Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 03:43 PM

Up and running - posted from Ubuntu running on a memory stick. Installed WINE. Tried installing on USB HDD but it only gave the option of my main HDD, so I'll stay with the stick

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 08:28 AM

Thanks for the information.

I do have a number of copies of Windows (98Se even 95, as well as XP) so that isn't a problem. I also have a laptop running Vista, which I want to replace by XP if possible (or dual-boot) so that I can develop VB programs on it. It is newer and faster than my XP laptop.

My son has a good knowledge of Linux, he was running it as his main OS, and he is helping me.

Just bought a 320gb USB hard drive. I will try installing Linux on that asap. Or copy my old 40gb drive to it and then install Linux on that.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Tootler
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 06:25 AM

Tried playing with various versions of the Win media player - got nowhere - might be VB5 that is not fully WINE supported.

You need to check the Wine APP DB, getting M$'s own software to run in Wine seems not to be straightforward. It's almost as if they don't adhere to their own standards.

Wine APP DB: http://appdb.winehq.org/

Pavane,

While virtual box seems to be the best way to go if you are swapping frequently between Windows and Linux, it does require that you have a version of Windows to install. If you do not, and since WinXP windows stopped issuing CD's with the OS on them, then you may be better to opt for dual boot - unless you can "acquire" a copy of Windows from some source. I run a dual boot system and it works fine. I spent a lot of time tidying up WinXP and removing redundant software so it would boot up quickly. I replaced AVG free with Panda Cloud AV and that had a significant effect on load times and it also means no updates to virus definitions to download as they are stored online.

You also may find it worth taking some time to get to know Linux before you start looking at Harmony in Wine. They do things differently in Linux land. When I changed over about 18 months ago, it took quite a bit of time and effort to find my way round.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 03:14 AM

Will keep you informed of Ubuntu progress.

Off today to buy a new memory stick and maybe an HD.

The CD on my development machine (a laptop) needs replacing too (Yes, I have a new one, but we haven't yet been able to dismantle the machine enough to fit it).

Thanks for all the help so far

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Jul 10 - 01:07 AM

I know - I meant 'pipe'... :-)

Tried playing with various versions of the Win media player - got nowhere - might be VB5 that is not fully WINE supported.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Tootler
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 05:38 PM

It looks as if VB6 can be made to run with Ubuntu, but you need to look here for information on how to do it.

I very strongly recommend you check the Wine website http://www.winehq.org/ before you start anything. There is a great deal of information that you will need there.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Simon G
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 01:22 PM

Yes virtualbox will let you switch back and forth between the host OS - Windows XP and the hosted OS Ubuntu.

If you run up the Synaptic package manager form the System -> Administration menu you can install Wine and Timidity.

I haven't yet got to the point where the Wine audio configuration works so there is no point me running Harmony yet.

Simon

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 20 Jul 10 - 03:23 AM

"7 bit bytes" for numeric data is a feature of ALL MIDI files - not OS dependant. It was done to reduce file size and data transfer on the original MIDI systems. The MIDI file itself contains 8 bit bytes, of course. You can tell they are valid because they can be played by other programs.

Actually, HARMONY does two things

1. Writes a standard MIDI file and then calls Windows Multimedia interface to play it back.

It looks like this may be failing because for some reason the file is not released after writing (the code DOES close it), and possibly the Multimedia interface cannot open it?

2. Plays single notes directly, through the MABRY MIDIIO32 control.
Not yet clear why this does not work.

The MIDI OUT device is selected using standard Windows facilities and the Windows MM control.

I have booted up Ubunto from CD, it doesn't give me the option to install on a bootable HD partition, just a USB stick. It also does not seem to have WINE available to install. Will keep trying.

Will also look at virtualbox. That might be better, if you can switch to and from Ubuntu without exiting windows - as I need to develop under Win XP. Or will the VB development environment run under WINE?

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Simon G
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 07:33 PM

@foolestroupe your Linux syntax is not correct

one | two

will pipe the output of one to the input of two. Although this is immaterial to an program running within WINE.

