are regularly required,
NWC is "shooting itself in the foot".

Re: I've had it!

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Joseph Roberts –
Principally -- Boxmarks, Boxmark2, and Crescendo, among others.
Are you seriously suggesting that NoteWorthy Viewer should automatically install them?
Registered user since 1996

Re: Install Font

Reply #7 –
Quote from: kokocipher –
Everytime when I start NWC2.5, I get an error saying that the font is missing, but if I restart NWC, it's fine.  This only occurs when I start NWC2.5 after system booting.  It seems that the fonts are not loaded until initially, could it be my startup config?
I would say that on your machine NWC is only able to install a font for your current session. This probably has something to do with security - your rights and permissions as a user.

It could be that the admin has your machine configured to remove unapproved fonts on startup.
You might also have this problem if you are trying to use NWC as a portable app.
Registered user since 1996

Re: I've had it!

Reply #8 –
FWIW, our community band just played some music transcribed with, as you say, "brand S."  There were approximately 20 odd-looking characters scattered about one of the pieces, so clearly the font problem is not limited to NoteWorthy Composer.

I think NWC is slowly evolving to include more and more symbols in its own font, and that should help with pieces that you arrange or write for your groups.  The files in the scriptorium aren't really supposed to be distributed like that anyway.  (At least not without permission.)
Sincerely,
Francis Beaumier
Green Bay, WI

Re: I've had it!

Reply #9 –
Any time any software uses any font that isn't (a) a Windows standard font, or (b) installed by the software's installer, there is going to be trouble. This is not a NoteWorthy issue - it is a general software design issue, and is unavoidable if software is going to continue to evolve.

That said: since the PardyPack has become the standard source for symbols not supplied directly by NWC, it makes sense to have an option to install it when installing either NWC or the Viewer. Boxmarks would then also cease to be a problem, as Lawrie's fonts are mapped to the same characters as Boxmarks. The less commonly used legacy fonts, such as Crescendo, would still be an issue, but a small one; and since there is nothing I am aware of in any of those old fonts that is not now provided by either the PardyPack or NWC itself, it behooves the person who wants to distribute an older NWC file to re-edit it before distribution, and take those old fonts out. Incompatibility with obsolete fonts is at least as much a problem with the distributor of a file as it is a problem with the software that reads it.

In other words: If you plan to distribute a file, update the damn fonts, already!

Re: I've had it!

Reply #10 –

(snip for brevity, please see Bill's original post.)

Quote from: William Ashworth –
...
The less commonly used legacy fonts, such as Crescendo, would still be an issue, but a small one; and since there is nothing I am aware of in any of those old fonts that is not now provided by either the PardyPack or NWC itself, it behooves the person who wants to distribute an older NWC file to re-edit it before distribution, and take those old fonts out. Incompatibility with obsolete fonts is at least as much a problem with the distributor of a file as it is a problem with the software that reads it.

In other words: If you plan to distribute a file, update the damn fonts, already!

Not such a small issue with Crescendo.  Before NWC implemented 'hairpins' as controls, they were notated visually as text symbols in Crescendo with the sound handled by hidden MPC-Volume controls.  Even today, if one wants a 'hairpin' cresc/dim on a sustained note, using the current NWC 'hairpin' implementation (read: MIDI implementation) doesn't work.

Life would be straightforward if Crescendo were simply included, both for all implementations in legacy files and sustained-note implementation in new ones.  Or if the need for a font that's missing in the Fonts list were detected by the Player/Composer, giving a prompt to the user and easy instructions for installing it.

Joe

Re: I've had it!

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Joseph Roberts –
Not such a small issue with Crescendo.  Before NWC implemented 'hairpins' as controls, they were notated visually as text symbols in Crescendo with the sound handled by hidden MPC-Volume controls.  Even today, if one wants a 'hairpin' cresc/dim on a sustained note, using the current NWC 'hairpin' implementation (read: MIDI implementation) doesn't work.

