Re: [Denemo-devel] Questions and Comments on Denemo

[Richard Shann]

> -ALSA and JACK.
>  I'm sure there are plans to add a ALSA/JACK midi client to denemo. Is 
> there any roadmap or plan?
I haven't any expertise in this area, unfortunately.
> 
> -Tempo and Tempochanges
>  A Tempochange (in metronome scale) and some Terms like "allegro" which 
> resembles some fixed speeds and the possibility to add own tempo-terms 
> like "allegro". Additionally Accelarando and Ritardando, maybe to the 
I have it in mind to do this.

> next set tempochange in some curve maybe swichtable and possible to add 
> own functions (linear, logarythmic etc. )
I'll bear that in mind when doing the above...
> All these should be playbacked in midioutput.
I think that would be ok to do.

> Also I miss a durationdisplay that you can see how long your piece is 
> and where you are right now. Could show the bar number and other things, 
> too.
That would be neat & quite easy.
> 
> -Delete and Backspace Behaviour
> Behaviour of these is just perfect, like in any texteditor. But if there 
> are barlines in between its not possible. In my opinion these should be 
> possible, too. Also the barlines are not deletable. See next point:
> 
> -Barlines
> Barlines, as I see it, are not the same Items like a note, a rest, clef- 
> or keychange. Is there are reason for this?
Somewhere in the READMEs and DESIGN documents is an ancient comment from
Matthew Hiller that he chose to base Denemo on the measure as a
fundamental entity, saying that he didn't like Rosegarden(?) because of
it not doing that. I don't understand the comment, but Denemo has a core
of display stuff which will fall over I suspect if it doesn't have
manageable measures.
>  In other words: Is it 
> possible to switch off the auto-barline feature and set them by hand as 
> just another item. Maybe additionally a script like "generate barlines 
> now" which is reversable by crtl+z.
> By handling barlines as items its also easy to add additional barlines 
> right in the middle of another bar (like a double or part-end bar)
It would be possible to create split and merge functions for inserting
and deleting barlines though - there is a pain barrier to be gone
through because the before mentioned code keeps quite a bit of redundant
information (measure widths etc) which has to be kept in sync. (one
suspects the code was written this way because of the speed of computers
around the turn of the century...)
> 
> -Mark, Copy and Paste
> There are some menuentries for that, but it doesn't seem to work. 
Do you mean that it doesn't work using the mouse in the usual way? It
does copy and paste after some fashion if you mark & select using the
keyboard doesn't it? But I'm not sure what it is trying to do with more
than one staff marked, and, generally, I've not been using it. I did
implement a primitive mouse-marking method (click and drag between
notes).
> maybe 
> its just vip. Anyway: Copy and Paste should be working. I would suggest 
> a texteditor behaviour: With Shift or pressed mousekey you can mark 
> notes, rests and any items (barlines, too :) ) and then just, copy, cut, 
> delete or over-paste them. Maybe Crtl+Shift or some combo allows it to 
> mark a complete bar like now crtl+left jumps from bar to bar. 
??? if you set mark then ctrl-rightarrow it selects the measure
> It should 
> be also possible to mark in several staffs at once, so you can c&p whole 
> parts of your piece.
??? again set mark and navigate, though I haven't explored what you can
do with the marked area.
> What is the format of the copied items? Will it be possible to paste 
> them into a texteditor 
are you thinking of pasting LilyPond here? A single measure of Denemo
will give rise to several bits of LilyPond text at different places in
the LilyPond output.
> to have a certain piece read to paste it again in 
> later?
> 
> -Shifting Notes
> If Notes are marked it could be possible to shift them up and down all 
> together, with some keycombination and the arrow-keys. Rests and other 
> marked items should be ignored in this process.
Yes, I have that in mind.
> 
> -Augmentation, Diminuation
> If notes are marked it is also possible to augment oder diminuate 
> (double or half the size) all sizable items (notes and rests) easily.
Interesting.
> 
> -Bookmarks
> I like the idea of bookmarks. Is it possible to show them as text-item 
> in the (top-)staff and give them a custom name? So you could name them 
> like "Verse 1" or "Refrain" and even print them out.
These would be nice, at the moment they are not actually attached to the
music, though, so it isn't completely trivial.
> 
> -Slurs?
> They are completly missing?
Expression Marks->ToggleBeginSlur/EndSlur
The status bar tells you if you have a begin or end slur on a note -
nothing shows until you have both.
> 
> -Additionally Midievents
> Set midihandling like dynamics, modulation and all these stuff for 
> enhanced playback possibilitys.
> 
> Finally a question: What 2D-lib is used for rendering notes inside Denemo?
I think it is gdk_pixbuf_drawable stuff.

Thank you for your help.
Richard