WINE is a very well behaved environment, most likely there are a few details on Harmony that are from a much earlier version of VB and happen to have continued to work on Windows but not on WINE - the 7 bit writes sounds like one of these.

You can host Ubuntu live on your Windows system simply download something like

http://www.virtualbox.org/

and install Ubuntu as a hosted OS. You can then boot up Ubuntu in a window and then run WINE inside that to test Harmony. Its a bit crazy running a Windows emulator inside a hosted Ubuntu running on a Windows box but it works.

Simon

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 06:46 PM

The normal 'Linux way' to link the output from one program to another is to go something like

HARMONY > Timidity

This links the output from one program to the next in an efficient manner.

HARMONY however writes the midi output direct to the sound hardware - this needs to be captured by the WINE emulation stuff and redirected behind the scenes thru to the Timidity program (a mostly defacto standard, but there are other apps) - this can mean more than one level of connection behind the system.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 06:29 PM

I think it can - never needed to actually do it myself - Probably you can also use a spare area on your HD too.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 06:44 AM

I believe this can be on a USB stick?

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 05:24 AM

If you run Ubuntu from a 'Live CD', you will need some storage area to do things like install programs, etc.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 03:28 AM

I have now got a bootable CD of Ubuntu, which I will be trying out later this week. I may then need some help in getting HARMONY to run, so I can investigate futher

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Jul 10 - 07:32 PM

BTW, on those two menu bars with the missing graphics, a significant thing I almost missed - the first (top left) one DOES have some graphic content - horizontal lines - the rest are blank - perhaps a closer look at the code might reveal why the first one (I assume!) drawn is ok, but the rest fail.

In the words of that old hymn

Just a closer look at the code,
Just a closer look at the code...

:-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 04:26 AM

No, I don't think the T00* file should have bend (if I remember), though the pre-created one DOES. You have to add it using the note styles facility. (this is one of the unique features of HARMONY)

But it is certainly a valid MIDI file, so that doesn't explain the lack of sound from the program. I will keep looking, but if you find an alternative (which has an API callable from VB) I will certainly investigate.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 04:17 AM

Your original file apache.mid has 'bend' on the guitar detected no bend on the T00*.mid temp files it created. All the files played in Timidity.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 03:16 AM

Do the MIDI files (T0000001.MID etc) play back ok using other MIDI software?

On Windows, all the MIDI files are valid play ok through Media Player, Cakewalk etc but there may be something in the WINE setup which makes the program write invalid files?

For example, the MIDI specification uses 7-bit "bytes" instead of 8, for numbers, and maybe the conversion isn't working properly when the file is writen?

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 08:58 PM

OK - I was able to turn off those 2 rows manually - looks nicer :-) perhaps you might set them off by default

I note that the MIDI output defaults to none - I set it manually, but still no noise.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 07:04 PM

As far as I can see, the dynamic icons are generated by using VB commands (e.g. LINE, PSET) to draw the icon in a VB Picturebox, and then reading back the result from the image (method?). This is pure VB, abd therefore should work.

e.g.
    Pic2image.PSet (inx + 5, sty), tclr
    Pic2image.PSet (inx + 5, sty + 1), tclr
    frmMDI.imgBar(1).Picture = Pic2image.Image

I would certainly be prepared to make a special cut-down version - as you say, if we can get the sound to work.

I looked at REALBASIC but it could not handle the modules needed.
VB .net would be OK but is NOT compatible with VB5 - major rewrite would be needed.

I certainly haven't made any money out of it so far! A few hundred dollars over 14 years (for which - many thanks!). It started life as a DOS QBasic program.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 06:24 PM

"Rather than try to get it running on Mac or Linux systems, why not make it work as a remote service so that Mac or Linux users could connect to it over the internet? "

Nice idea, but that costs money and time.

"None of these icons (rows 2 & 3) is critical to the program"

But it looks totally crap, and as a shareware program, if I looked at it once, even if I used it, I certainly wouldn't pay for it! Unless those bar are removed, and then the learning curve gets steeper. But it may be worth the effort to produce a different version, once we can get the sound to work.

