NoteWorthy Composer Forum

%ProgramData%\Noteworthy Software\nwc2\UserPlugins\Markup.rg.nwcuser.Lua

• "imperative command" semantics - you do not say what you want; but what steps an "interpreter" should do to arrive at the result;
• not caring for readable parameters for special values like notation and other symbols;
• very terse single letter commands;
• the semantics (behavior) are based on, and can modify an internal state.
• no consideration for other readability issues, like comments or line breaks.

• disguising the "imperative structure" as 6 visible "command areas";
• having a more limited command repertoire visible as fixed parameters (Rick's y command is my "offset" field, for example);
• adding special notation for important symbols (like %ff% for fortissimo, %1/4%, for a quarter note etc.);
• no internal state besides the "obvious" "text position"; and only a single sort of command that modifies this state, namely the "jump back" %-1%, %-2% etc. (but even this may be beyond the grasp of a typical user ...).

• I could just document what it does.
• The code shows that there are a few possibilities that can, right now, not be used out of the box. I could enable that code (and, probably, fix bugs with it that did not surface until now);
• ... however, part of that code seems not really useful: E.g., specifying that a Markup object is only active during Print or during Edit.
• Usability makeover 1: One could split the "markup steps" into separate fields, somewhat like in my XText.hmm object. Because NWC has a limitation of 32 input fields, and Rick has 10 special fields in his code, this would limit the numer of steps to 22; however, in all his examples, the maximum number of steps is 13, so this would be sufficient. The single letter commands would either survive, but adding longer names (e.g. font= instead of /f) would be helpful.
• Usability makeover 2: Separate name and parameters into fields; this would allow to select the command from a drop-down box, but the parameters would still remain terse text; and only 11 commands would then be possible.

• Each command starts with a slash.
• The following letter is, mostly, the beginning of a word describing what the command does. For example, there is a command starting with /f to set the font of the following text; or another command /a which changes the angle of a subsequent text (i.e., the text is written on an upwards or downwards slope).
  
• The number after the command letter is interpreted differently by each command - I'll explain this for each command separately.

• plain text small;
  
• the markup command /m2, where /m is the command for "magnify", which changes the size of following texts. The number 2 in this command multiplies the font size by a factor of 2, i.e., following texts will have double size;
  
• the word large;
  
• /m1.5 changes the font size once again, this time increasing it by another 50% (it is now three times the size of the first "small" text, as 2 times 1.5 equals 3);
  
• finally, the word huge.
  

• Text information: Mainly, a current magnification, current font, and a current font style (italic and bold); in addition, a current text angle, a "whiteout state", a "stroke state" and a "lyrics offset" are also remembered.
• Position information: Most important is the current position (a horizontal and a vertical coordinate) where drawing is done; additionally, a "home position" (only a horizontal coordinate) is also remembered - see more below under "Location commands".

• Magnification = 100%; font = "Staff Italic" (font no.3); font style = regular, i.e. neither italic nor bold; text angle = 0, i.e. horizontal; whiteout = no, i.e. black text; stroke = no, i.e. standard text drawing; lyrics offset = 0.
• Current position: horizontal position is at the previous symbol in the staff - this means that typically, one puts a Markup object after the symbols to be adorned with text or music notation; vertical position is the height of the object on the staff (which can be changed as usual with the Position value in the object's dialog or via selecting and pressing Ctrl-Shift-Up or -Down). The home location is initially at the same place.
  

• /aangle: Change text angle. The current angle, in degrees, is set to the value provided.
  
• /ccharacternumber: This draws the character with the given number. This is very useful if the character does not have a visible representation in the text box, which happens for special characters.
  
• /ffontnumber: Change font. The fonts are numbered as in the drop-down box for a text, i.e., 1="Staff Symbols", 2="Staff Cue Symbols", 3="Staff Italic" (initial setting), 4="Staff Bold" etc.
  
• /kstroking: If stroking is the number 1, text is written as an outline, i.e., only the boundaries of the symbols (characters or musical notation) is drawn. Setting it to 0 activates standard drawing.
  
• /mmagnification: Change font size. The current size is multipled by the magnification factor to yield the new size.
  
• /sstylenumber: Change style. The styles are numbered as follows: 1=regular (neither italic nor bold), 2=bold, 3=italic, 4=bold and italic.
  
• /wwhiteout: If whiteout is the number 1, text is written in white. Mike suggests that this could be use to actually white-out notation as drawn by NWC, and then redraw at some better place in special circumstances. Setting it to 0 activates standard drawing.
  

