Metadata-Version: 2.1
Name: MusicRaft
Version: 0.9.0
Summary: GUI for abcplus music notation.
Home-page: https://gitlab.com/papahippo/MusicRaft
Author: Larry Myerscough
Author-email: hippostech@gmail.com
License: LICENSE.txt
Description: MusicRaft
        =========
        
        'MusicRaft' is an GUI for the ABC(plus) music notation, built around python and the Qt GUI toolkit.
        
        The following screenshot will, I trust, paint the first thousand words
        of documentation:
        
        
        ![Alt text](https://gitlab.com/papahippo/MusicRaft/raw/master/screenshots/Musicraft_019.png?raw=true "Editing ABCplus music source while viewing graphical ouput")
        
        ##Installation
        
        _warning_: Correct operation of Musicraft on Microsoft Windows depends
        on the presence of the correct version of `msvcp140.dll` in the correct
        directory. This is not yet handled automatically. In the meantime,
        Windows users may prefer to use the standalone binary (see below).
        
        Musicraft is built and must be installed using python 3. Therefore a pre-requisite is that 
        python 3 is present on your computer. This will invaraiably
        already be the case on Linux systems.
        
        On Windows, you will likely need to install python3 yourself.
        This can be done using the download link at:
        
        https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
        
        The situation with MAC OSX depends on which release you are using;
        this link explains the situation with MAC OSX Catalina:
        <https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/376077/is-usr-bin-python3-provided-with-macos-catalina> 
        
        When installing python 3, be sure to check the option (if offered!) to
        add the python directory to the execution PATH.
          
        Musicraft and its dependencies can now be installed from
        the python package repository.
        The exact syntax will vary across platforms but will be something like...
        
        `pip3 install --user musicraft`
        
        ... or ...
        
        `python3 -m pip install --user musicraft`
        
        The `--user` is not essential but it avoids permission problems,
         e.g. havng to use `sudo` on Ubuntu (etc.) Linux systems.
        
        
        __bundled 'command line' tools__
        
        The following 'command line' tools are automatically installed alongside
        musicraft into 'share' direcetories...
        
        * `abcm2ps` to derive graphic scores from ABCPLus code
        * `abcm2ps` to derive midi files from ABCPLus code
        * `abc2abc` to transpose ABCPLus code
        
        ... but don't worry, you won't actually have to use these from
        the command line! This is handled 'under the surface' by
        musicraft.
        
        To keep the setup scripting simple, executables for Linux, Windows
        and Mac OSX are all installed, but of course, at run-time only the
        appopriate native versions are run.
         
        Starting musicraft is a simple matter of ...
        
        `python3 -m musicraft -S [abc-source-file-name ...]` 
         
         .. or something very similar. 
        
        The `-S` - which can also be entered in the long form `--share`
        instructs musicraft to use the 'bundled' versions of the command line tools.
        
        It is possible to associate this action with all `.abc` files so that a 
        double-click on such a file in the file manager is sufficient to start
        musicraft. How to do this depends on the operating systemcontext; perhaps
        this will be (semi)- automated in later releases of the musicraft
        package.
        
        By clicking on the tabs `abc2abc` `abc2midi` and `abcm2svg` of the
        `error/diagnostic output` panel you can check whether musicraft
        is finding and executing the 'command line tools' properly. If not, 
        you can find the version of these tools for your system from
        the sites listed  under __ABCplus music notation__ below. After doing this, you omit
        the`-S` when starting musicraft and it will use your specially installed versions,
        
        A few start-up scripts are also included. These are really a left-over from
        the time before I got the '-m' approach working but are left in as potentially
        useful. Where exactly these get installed - and whether that location
        is conveniently within the execution path - depends on your OS and system set-up.  
        
        ####Debugging
        
        Musicraft writes some 'on the go' diagnostic information to the `System` tab of
        the `error/diagnostic` panel. Actual error oinformation (more properly:
        information written to `stderr` as opposed to `stdout`) is written
        in italics.
        
        More such 'on the go' diagnostic information can be obtained by setting...
        * `MUSICRAFT_DBG = 1
        
        ... before starting musicraft. Inevitably, perhaps, the choice of what
        debug info to output is governed by my issues encountered recently not by
        your issues encountered today, so this is not guaranteed to be helpful!  
        