The only problem with changing to a different type of Basic, is that they are usually mutually incompatible. I peeked: even though it has a 30 day trial, it is an Object Oriented language, so it's highly likely that the VB5 code will just not work, needing MANY hours of rewriting. At $100 -> $1,000 depending on version, I doubt Pavane would make money on the deal.

I've run out of steam for the moment, sorry pavane.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: GUEST,robstott
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 02:31 PM

Hi,

Just going off at a tangent slightly, you might want to have a look at RealBasic (http://www.realsoftware.com/realstudio/) if you're looking at cross platform development. You can code once and compile as Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. I've used it myself maaaaany moons ago and it worked pretty well.

As far as I know (and I don't know much!) it's the only way of creating an app that'll run on all three big OSes.

Rob

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 12:29 PM

If you know how I can do it without recoding, let me know (It's in VB5)

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 12:28 PM

See the earliest posts - I do not have time to rewrite 100k lines of code in a new language

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 11:51 AM

Rather than try to get it running on Mac or Linux systems, why not make it work as a remote service so that Mac or Linux users could connect to it over the internet?

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 11:27 AM

None of these icons (rows 2 & 3) is critical to the program, though, they are just there to allow drag and drop when inserting notes. You can specify the note to be inserted in other ways.

e.g. insert a default note and then adjust its pitch or length using menu items.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 10:13 AM

OK - I now have VB2 - VB6 & MSC 2003 support loaded - no change.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 10:02 AM

But while the library might be large, the computation would be eased - and you could easily compress the library (graphics often will compress considerably, especially if the files are minimal (say 4 bit colour - or even 2 bit b/w) colours and have lots of space the same colour) - a zip file to be unpacked (even self extracting) on install. You could even do the whole install that way... :-) You then just load the graphics on startup.

One of the Win 3rd party utils - forget which one now - allowed you to build self extracting libraries, - if that means that you need 7-zip to extract it on WINE, don't worry, that is one of the things that WINETricks will install!

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 09:47 AM

The problem with some of the icons is that they really ARE dynamic, generated as needed. A library to cover all possibilities would be huge.

Where they are used for drag and drop, you also need a 'dragged' version, which is different.

Will do further investigation this evening.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 09:23 AM

Info I'll stick here in case I can't find it again, thanks to Murphy...

http://home.brisnet.org.au/~mlevoi/midi.html

GS - XG - GM MIDI Software and Visual Basic Code
including
Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of James Shields and Zane Thomas, the Mabry MIDI Pack source code has now been put into the public domain! Specifically, you can find the complete source code for the VBX, OCX16 and OCX32 versions of:

MIDIFILE
and
MIDIIO

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 09:17 AM

OK when I can figure out what version of C++ was likely to hav ebeen used for that year and was used to create the MIDIIO stuff, I'll start by loading that. More FKNGoogling.... :-)

Copyright Information         Copyright ? 1994-1998 by Zane Thomas and Mabry Software, Inc.
Product Name         MIDIIO
Product Version         1.10.007

Can you confirm what version number you used?


Ah that 3rd party subroutine might be a hassle.... you could try just having the icons stored all together in an external file and read in - we should be able to have the Linux system just load them without hassle. If you have a 'pressed and unpressed' version of the graphic, you will need 2 icons for each of course.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 04:01 AM

There is also a 3rd party subroutine used for converting bitmaps to icons, I believe. This might be the cause of your missing icons.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 03:55 AM

Foolestroup, you are doing a magnificent job! Much appreciated, and I will provide whatever help I can.

(Guest was me, of course)

The MIDI ports are selected using the collections within VB (or Windows?) - nothing tricky there.

The MIDIIO32 (by MABRY) I used was the 2001 version, which can still be found online, with its source code. I see now that there is a later version, from 2004, but not offical MABRY code - I will investigate this for the next version.

Workaround for the play, of course, is to play the MIDI file using an external player! As far as I can tell, the program DOES close the file correctly after writing it, but I will check again. As you suggest, these are supposed to be temporary files, removed after playing.