• /a22.5upwards!/a-30down first sets the angle to 22.5 degrees and draws the text upwards!; then it does the same going down -30 degrees.
• /f1  /c123 sets the font to "Staff Symbols", then draws two spaces and character 123. In normal text, this would be the { character, but in NWC's font, this is a block (two-bar) rest.
• /f5reg/s2 bold/k1 stroked: With font 5 = "Staff Lyric", draw text "reg"; then, set style to 2 = bold and draw text " bold"; finally, activate stroking (while keeping style bold) and draw " stroked".

• /xhor.distance: Increase the horizontal position by distance; if distance is negative, this will shift the position to the left. In addition to this command, the horizontal position is shifted to the right by the text's width when a piece of text is drawn (there is one small bug here, which can be seen in the /a example above: If the text is going up or down, especially vertically, the horizontal position should only be shifted by the length of the projection of the text. But this is rarely a problem).
  
• /yvert.location: Set the vertical position. Note that /x increases (or decreases) the position, whereas /y sets it.
  

• /hhor.offset: Set the home position to the initial horizontal position offset by distance. In addition, this also sets the current horizontal position.
  
• /rvert.location: Return the horizontal position to the home position; and set the vertical position.
  

• /vvert.location: ___NOT YET RESEARCHED___
  

• space (character 32) ... normal space
• C (character 67) ... short horizontal line
• F (character 70) ... tiny half note
• G (character 71) ... tiny quarter note
• H (character 72) ... tiny eighth note
• _ (character 95) ... short space
  
• d (character 100) ... sharp symbol
• e (character 101) ... natural symbol
• f (character 102) ... flat symbol
• g (character 103) ... double-sharp symbol
• h (character 104) ... double-flat symbol
• i (character 105) ... whole notehead
• j (character 106) ... half notehead
• k (character 107) ... standard notehead
  
• l...r (characters 108...114) ... rest symbols
• | (character 124) ... short segment of a notestem
  

• /f4 sets the font to "Staff Bold" for the subsequent text.
• /f2 starts the "symbol part", with symbols reduced to cue size.
• Placed a little bit above the base line (/y0.5), k represents a notehead.
• Going minimally back with /x and up (/y1), the lower part of the stem is drawn (/c124).
• Going up once more (/y2), another /c124 completes the stem.
• /y0 returns to the base line, and with /f4 the rest of the text can be drawn.

• solid line: /f1CCCCCC
• dashed line with large gaps: /f1C C C C
• dashed line with short gaps: /f1C__C__C__C
• dashed line with tiny gaps: /f1C_C_C_C

• /f2 ... select staff font
• /a4 ... slant upwards
• CCCC... upper line
• /r-2 ... return to home
• /a-4 ... slant downwards
• CCCC... lower line

• first group: /f2/a4CCCC... positioning is implicit (we start at the note); then, set font and angle; finally emit the first line.
• second group: /r-2/a-4CCCC... position somewhat below home; set new angle (font remains the same); and draw second line.

• /f1/h1k ... set font and home position; and draw first notehead (see bar 2 in the attachment. Home is positioned one notehead width to the right, so that we can attach noteheads and the slanted line conveniently; bar 3 shows that without that, the first notehead would end up to the left and need additional positioning);
• /r1/x-1.8e ... place natural symbol (bar 4);
• /x2.35d ... place sharp symbol (bar 5);
• /r1/x-1k ... place next notehead;
• /x2k ... and another one;
• /r2k ... and the last one (bar 6);
• /r5/a336/m0.55CCCCC ... draw a thin slanted line connecting the f-sharp to the chord (bar 7);

• Width ... set the width used by NWC's layout to a value larger than 0.
• Media ... show text only in certain contexts; these can be: edit, view, print, or selector;
• Anchor ... use different anchor for text; the anchor method can be one of xyAlignAnchor, xyAnchor, xyStemAnchor, or xyStemTip (if I understand the code correctly);
  
• Box ... surround the text with a rectangular box;
• Ellipse ...  surround the text with a round box;
• Index ... anchor text not to previous item, but to some other item farther away;
• Justify ... adjust text; possible values are Right and Center.
• Pen ... set pen for text drawing;
• PgLeft ... use alternate location if at the left of the page (I do not yet understand how this works);
  
• PrintWidth ... use different width for printing.

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