Give this version of voltest.nwc a try.  It has cresc. and decresc. but they can be replaced with hairpins.
Since 1998

Re: I've had it!

Reply #12 –
Joseph,

I don't find any advantage to using the Crescendo fonts over the NWC hairpins. Either way, you'll have to use mpc's on sustained notes, and they really aren't all that difficult to use (users of the Viewer, of course, won't need to know anything about them). I used Crescendo back in the Bad Old Days, but every time I come across that font in a file I'm reviving for current use, I simply take the text crescendo out and replace it with a native crescendo. Doesn't require any change to the mpc's.

Regards,

Bill

Re: I've had it!

Reply #13 –
Couple of comments, addressing Warren's and Bill's posts ...

'voltest.nwc' works on this Audigy 2 setup.  It did not work on two previous setups (Crystal Audio and Audigy 1).  

Across a choral ensemble, we can't presume what's available to each person.  Also, the Scriptorium is -- and rightly ought to be -- a treasure and magnet for drawing users to NWC.  We can call files "legacy files", but there is no such distinction to the user at the point of downloading and playing the file.  

If odd-looking capital letters are throughout the score, with notation seeming primitive because of missing dynamics, where's the incentive to continue?  Artistic directors have other things to attend to, besides modifying scores or telling several dozen musicians how to work with unzipping font files and installing them on various Windows versions' paths.  Even a written procedure will produce a can of worms somewhere in the ensemble.  They simply have better -- musical -- things to attend to, and they'll go to a music score they can download and run with.

It's a different environment from this tightly-knit forum community.  We can be 'techie' here, and still messages like the OP's above will probably continue to surface.  What we do not see are people who are musicians, open to a new environment, but who are turned off early because they don't know how to fiddle with fonts, versions and paths.

Regarding the NWC hairpins.  How to handle a swell on a sustained note?

Noteworthy has been empty in those notation areas over the years and various people have produced patches in the form of fonts.  Now the primary score resource -- the Scriptorium -- has all those patches.  Minimally today, both the Player and Composer ought to sense a missing font and prompt the user for what is missing and where it should go (e.g. User1).  That's _minimally_.

Entirely meant to be positive inputs, and hoping they're taken that way.

Joe






Re: I've had it!

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Joseph Roberts –
<snip>Artistic directors have other things to attend to, besides modifying scores<snip>
Well, yes, but modifying scores is one of the things they do, during the preparation period before they hand out the scores and often after a few rehearsals when they see how things are shaping up. All conductors I have ever known have always marked up their own scores and instructed the players (or singers) how to mark up theirs. If you have time to mark an extra instruction in the score (e.g. "slower here"), you also have time to change a text hairpin to a native NWC hairpin. And if there's a text hairpin, the mpc's should already be there; you don't have to know how to make a swell using mpc's (the technique is the same, regardless of whether you have a text hairpin or a native one). This isn't the place for a lesson, but it's an easy job, using the "custom note velocity" and "change channel volume" check boxes and spinners in the properties dialog for the dynamics before and after the hairpin. Musicians using the Viewer don't have access to those, of course. That's why you make the changes before you hand out the file. And doing it that way means you only have to make the changes once.

I agree that it would be nice if all files in the Scriptorium could be read by all versions of NWC. It isn't going to happen. People using 1.x can't read ver. 2.x files. People using versions prior to 2.5 can't read 2.5 files. This is no different from, e.g., MS Word, which also throws odd symbols at you if you try to read an incompatible file version. And it is really no different from not having the right fonts installed, either. All of this suggests that it's better to download the files, fix them, and distribute them to your singers yourself, than it is to just turn them loose in the Scripto. The good ones will find their way there, anyway.

So I think you have a point, Joseph, but I don't think it's as big as you make it out to be, and I think musicians can mostly adapt. Some of them are going to need help. But if your choisters are anything like the ones I had back in the dark ages when I was conducting a church choir, a lot of them are going to need help anyway.

Re: I've had it!