The dynamic icons do NOT use the fonts, they are written by the old BASIC draw commands for lines and ellipses, I think. I will have another look at that. And you are supposed to be able to drag and drop onto the score.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 08:58 PM

Aggh! My head hurts - Sound is a minefield - but my ALSA WAS working with WINE... gonna take a break.... :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 08:39 PM

The above comment about ESS was from 2006... a little dated... that's part of the problem of the net - you have to be careful that the info you turn up is not obsolete.

Thanks Tootler - you know far more than me about WINE... :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 08:36 PM

Check the Wine Forum.

Wine does not officially support pulse audio and they recommend disabling it if you get problems, though I have found that Noteworthy and VanBasco playback midi OK with pulse audio running.

I am not going to try it now, as it's 1.30 am here and time for bed.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 08:29 PM

btw - Wine config

have set ALSA OSS & JACK drivers - "Test Sound" works

Directsound - Hardware acceleration is set to Full
~~~~~~~~~~~~
have seen a suggestion

QUOTE
Re: wine 0.9.15 error
for me:
mkdir /tmp/ksocket-YOURSERNAME

winecfg
audio--> esd (ESS)

now work
with esd mixer in gnome sound preferences
UNQUOTE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pulse Audio (installed) is a drop in better replacement for the older ESS

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 08:21 PM

OK - on the very top text only menu line there is an entry Midi - finding a drop down item to set the MIDI parameters - it locked the program up and was not possible to shut down. Had to be killed thru the process table. Tried again - after quite a wait it came back & was was set to 'Wine MIDI Mapper' - still no sound.

Set to Timidity port 0 (no idea what port number I SHOULD use!) - we get a popup - select channel - selected Guitar1 - then the "can't write to file" popped up again. Tried several times - it created several files.

I deleted all files (keeping program open), and tried again - it wrote a file, but still no sound - didn't ask for a channel.

Maybe getting the channel selection popup is a positive movement.... and may help you guess where it is reaching...

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 08:09 PM

A suggested midi fix was to create a directory
/tmp/ksocket-'username'
-
substitute 'username' with the users name. But this didn't work and was for those who were using KDE - I use Gnome - it probably won't work with other window mangers either.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 07:45 PM

OK - installed VB5run package

The top menu bar is now visible correctly - honestly can't remember whether it was there, but don't think it was before. The 2 below it are not. They use some graphics - some of which are music notation symbols - are they in the music font which it claims it is installing on startup, or separate? The music IS displayed on the staff in the display correctly, so some music font is being used - are the graphics items in the 2nd & 3rd menu bars graphic items that are different from the loaded music font? I suspect they are.

~~~~~~~~~~
Exactly which version of C++ is used, do you know, I can just blast it with them all - unless someone can guess the age of the MIDIIO file, whereby we can guess what one is appropriate. I'd prefer to use the minimum resources necessary, so that the instructions to new users advise them the absolute necessary ones to load.

~~~~~~~

If I know the exact names of the fonts, I can check that they are loaded. It says on startup Fughetta.ttf is being loaded - It also mentions Tocatta.ttf - and that both should be registered with the owner. It also seems to be loading Fughetta each time it starts, so it is apparently in permanently installed. If you can confirm what any other Fonts you have used to actually display text - they may be just the defaults - it could be helpful to ensure that they are being emulated correctly by Linux. I did load a 'corefonts package'.

~~~~~~~

The file permissions are slightly different under Linux - we have Owner, Group and Other (World) - the last 2 are for security access by others, but the Owner is set to Read and Write so it should be able to overwrite it.
I changed the permissions of the HARMONY directory to allow full RW access (in Linux you need to be able to write to a directory to record the info of a file to create it), but it made no difference.

BUT I did notice that the file was in existence when I started the program - I asked to to play apache and got no error - but no sound (the midi stuff will be looked at later) but when I tried to play it a second time the error popped up that the file was in use... :-) Something is not closing the file in HARMONY I guess. It should be closed immediately after it is written to, allowing it to be released.

