Contents:
- Finale files in a Score environment
- SipXML progress
- Did you know?
Dear Score user,
Since the last SIP Newsletter, I mainly worked on SipXML as I have imposed myself the deadline
of September for first customer delivery.
Because of that I had to dig into a couple of font matters (Cyrillic, CE, Icelandic, etc. in
Score) which have resulted in the publication of a number of aricles in this space.
Spin-off products so to say...
Finale files in a Score environment
Many engravers have more than one engraving package and there will be many that work with both
Finale and Score. It is perfectly possible to maintain both packages on one system but there is
one drawback and that is that the .MUS suffix for filenames is used by both Score and Finale,
so you cannot see if a file is one or the other.
For SIP users this was an inconvenience in two situations:
1. When executing SipValid to check the validity of the Score format, a Finale file with the
.MUS suffix would be rejected as invalid.
2. SipFind is made to locate all the Score files in your system, on a drive, or in a directory.
You can instruct SipFind to check the file contents for the Score format. When it encountered
Finale files during a scan, these would be rejected as "unmatch". The list of unmatching files
would be given by hitting the Report button. But you would not know if the file was a Finale file
or a Score file with a problem.
Both programs have been updated to recognize Finale MUS files and react accordingly.
1. SipValid (which integrated in the SIP main program) now gives a message in the report that
it is a Finale file when recognized as such.
2. SipFind (a separate program, called from the main SIP program in a transparent manner)
puts the word 'Finale' in the License column. This has the advantage that you can sort on
that column. The total number of Finale files is also given in the panel and the filenames
no longer occur as 'unmatch' in the report.
Now to get this, it is simple for SipFind because there is one module to be downloaded (FREE!)
(called SipFind2point5.zip) which replaces SIPFIND.EXE. Just copy it.
SipValid cannot be downloaded because it is part of SIP as an integrated module. When you want it,
contact me for further action. New shipments will have both modules automatically.
Unmatch is not a correct word. It should be mismatch, but that is the kind of update I will make
when there is nothing else to develop. That'll be the day…
SipXML progress
(1) A very tricky problem in the conversion turned out to be the handling of cross-staff stems.
Those occur in piano chords where notes from the right hand staff and notes from the left hand
staff are written on the same stem. Score can of course do this but the length of the stem is
depending on the staff distance and staff size, so the issue is a rather complicated one for
automatic conversion where the input does not have anything that helps in establishing such
stem length. Another complication was that where Score needs invisible rests in alternating right
hand and left hand chords in order to be able to do alignment, the MusicXML does not have such
information other than absence. See Après un rêve by Gabriel Fauré.
(2) Russian conversion being completely under control now, I have added Polish lyrics conversion.
The
help of Krzysztof Rogalski is appreciated in this endeavour. A sample PDF is available elsewhere.
(3) Currently I am working on the alignment of accidentals. MusicXML just gives accidentals and no
information on its offset. So I am re-engineering the Score algorithm and will include that in
SipXML. There will be an article explaining this algorithm (and its flaws) soon.
(4) Since MusicXML has hardly any page layout information (no staff size, no staff indent data,
no distances between staves, no new-page information) I decided to integrate a profile database
into SipXML. The description is in the User guide which I have started in the dedicated web page.
Did you know?
(1) You can enter comment in Score in two ways:
- Use font 99 (Thanks to Chanvrelin)
- Code the circumflex as last character in a Code16 item (I discovered this by accident)
When you are a SipXref user, the first manner is of course preferable - you get all comments
together in your cross-reference file.
(2) In input mode you cannot enter an F double flat. The FFF note is replaced by a sharp note.
(3) That the Campo Viejo Riserva 1997, a Rioja, is currently my favorite red wine?