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Joseph Roberts –
'voltest.nwc' works on this Audigy 2 setup.  It did not work on two previous setups (Crystal Audio and Audigy 1).  
Across a choral ensemble, we can't presume what's available to each person.

Of course, but you simply can not blame NWC for that.
As in the "good" old days when someone had a color display and someother not.

For the rest, I wholly concurr with Bill.

Re: I've had it!

Reply #16 –
Good points by all.

It's just unfortunate that an "I've had it!" thread has to occur involving manually finding out what fonts are missing, versions of Windows paths, unzipping and installing files from a non-NoteWorthy site, when -- just humble opinion -- NWC could lighten the user's load through some additional font availability, or at the least through some font detection and prompting.

I guess it's time to give it a multi-bar rest.

Joe

Re: I've had it!

Reply #17 –
Quote from: kokocipher –
I do currently have a problem though.  Everytime when I start NWC2.5, I get an error saying that the font is missing, but if I restart NWC, it's fine.  This only occurs when I start NWC2.5 after system booting.  It seems that the fonts are not loaded until initially, could it be my startup config?

I believe that there was a bug in the original NWC 2.5 installers with regard to installing/upgrading the font. It may have been fixed in the newer installers, but the issue will be reviewed to make sure that it is truly solved going forward.

Re: I've had it!

Reply #18 –
OK, so I have come back to read this thread.

I'm still not convinced.  I've had fun doing really, really basic things with NWC.  I can't get the stupid fonts to load, no matter what I try, how I try to import them, or if they ARE loaded they don't work.

I wish the mother software would simply incorporate these things in a new version.  That may convince me to keep using it, and not go to one of the biggies.   Actually, I've already gone there, a trial version of Sibelius, and my wife has a bare bones of Finale which is MUCH easier to use than NWC.  Much more powerful for my purposes--mainly, parts and score writing, and quick.  Even the bare bones does it better.  And, not that much more expensive.

Ok...thanks, everyone. 

Re: I've had it!

Reply #19 –
Some of the comments above regarding copying the fonts to the Windows FONTS folder will only work correctly with Windows 7 (and possibly Vista).  For users of Windows XP and earlier, the fonts have to be installed.  Open FONTS in Control Panel, click on File - Install New Fonts and select the location of the font files.  Check the box to copy the fonts to the fonts folder - should be checked by default.

HTH

Re: I've had it!

Reply #20 –
There are a lot of things I like about NWC vs "F" - I find NWC's user interface to be more intuitive, I like that I can select and edit individual notes easily and that it's so much like a text editor.  That said, there are significant failings.  Setting up an acceptable printed version of a piece is still a tortuous process, for example.  I've played around with FretQwik to enter guitar chord diagrams, and I find it to be klugey and difficult to use, partly because the Typecase character map software does not appear to be available any more (can't find it despite numerous attempts with Google).  Finale Songwriter does these things more easily and better than NWC for not much more money.  If NWC would only improve in these areas I'd never consider another music editor.

DISCLAIMER: I don't give a hang about playback, I'm only interested in good quality printed scores.

Re: I've had it!

Reply #21 –
Quote from: BobPetty (S. Glos -UK) –
Some of the comments above regarding copying the fonts to the Windows FONTS folder will only work correctly with Windows 7 (and possibly Vista).  For users of Windows XP and earlier, the fonts have to be installed.  Open FONTS in Control Panel, click on File - Install New Fonts and select the location of the font files.  Check the box to copy the fonts to the fonts folder - should be checked by default.

HTH
With respect Bob, I've never installed fonts that way with any of my XP boxes, I've always just copied them to the fonts folder, with no problems whatsoever...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: I've had it!

Reply #22 –
Quote from: Lawrie Pardy –
With respect Bob, I've never installed fonts that way with any of my XP boxes, I've always just copied them to the fonts folder, with no problems whatsoever...

I run Windows XP Pro and I do it the same way as Lawrie.  It's never yet failed to work.