There actually now 2 files T000001001.mid & T000001000.mid that have been created - both 481 bytes - if that helps.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 07:33 PM

Also, the Wine Midi Mapper works fine with the VanBasco Karaoke player. In spite of its name, VanBasco is an excellent Midi player and it is my player of choice in windows.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 07:31 PM

Wine provides its own version of the Windows Midi Mapper. It works fine for me on Noteworthy Composer.

If you are going to get this to work on Linux, you will really need to contact the Wine developers and find out how they handle these things.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 05:17 PM

I have now uploaded a screen shot of Harmony to a temporary location - later I will add it to the main site.

To get it, go to http:\\www.chappuzeau.net

Click on private area link and enter the password

screenshot

You will then get a link to Harmony.jpg, which you can view or download.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 03:42 PM

I will really be thrilled if you can get it all to work, as it opens up a big new potential user base.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 03:41 PM

Hi again. I have had a quick look at the code, but seeing what uses MIDIIO32 is rather tricky. For your other questions

Code is written using VB5 (except for the 3rd party stuff like MIDIIO32, which is C++)

The black boxes at the top are no doubt the dynamic icons. The content of these is modified at run time, which may be a problem for LINUX. But they do not provide anything which is not also on the menus. I will try to get a screen dump to you of what it should look like.

The problem of having read-only files has also occurred on some versions of Windows. I have never found out why, because it has never happened on my systems. It may be that the OS does not release the file properly after it has been written.

I do not know how to set file permissions within VB - maybe someone could help me there (I suppose it is just modifying the attributes using the file system code)

The music fonts (truetype)are included with the distribution. I will look up what they are.

Harmony plays midi files by calls to Windows Multi Media interface. But is there a LINUX version of MIDI Mapper? you may have to assign your MIDI out device to get sound.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 03:55 AM

"Harmony could not overwrite a midi file called something like 000000011.mid"

I was right - this is not necessarily a fault of HARMONY - Ubuntu (or WINE) defaults to creating files with particular permissions. Unless HARMONY does this readonly, but it shouldn't.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 08:09 PM

Sorry, also whatever fonts, anything else you can think of.... :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 07:37 PM

OK pavane

It would now be very helpful if you could tell us your complete 'build environment' - i.e. what tools did you use to build this program. This will include certain things such as compliers, what version, etc

eg
MC Visual Basic (what EXACT version)
MS Visual C (what EXACT version)
etc

We can fake most of them.... :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 07:22 PM

OK - just noticed something else - the top area (a sort of menu bar area) just shows as a lot of black boxes - there should be some graphic content there I suppose to tell me what is supposed to be displayed.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 07:11 PM

"Harmony could not overwrite a midi file called something like 000000011.mid"

This is probably because of the wrong file permissions - perhaps HARMONY needs to have the default way it sets the permissions on the file it creates - Don't panic, us hackers know HOW, just need to figure out WHERE :)
~~~
Most needed dlls and other things like the OCX stuff can be got here - the files can be used in WINE or even to recover various Windows versions that have problems or need missing files.
http://dll.downloadatoz.com/
~~~~
winetricks - install wine application perquisites with ease
http://ubuntu-snippets.blogspot.com/2008/05/as-most-of-us-know-wine-is-used-to-run.html

