Re: [Denemo-devel] Sibelius 7 to LilyPond Conversion!

[Thomas Wilmot]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Shann
> Sent: Friday October 30, 2015 7:07 a.m.
> To: Thomas Wilmot
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Denemo-devel] Sibelius 7 to LilyPond Conversion!
> 
> 
> On Fri, 2015-10-30 at 00:31 -0300, Thomas Wilmot wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Richard Shann
> [...]
> > > > > Did you try the scripts to fix Sibelius's output? Do you need 
> > > > > help running them? Did you try File->Export As->Quick 
> LilyPond 
> > > > > Part to get just the music of the current part
> > > into a file?
> > 
> > I have been scratching my head regarding this feature since I first 
> > saw it. I tried exporting the full score from Sibelius, 
> then importing 
> > it into Denemo and trying the "Quick LilyPond Part" option. 
>  I thought 
> > it might try to export just whichever part was selected, but it 
> > exported the entire thing as it normally would.  I still don't 
> > understand what it's supposed to do.  It's great to have so many 
> > tooltips, but the program would be a lot easier to learn if 
> they were 
> > more explicit.  Also there are random windows popping up when I do 
> > certain things like selecting a measure.
> 
> I tested out
> Quick LilyPond Part
> before writing the email, it saves the staff that the cursor 
> is in using the current filename myfile.denemo to construct a 
> filename myfile-denemo-n.ly where n is the staff number. 
> 
> If you have not saved the file you are trying to save parts 
> from I see it fails silently. Well, it is not actually 
> silent, there is a message in the console which you won't see 
> on Windows unless you run C:\Program 
> Files\Denemo\usr\bin\denemo-console.exe rather than the usual 
> denemo.exe. So this is a bug in the script which I didn't 
> know about. I've just added a bug to the bug tracker for this. 
> (Anyone can do this without registering for anything: 
> http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=denemo&func=additem
> is linked to from denemo.org)
> 

I got it to work eventually and also at one point a window did pop up telling 
me I needed to save the file first.  But I don't think this happened the first 
time.

> > > > 
> > > > Yes the scripts to fix Sibelius's output would likely be
> > > useful as I'm
> > > > pretty sure every single error fixed by it is in my score!
> > >  I haven't tried
> > > > them as I do need help running them.  I've been using 
> Frescobaldi
> > > > since last month but only installed Denemo yesterday so 
> > > have no idea
> > > > about scripting!
> > > 
> > > Well in brief, you open the window View->Scheme past the
> > > script in and click the Execute button.
> > > 
> > 
> > So I tried this.  I got the window open, and wasn't sure which text 
> > field to paste the code in, so I tried both.
> The first is a Command Line Interface, when you press Enter 
> the expression it contains is evaluated and printed on the 
> Console. The second one is a proper multi-line editor and you 
> execute the code in it with the Execute button.
> 
> 
> >   There was no indication that anything was happening.
> Yes, those little scripts don't say anything you can add
> 
> (d-InfoDialog "Finished")
> 
> at the bottom to let yourself know that it has got through to 
> the end of the script. Those scripts all just start at the 
> cursor and go through the objects from there on so you need 
> to place the cursor at the start of the staff (Home key does that).
> 

So wait, you have to run it on each line individually?

> >   I also wasn't sure whether or not the <8>s were supposed 
> to be part 
> > of the code or not
> 
> those 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 8>< 
> are supposed to be scissors showing which bit to snip out. 
> This is actually a rather dodgy way of passing bits of code 
> around, as email readers can easily mess up code by adding 
> white space. Mostly white space is ok in Scheme though. Any 
> way I've attached them here. If you run the denemoconsole.exe 
> version you will see any error messages if the script is garbled.
> 

Ohhhhhh!  I see it now!

> >  so I tried running it with and without them and still it 
> didn't seem 
> > like anything happened.  I tried re-setting the score by 
> clicking a button in the Print window and it didn't look any 
> different.  The most noticeable thing is that there are a 
> bunch of empty measures, some of them with rests in them, 
> some of them not.  This is a multi-measure rest in the 
> original score and not at all big deal to clean up by hand 
> but I thought the script might fix it.
> > > 
> [...]
> > 
> > I saw a setting for "default font specification" which had a text 
> > field with "Denemo 9" written in it.
> 
> Ah, you *are* running some old version of Denemo then. This 
> is better now in 2.0.0. You can try 2.0.0 without installing 
> it (see website).
> 
Yeah, I'm using 1.2.4 right now.
I would try 2.0.0 if it would help, but this project is due in an hour and a 
half! :P

> > Is that how you change the font?  I typed a different font 
> name in the 
> > field but it is strange it wouldn't have a list to choose from.
> > 
> > My problem is not with the font the music itself is set in 
> in the main 
> > windowpane. My big problem is with the font displaying the 
> rest of the 
> > interface such as the menus and tooltips.
> 
> yes, it is the menu/tooltip font that is specialized so that 
> a tooltip can say "Change to 𝅗𝅥 from 𝅘𝅥 " and you can read it 
> easily without having to have a very large font size (which 
> causes its own problems because the menu sizes get to long 
> for peoples screens).
> 
> >   I expect it to be MS Sans Serif in every single program 
> everywhere, 
> > since that is what I have it set to! To be fair, sometimes even 
> > Microsoft's programs override this user system preference (which is 
> > awful) but they always replace it with something while 
> still inferior, 
> > still hinted and NEVER anti-aliased! This is a HUGE deal 
> for me when 
> > using any program or Web site.  Microsoft released a number of Web 
> > fonts for everyone, well hinted at all small sizes which became a 
> > standard since they were free for everyone, and now so many 
> sites are 
> > using these plug-in Google fonts, some of which are pretty 
> darn good 
> > (like the one YouTube is using everywhere now), and others of which 
> > look horrifically blurry! The one on the Denemo site is one of the 
> > better ones, except for the two-story lower-case italic g, 
> which looks 
> > ridiculous! That is a small offense however!
> 
> I've not understood anything much about aliasing and hinting, 
> I have a suspicion that the denemo.ttf is not really properly 
> constructed, I just spliced together some bits of fonts with 
> some glyphs to be able to write e.g. "quarter note" or 
> "crotchet" in an internationally understood way as 𝅘𝅥 and 
> still be read.
> 
Well they are comprehensible so I suppose that's the main thing!
Hinting is a process of drawing fonts at every size they are going to be 
displayed at perfectly by hand.  It's obviously the best, but time consuming of 
course so most people these days don't bother because of anti-aliasing 
(basically filling grey in the cracks to cheat, which does make it look blurry 
usually) or sub-pixel rendering which is better, but properly hinted fonts are 
unbeatable.  It looks like the Denemo Web site uses those Google fonts but also 
forces the browser into sub-pixel rendering (sacrificing colour accuracy for 
the appearance of fine detail) which is a good thing in this case.


> > Thank you for the assistance!
> 
> you are most welcome - this has yielded one solid bug and 
> increased my understanding that there are issues (at least on 
> windows) around font appearance.
> 
> Richard
> 
> 
I'm glad to hear!