Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font

Subject: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 03:22 PM

The latest version of HARMONY, incorporating a proper music font, is now available at my web site GreenHedges

I have been asked many times for this, so I hope you like it!
Please let me know if you have any problems

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: Mark Clark
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 06:29 PM

Great, Neil. I'll go check it out.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: Mark Clark
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 06:35 PM

The file is still designated as 3.29. Is that bad? Or is that the name all versions will have from now on?

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 01:50 AM

Mark,
There is a note about that on the download page. I have to keep the file name the same because I now have links to it from other download sites.

By the way, I realised that I haven't tested the fonts on a printer yet. If it doesn't work, someone please let me know.

I can only try it at weekends, because I can't connect my laptop to the network at the office. Currently, I am working Saturdays so I don't get much time at home!

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 04:24 AM

Note about installing the font(s).

HARMONY tries to install the font Fughetta if not already installed. In some cases (on my machine) it works OK, but Windows loses the information when you close down, so it gets installed again each time.

If this happens, you can install the font manually using the control panel FONT option. Just browse to the file and select it. (Ideally, copy it to your Windows Font directory first)

Toccata is also included, but not used at present.

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 26 Jun 04 - 12:13 PM

Font install failure happened to me too (Win2K SP4)
When looking in the font folder, the entry for fughetta showed a size of 0K and no file date.

I now have it installed manually, now I have two entries (the old one with the 0K, and a "proper" one with 52K and a file date.

I have not yet rebooted, but I guess that this "problem" is solved ...

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 11:21 AM

Me again.
First thing:
Harmony does not try any longer to install the font, so manual install of the font did work.

But I just found a thing which looks like a bug to me:
Copy item/Paste-Paste before and
Copy item/Paste-Paste after
do not work as I would expect.

I right-click on a note, lets say a high D (second line from top) with a duration of 1/8, and select "Copy item".
I then right-click on any note and select "Paste-Paste before" (or "Paste-Paste after").
Instead of the expected 1/8 high D I get a 1/4 G (second line from bottom)
It seems as if always a 1/4 G is inserted instead of the note that was copied.

Also, I just activated the toolbars "Notes" and "Pitch" - they do look as if there is something gone wrong...
See picture of toolbars
It is possible to change the positions of the "pressed" areas of the toolbars, but there seems to be no reaction...

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 12:39 PM

I think it works OK if you leave the toolbars activated all the time (Exit the program with them active). There does seem to be some kind of problem if they are initialised when not active. I will investigate, but can't promise a cure rather than the suggested workaround.

Also, the copy and paste does seem wrong. It did used to work, so maybe I have introduced the error. 1/4 G is the default, used if no note is on the clipboard, so maybe the Copy isn't working properly.

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 12:58 PM

Closing with toolbars visible does not help.
When re-opening, those toolbars are invisible till I open a file - and then they look like the picture.

Looks like the copying fails - if I use Copy Item on a break and then Paste before/after, I still get a 1/4 G...

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 01:20 PM

I completely uninstalled the program (there were several entries in the Software Add/Remove dialog), cleaned every Harmony related stuff from the registry, re-installed the program (with re-entering of Unlock code) and tried closing with visible toolbars again.
Still the same result...

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 02:10 PM

I am unable to explain at the moment. It works fine on my machine, and unless I can get it to fail, I can't fix it!

The toolbars should not be affected by anything I have done.
I presume they worked with the previous version of Harmony?

What version of Windows are you using? That may make a difference.

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 02:27 PM

I am using Windows 2000 (SP 4).

I only discovered the toolbars yesterday, and they "misbehaved" from the beginning.

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 02:37 PM

There have been other problems on WIN2000 in the past (Playing MIDI files). Unfortunately I don't have a win200 test machine available.

I do use it at work, but it is a sackable offence to load unauthorised software!

I have put out a request to see if anyone else gets this problem.

Is there another machine you can try it on, with a different OS?

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: Mark Clark
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 02:43 PM

I've just been playing with it and find I have the same behavior as MudGuard. I made sure all previous versions of HARMONY were uninstalled before I installed the latest version. I imported an ABC file and found that if I copied a note (d) as MudGuard described and pasted it somewhere else the way MudGuard did, it is inserted as the note G. I was working with a quarter note so I don't yet know whether it would have translated an eighth note to a quarter.

I did try just selecting an arbitrary section of music with the mouse, copying it and pasting it somewhere else in the tune and that seemed to work fine.

Thinking there might be some difference in data structures, I saved an unmodified ABC file as a .SNG file, closed HARMONY, reopened the app and loaded the .SNG file but the behavior was the same.

I'm running XP Pro with all patches up to date.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 02:57 PM

Mark:
I will have to get a fix out soon for that problem then.

Mudguard
I think the problem reported with the toolbars must be linked to the fact that these buttons are created dynamically, rather than using bitmap images.

The quirks in Windows mean that you have to use an API call called BitBLT to get the drawn image into a picturebox.
Maybe this isn't provided in Win2000.

This is the only place in the program which uses this API

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 03:23 PM

Mark, thanks for pointing out the option of copying mouse selected parts, I can live with that for a while.

I never noticed the toolbars really, as I mostly used the program for viewing and printing downloaded ABC files - sometimes editing small things (like splitting a quarter in two eights), the biggest editing stuff was transposing to another key...

Btw., some more (Windows standard) key assignments would be nice:

Ctrl-Z for Undo
Ctrl-S for Save
Ctrl-P for Print Score
Ctrl-N for New Tune

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: Mark Clark
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 03:32 PM

Agree on the desirability of standard control keys. Ctrl-X (cut), Ctrl-C (copy), Ctrl-V (paste) and Ctrl-Z (undo) are now, I think, standard across most apps and all operating systems.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 03:39 PM

Oh yes, Mark, you are right, Cut should be changed to Ctrl-X (it is now Ctrl-T)

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 03:50 PM

Will do what I can

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: Mark Clark
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 04:03 PM

I found the following quotation:

BitBlt is a Microsoft API call that the Mini Remote Control program uses to transfer the screen data back & forth between the local & remote machines. Unfortunately, beginning with Windows XP and now into Server 2003, Microsoft does not allow the BitBlt API to have access to any session other than Session 0.

on this Web page but a Google search for “BitBLT windows-xp” will turn up several thousand more references.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 04:25 PM

That could be it then! Thanks for the info.
If I can't find a way around it, I will just have to rever to the static bitmap method, and lose the fancy features.

In fact, the preview tool doesn't work in 3.3.0 anyway because of a mistake I made in an amendment!

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 05:06 PM

I think I have cracked it!
I have found a way to do it without BitBlt.
I will get a release out asap.

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 05:08 PM

Sounds good!

But please: do not start another thread about it. It gets confusing with so many Harmony-related threads...

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: pavane
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 05:53 PM

I have managed to solve all of the problems (assuming that BITBLT was responsible for the toolbar failure), and have added the requested shortcut keys. Don't know when the Copy stopped working, I must have deleted some code accidentally, but fixed now.

I will try and get a new build out tomorrow or Friday.

Subject: RE: Tech: Here at LAST! HARMONY with music font
From: MudGuard
Date: 30 Jun 04 - 05:58 PM

Great!