also

http://wiki.jswindle.com/index.php/Winetricks
~~~~~~~~~~

OK I got the mfc40 & mfc42 installed thru winetricks - got the apache midi loaded and the music score displayed - but no sound as yet.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Tootler
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 06:34 PM

I think the message below belongs here rather than in the thread you originally posted it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: RE: Tech: Playing Midi Files on Linux
From: pavane - PM
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 08:30 AM

The OCX in my program is not used for playing the complete MIDI files (I think), but is used for directly playing individial notes and chords. I won't be able to look at the code until tonight, but I think I use calls to the standard Windows MMI (Multi Media interface) to play complete files.

So I don't really understand why this doesn't work in WINE.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: Tootler
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 11:11 AM

If you do a search in Wine, you find that there are several programs where a *.OCX program does not register properly. From that I found out how to get the program installed.

You need a script called "winetricks" to install the mfc40.dll library.

Once you have that you can register your OCX file. Here is what I did.

Install Harmony using Wine. When the error message appears just select "Ignore" and let the installation finish

Open a terminal. This has to be done at the terminal, just copy and paste the commands below after the $ symbol into the terminal

$ wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
$ sh winetricks mfc40

This will download winetricks into your home directory and then download and install mfc40.dll

$ cd .wine/dosdevices/c:/windows/system32
$ wine regsvr32 MIDIIO32.OCX

This will register MIDIIO32.OCX. You can now start Harmony.

I found Harmony started successfully and I was able to load the "apache.mid" example OK. However:

When I tried to playback the apache.mid file - silence.
I stopped it and tried again. This time I got an error message that Harmony could not overwrite a midi file called something like 000000011.mid - obviously a temporary file which I assume should be released and deleted when yo select stop.
I then clicked on MIDI in the menu, assuming this would let me set up the midi in the program. At this point the program hung and I had to force quit to close it down.

There is clearly more needs to be done to make it work in Linux, but at least it can be installed. Maybe you could include mfc40.dll with the program and have it set up so it will install.

However if you are to make it work with Wine you will need to install a Linux distro somewhere, so you can test the program. Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and Open Suse are the most common, so any of those will be fine. All are available for free download. Linux does not generally need the most up to date hardware, so if you have an old PC with about 500 Meg of Ram and a reasonable hard disk that will do fine. Or, if you have sufficient resources, partition your existing hard disk or even plug in an external hard disk via USB.

You will also need to get an up to date version of Wine for that you need to go to the Wine website, http://www.winehq.org/ While you are there have a good look at the documentation. There is plenty of information for you about how Wine works. Also join the forum.

At the end of the day, you need to decide whether you consider it worth putting in the effort.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 08:23 AM

That would probably require quite a bit of recoding. I will look at the OCX first - but can you register it separately? That might do the trick.

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 07:42 AM

MIDIIO32.OCX can be found freely online from various repositories - the problem ATM with the WINE attempts seems to be that it is not being registered properly - perhaps you can look at your installion setup and how it is registering it into the Registry.

~~~~~~~
There are versions of Timidity for Windows - if you can get it to work then it will port to Linux.
~~~~~~~~~~
http://timidity.sourceforge.net/

TiMidity++ Windows Synthesizer (TWSYNTH) is a extended version of TiMidity++. If you use this with a MIDI loopback device, you can get High Quality MIDI sounds with your favorite sequencer player ....etc.

also
    timidity.dll by PT2K
    TiMidity++ DLL wrapper (Japanese).
also
    Classic Mac OS version is distribued here (Japanese).
TiMidity++ Experimental by Saito2
    Windows GUI version and MinGW command line version are available.
also
WinUMP by skeishi
    UMP for Windows platform (Japanese).
~~~~~~~~~~~


useful

Three Steps to MIDI on Linux -
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applications_GUI_Multimedia/Three_Steps_to_MIDI_on_Linux

The TiMidity Howto - Using TiMidity as the ALSA sequencer client -
http://lau.linuxaudio.org/TiMidity-howto.html

Subject: RE: Tech: Harmony on Mac & Linux?
From: pavane
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 03:01 AM

I will see if I can produce a cut-down version of HARMONY which doesn't use the OCX. MIDIIO32.OCX is a 3rd-party OCX used for immediate playing of notes and chords. I will have to look at the code to see what alternatives there are. I think it actually came with the source code, so maybe that could be compiled directly under LINUX

Feel free to email me (from my website www.greenhedges.com) for more help.

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 08:57 PM

MIDIIO32.OCX is currently sitting in the system32 folder...

It WAS installed...

I can open the HARMONY program - loaded the apache.mid

Crash - it's complaining that the OCX file is not correctly registered - beyond me now...

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 08:52 PM

A google of "WINE MIDIIO32.OCX" returns this thread as No 1 !!!! :-)

Some useful thoughts...

