Mangled ABC Layout - Heeelpp!

[LJC]

I've been quite happily using 'Five Line Skink' as my ABC reader/writer on my mac, but I've been trying to typeset The Sloe for one of my pupils, with the button numbers on top of the stave. Normally this works quite well, but now the button numbers are overlapping with the triplet sign and it all looks a mess. I've attached the output and the ABC so you can see what is going on.

X:1
T:The Sloe
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:D
|:"D5"A2|"D6"d2"D5"A2"D6"d2"D7'"e2|"D7"f3"D7'"e "D6"d2"D6'"c2|"G4"B2"D5"A2"D5'"B"D6'"c"D6"d"D5'"B|"D5"A2"D4"F2"D3'"E2"D3"D2|
|"D6"d2"D5"A2"D6"d2"D7'"e2|"D7"f3"D7'"e "D6"d2"D6'"c2|"G4"B2"D5"A2"D5'"B2"D6'"c2|"D6"d4d2:|
|:"D5"A2| "D5' D6' D5'"(3BcB A2F2A2| (3BcB A2F2dd|d2cc c2BB|B2A2A2dd|
d2c2c2ee|e2d2d2f2|f2e2B2c2|d4d2:|
T: Trad ar. Luca Celano. http://bellowsandstrings.blogspot.com/

The questions are: is there an ABC formatting command which skink will understand to space out the writing/note tails and is there a better free ABC editor out there?

I've looked at lily pond but abc2ly just baffles me and I don't really have the time to learn a whole different set of input commands. Melody Assistant looks like it would do as I need, but I would prefer to input via ABC than point and click notes. Writing to ABC then importing could be an option, but there must be something better!.

Give me your opinions!

[Anahata]

It looks OK with abcm2ps, which has put the triple 3's under the stave so they don't interfere with the button numbers above.

On a Mac, isn't Barfly the standard ABC package to use?

On Windows, ABC Navigator should render it properly as it uses the same underlying programs as I do (abcm2ps and ps2pdf or Ghostview on Linux, with a general text editor (vim) for editing the ABC itself).

If you use ABC Navigator, look at the ABC2 Plus standard, which it complies with. There's a documentation link there, and I printed and bound the PDF of Guido Gonzato's guide. It's my ABC Bible!

I mention this because ABC Plus does have some controls for specifying sizes and spacings, whether certain text annotation goes above or below the stave etc. I have found abcm2ps pretty good at avoiding collisions like those you describe, and it produces very nice output.

Lilypond gives you much more precise control over exact position of individual features and is claimed to be typographically superior but I've never found it necessary to learn it. It's far more complicated than ABC.

[Steve_freereeder]

It looks OK with abcm2ps, which has put the triple 3's under the stave so they don't interfere with the button numbers above.

On a Mac, isn't Barfly the standard ABC package to use?

I concur with Anahata - your code looks OK to me when using abcm2ps (via Barfly).

[LJC]

Thanks Anahata - I was using barfly until a few weeks ago, skink produces nicer looking scores, and barfly also has a hissy fit with certain layouts. Even on barfly with the Sloe triplets it still overlaps them! I think it might be a case of running ABC navigator under windows emulation for the odd time I need to annotate tunes with triplets.

Edit: Steve, I've just re-installed Barfly and it doesn't display correctly here, how are you doing it?

[Bill the Farmer]

I agree, abctops puts the stems down. Is it possible to use lyrics instead of chords, or to put the chords underneath? I did a hack to abctops to use lyrics for tablature some while ago, but I had to stop it putting a reverse offset on numbers, it thought they were verse numbers.

[Steve_freereeder]

Edit: Steve, I've just re-installed Barfly and it doesn't display correctly here, how are you doing it?

1. Load the abc into Barfly
2. From the dropdown menu, choose File > Export > abc2mps
3. You should get a dialogue box which allows you change parameters such as scale factor, etc. The default settings are usually good, but you can change them and see what effects they have on the final output.
4. Click OK and it should convert the abc to a postscript file which (on my Mac) automatically opens in Mac Preview as a PDF file. Otherwise you could save the file somewhere and view/print it from Preview.

