Here are the previous messages:

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Joe Offer Date: 05-Feb-98 - 09:36 PM

Now, I don't want to sound impertinent, but can the rest of you play Bruce's ABC notation, or do you have to do like I do and add line feeds? Do we need to teach him how to enter
at the end of lines, or is it just my ABCMUS that won't read Bruce's linear ABC's? -Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Joe Offer Date: 05-Feb-98 - 09:44 PM

I'd enter it this way:
X:1
T:The Pear Tree
N:Palmer's Everyman's Book of British Ballads
L:1/8
M:2/4
K:D
A|A A/ A/ F/ F/ D|A A/ A/ F z|G F E D|E/ E/ D Cz|B B A F|
G F E D/ D/|F D C D|E E C A,/ A,/|D3/2 C/ B, A,|
D/ D/ D/ E/ F D|A A/ A/ A/ B/ A/ G/|F E/ E/ D|]

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Bruce O. Date: 05-Feb-98 - 10:25 PM

Joe, I don't enter them because it's more work to take out the html tags than put in the line feeds. Not everyone has or wants MSIE.

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Joe Offer Date: 06-Feb-98 - 12:38 AM

Answers my question, Bruce. If the HTML tags come through if you copy a tune when you use Netscape, then it's not a good idea to mix HTML line breaks in with the ABC because removing them would be a real mess. I thought both browsers would function the same when copying from the forum, but I guess not. How do your tunes DISPLAY on Netscape? Is it just my MSIE that needs the HTML line breaks to display lyrics and tunes properly?-Joe-

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Bruce O. Date: 06-Feb-98 - 09:22 AM

I've don't know how to display them on Netscape. I've thought of another possibility. How many word processors have global search and replace? If I did them in html and one then replaced the left arrow - br - right arrow with nothing = space, this would strip off the only important html tag. One of my problems is that I have made errors on the html mark-up copy taken from my original ABC after I've checked the ABC. I don't know how to check the html marked up copy.

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Bruce O. Date: 06-Feb-98 - 09:26 AM

Probably we should ask Dick or Susan of DT how they prefer submissions, and do it that way.

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Jon W. Date: 06-Feb-98 - 10:19 AM

I use Netscape and at least for me, the html line breaks don't come through when I copy and paste to my editor (i.e. word processor).

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Bruce O. Date: 06-Feb-98 - 11:09 AM

I haven't tried to do it that way. I'll try if and see if I can make it work.

Warning, never try to copy the tune or check your marked up ABC from an HTML browser display. There are sometimes left and right arrows in an ABC and in a tune viewed by a web browser all between a left arrow and the next right arrow disappears from the display (but not from the file).

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Jon W. Date: 06-Feb-98 - 02:05 PM

The left and right arrows in ABC are used as a shorthand way of implementing dotted rhythm couplets, which also can be implemented by assigning specific note lengths. For example, to show a dotted quarter note (c) followed by an eighth note (d), assuming a default note length of 1/4, you can either write c > d or c3/2d/2. The first example might create problems in HTML, the second won't (I don't think!) So you either have to replace all right and left arrows in ABC with their HTML metacharacters (ampersand-g-t and ampersand-l-t, respectively) or use the long way of representing the rhythm, when posting a tune to the forum.

Unfortunately I forget this more often than I remember it.

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Joe Offer Date: 06-Feb-98 - 02:15 PM

When I mix ABC with HTML, I encounter alphabet overload. This is one of those situations when I realize how utterly confused I am about most of life. Suddenly, my brain is making the buzzing sound that comes when it is overwhelmed.....What happens next isn't pretty, folks. Aaaaaargh! Is there somebody who can explain this simply for us? -Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Bruce O. Date: 06-Feb-98 - 02:50 PM

I used to do the x/4y3/4 and so on but a viewer on a list (that's not html) complained that my tunes were hard to read that way and suggested I use the arrows. Maybe I can try harder to remember where thing are viewed in html and where they are not. (hard to remember where I am on this internet and how I do it here. I just posted something to the wrong list, too, which I'm sure was totally incomprehensible to vewiers on that list.

I'd still like to hear from Dick or Susan of DT as to a preferred method for submission of ABC's to this forum. We could then make a thread called something like 'ABC DT standard' in which we explained ways for people with various software how to get a playable file from a common format ABC file.

Subject: RE: Request: Love Don't Grow On Trees From: Jon W. Date: 06-Feb-98 - 03:46 PM

Bruce, perhaps there are programs--maybe even newer releases of word processors or editors with which we are familiar--out there which will convert plain text to HTML. That way we could enter the ABC notation however we feel like, use right and left arrows galore, not worry about line breaks, and have the machine do the grunt work of changing the arrows to metacharacters, outputting the line breaks, etc. Can anyone out there tell us for sure about such software?

Joe, if you've got specific questions I can take a shot at them. Post me a personal message. Meanwhile, have you read the ABC standard available on the ABC homepage? It's really not that long and I found it to be a great help.

Jon W.

PS. We really ought to get this stuff into a new thread. Guess I'll do that now.