        Debug info ouput can also be requested by '-D' or '--debug' on the command
        line - or explicitly suppressed by '-ND' or '--no-debug'. These overrule
        any setting of `MUSICRAFT_DBG` from the environment.
        
        The 'command line programs' write their output to the approprite tabs
        of the panel: `Abc2abc` `Abc2midi` and `Abcm2svg`. The last of these
        actually relates to `abcm2ps` and is so named because we always use it 
        to produce SVG not PS output.
         
         
        Musicraft was originally designed to work with `Qt4` via either `PyQt4` or
        `PySide`. This software is however becoming more and more deprecated in
        favour of `Qt5` via either `PySide2` or `PyQt5`. Accordingly, Musicraft has
        been reworked to support these; indeed, musicraft now uses `PySide2`
        by default. This behaviour can however be overruled by settinging an
        environment variable:
        
        * `MUSICRAFT_QT = PyQt4`
        * `MUSICRAFT_QT = PySide`
        * `MUSICRAFT_QT = PyQt5`
        
        Not overruling this setting is treated as equivalent to...
        
        * `MUSICRAFT_QT = PySide2`
        
        __Important note regarding 'Qt' dependencies:__
        
        The musicraft package specifies `PySide2` as a dependency, so it gets installed
        whether you like it or not. This is only likely to be  problem if you're
        running on a very old OS version that doesn't support `PySide2`, `Qt5` etc.
        In this case, you may wish to pu t your own package together, baed on
        the code in this repository.  
        
        Recent OS versions (e.g. Ubuntu Linux 18.04, Windows 10) may only
        suport 'Qt5', not the older, deprecacted 'PyQt4'. In some cases, there is
        a workaround for this. For example, on Ubuntu 18.04 one can install
        PySide by:
        
        `sudo apt-get install python3-pyside`
        
        __Standalone binaries__
        
        I have created (using PyInstaller) a standalone executable version  of Musicraft for 64-bit systems under
        [Windows](https://gitlab.com/papahippo/MusicRaft/blob/master/dist/win_musicraft.exe) (tested on Windows 10).
         
        I have currently disabled the standalone binary for Linux. (don't ask;
        it's a long sad story!)
        
        I haven't looked into the desirability or feasibility of a standalone binary version
        for Mac OSX but am open to suggestions and guidance.  
         
         ##Using Musicraft
         
         ####window layout
         
         Before you start inputting music to Musicraft, it is a good idea
         to tweak the window layout to suit your monitor layout:
         
         * If you have just one screen, first click the full-screen button,
         then if necessary use the mouse to to drag the vertical line which divides the
         text area from the score area so that each is wide enough.
         
         * If you have two displays next to each other, you may want to
         drag the whole musicraft window to straddle the two, so that one shows the abc source code,
         the other the score.
         
         * With two or more displays, you may want to 'undock' one or more of the
         three panels by dragging their top line(s) - identified by the texts
         `Editor`, `styled output` and `error/diagnostic output` to
         an empty area of one of the screens.   
        
        *warning:* if you stretch the `styled output` window too much
        you may encounter 'extra' unresponsive scroll-bars. This is a bug which I
        am having difficulty fixing!
        
        #### ABCplus music notation
        
        It is unlikely that you have got to this stage without
        knowing at least something about ABCplus music notation.
        Even so, it's always good to have some resources at hand.
        The list below will get you started and lead you to more goodies:
        
        * <http://abcplus.sourceforge.net/>
        * <http://moinejf.free.fr/abcm2ps-doc/features.xhtml>
        * <https://sourceforge.net/projects/abcplus/files/Abcplus/abcplus_en-2019-12-20.zip>
        
        ####Typing in your tune(s)
        Assuming you are familiar with ABCplus notation (if not, see previous section!)
        you can now simply type the ABCplus code into the `Editor` panel.
        The score panel will change as you type. In doing this, musicraft auto-saves
        your abc code into a temporary directory; nonetheless, you must not forget to
        save your source code regularly with control-S (or via the file menu). 
        
        ### More Documentation
        
        I try to keep this README down to size, so that impatient users can
        get up and running quickly. Quite a lot of supplentary documentation
        is available in teh `doc` subdirectory inculding an
        [index](doc/INDEX.md).
        
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