QUOTE
The mfc40.dll file is normally found in the system32 directory on Windows and that is usually where Wine and applications expect to find it. A few of the apps I've used that try to install in the root of the "C:" drive have encountered some odd problems (possibly the cause of your midi issues?).
UNQUOTE

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: Tootler
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 08:32 PM

Downloaded Harmony and got same error.

After the second try I aborted and extracted the relevant error message from the uninstall log.

*** ERROR: LoadLibrary() failed while registering file 'C:\windows\system32\MIDIIO32.OCX'

*** DURING THIS ACTION: DllSelfRegister: "C:\windows\system32\MIDIIO32.OCX"

If you can sort this, Pavane, then there is no reason why Harmony should not work with Wine in Linux.

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 08:16 PM

OK been around other computers & DOS/Windoze since the 1970s... :-)

Made a temp dir - Linux happily extracted the contents of the ZIP file there. Needed to set the 'executable bit' on the SETUP.EXE file - then the WINE Install worked to install the app - but file MIDIIO32.OCX incurred an error.... now will need to find some WINE compatible version...

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: Tootler
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 08:02 PM

I don't know how harmony works, but as a minimum, you will have to unpack the *.exe file and use Wine to run that.

In my experience Windows software that comes as zip files usually have a executable inside which you have to extract and run to install the program. Is there a "readme" file inside the zip?

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 02:01 AM

HAHA! Read my msg of 13 Jul 04 - this box running Ubuntu has 2 Gb...

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Jul 10 - 01:49 AM

Thought I would have a quick look to see how this goes - Well I can get the ZIP files, but I can't install direct into WINE from them.

When I get more time, I'll unpack them and try installing.

Unless someone knows of something in WINE that will install direct from a ZIP file. I know of lots of Windoze SW that does this, but that would have to run UNDER WINE...

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 07:52 AM

The idea interests me, but at the moment I am completely unable to take the idea on, especially by myself. I would be interested in contributing by assisting, especially testing, etc.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: pavane
Date: 14 Jul 04 - 05:05 AM

I have noted before that life is too short for me to rewrite 80,000 lines of Visual Basic 5 code in JAVA. That's why I have been looking for an alternative.

I have invested a huge amount of effort so far, over the last 8 years, in the current program. I didn't do it for financial gain, which is just as well, because I have received registrations equating to about about $0.001 per hour worked! But there is no clear incentive for me to invest even more time on cross-platform versions.

Is there a volunteer who would like to take on the job?

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 11:30 PM

I've never seen a VB program for linux, not that I'm any kind of expert. If you want to go cross plarform all the way, try Java. That's what it's for. Most linux programs I've seen are in C,C++, Java, Python, and Perl. If I had to guess, I'd say that most are in C++. The real problem is the different file structures. Or so I hear. You might be able to run it with the wine emulator. Maybe.

It may also be significant that all linux distros come with the gcc compiler and some kind of jre. The others you may need to install.

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 11:12 PM

Microsoft and its cute proprietary machinations may have had its day. A friend of mine at a university who is running machines with beta versions of XP-Pro with .NET says that they won't run with anything under 2 gigabytes of RAM. I repeat "2 gigabytes of RAM"!!!

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 05:55 PM

Pavane:

I don't honestly know much about .net. Visual Basic runs okay on Macs but you should get in touch with someone at the Apple Developers' network to find out for sure.

Is your source code written in some form of Basic? If not, what language is it written in?

A

Subject: RE: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 05:30 PM

I'd be somewhat suspicious. Microsoft's .NET is still more of a strategy than a product, I think. There are open standards being developed so that standard languages and OSs can participate using Web Services. I can't imagine they'd do anything to encourage running VB in an open environment. JMHO.

      - Mark

Subject: Tech: HARMONY on MAC & LINUX?
From: pavane
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 05:15 PM

I am told that one way in which I might be able to run HARMONY on MAC and LINUX would be to convert it to VB .NET.

It could then run on any system which supports the .NET framework.

Can you MAC and LINUX users tell me if that would work on your systems? I know nothing about them.

The conversion would be a major undertaking, and I don't want to try unless it will work!