I have a registered copy of Barfly, but I think this should still work on a free unregistered version.

[Gandy]

You can put the chords underneath with "gchord=down" as a "voice" parameter, as in ...

X:1
T:The Sloe
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:D
V:1 gchord=down
|:"D5"A2|"D6"d2"D5"A2"D6"d2"D7'"e2|"D7"f3"D7'"e "D6"d2"D6'"c2|"G4"B2"D5"A2"D5'"B"D6'"c"D6"d"D5'"B|"D5"A2"D4"F2"D3'"E2"D3"D2|
|"D6"d2"D5"A2"D6"d2"D7'"e2|"D7"f3"D7'"e "D6"d2"D6'"c2|"G4"B2"D5"A2"D5'"B2"D6'"c2|"D6"d4d2:|
|:"D5"A2| "D5' D6' D5'"(3BcB A2F2A2| (3BcB A2F2dd|d2cc c2BB|B2A2A2dd|
d2c2c2ee|e2d2d2f2|f2e2B2c2|d4d2:|
V:2

[LJC]

Steve: doing that produces

/Users/Luca/bfly.command ; exit;
luca-celanos-computer:~ Luca$ /Users/Luca/bfly.command ; exit;
/Users/Luca/bfly.command: line 1: infile.abc: command not found
logout

I seem to understand I need abcm2ps installed, but it's really above my head on how to do that. I've got the file from the developers website, but when I follow the instructions I get told that there is no C compiler in $PATH.  

Edit: Barfly freaks out with a change in V field 

[Steve_freereeder]

Steve: doing that produces

/Users/Luca/bfly.command ; exit;
luca-celanos-computer:~ Luca$ /Users/Luca/bfly.command ; exit;
/Users/Luca/bfly.command: line 1: infile.abc: command not found
logout

I seem to understand I need abcm2ps installed, but it's really above my head on how to do that. I've got the file from the developers website, but when I follow the instructions I get told that there is no C compiler in $PATH.  

It sounds as though you have some component corrupted or missing - either from Barfly or from abcm2ps or both.
I would delete all the barfly and abcm2ps files, components and preferences from your Mac. Restart your Mac and then start afresh by downloading new files from the relevant websites and reinstalling the software on your hard drive.

Once abcm2ps is installed anew on your Mac, Barfly should automatically find it when you run a conversion. You may need to specify in Barfly preferences where abcm2ps is located.

[Anahata]

I seem to understand I need abcm2ps installed, but it's really above my head on how to do that. I've got the file from the developers website, but when I follow the instructions I get told that there is no C compiler in $PATH.

You downloaded the source code, as you might expect from a developers site!
Go back to the web site and look for a MacOS (or OSX or whatever it's called) binary, if they's got one

[Bill the Farmer]

There doesn't appear to be an abcm2ps Mac binary easily available on the web. I couldn't find one anyway. Compiling the sources and installing it on a Mac isn't easy, for a start you have to install Xcode. 

[Steve_freereeder]

There doesn't appear to be an abcm2ps Mac binary easily available on the web. I couldn't find one anyway. Compiling the sources and installing it on a Mac isn't easy, for a start you have to install Xcode.  

It seems to be a lot harder than it used to be.  
But you can get it here:
http://moinejf.free.fr/?ref=darwinports.com

I agree that the installation is no longer easy unless you are comfortable in Mac Terminal mode and can understand a bit of UNIX.

[LJC]

Well I did actually download Xcode and did some poking around. Tried a few things, moved a few files, wasted about 6 hours. But it works! This seems to be crying out for someone to put together a pleb user friendly version. I've got to figure out how to get the formatting and fonts to my liking now, but I think I've managed the hard part. Phew.

[Gandy]

This must be one of the rare occasions where a PC wins on ease of use over a Mac.   Just install ABC Explorer and it does it all for you.