Re: [gtk-list] Re: Music fonts

[Allan Black <allan florence scotnet co uk>]

Sorry for the late reply: I've been having a little trouble with the list.
Seems SmartList is too smart to be fooled into accepting submissions from
a subdomain of a subscribed address ....

Stephen:
> > > Does anyone know of any music fonts that I can use with Gtk?  Or
> > > suggestions
> > > on how I could go about creating one?

There are a few TrueType fonts around, but unfortunately, I haven't managed
to find a non-commercial (i.e. a freeware/[L]GLP one) yet.

> > > I'm planning on making a music editor using Gtk+, and I'm not quite sure
> > > how to go about it.

Well, I've started one and it's going reasonably well at the moment.

I just got a small piece of music to display in a drawing area (this week),
but it's still pretty rough and needs a few things like, e.g. horizontally
offsetting notes which are one diatonic position apart, or which overlap.
Middle C also looks a bit wierd, since I haven't done the code for ledger
lines yet :-) Etc. etc.

Sergei:
> > If, however, you do not need scaling, you might just take bitmaps from the
> > available Type 1 or TTF fonts.

Careful, unless you use a "free" font.

Stephen:
> I definitely need scaling.  So, how would I go about setting up a font and
> "vectorizing" the notes?  Can I look at what you've done with the Hershey
> fonts?

My plans are actually to work with static bitmaps initially.

Music notation is very complex (I actually didn't realise just HOW complex
until I started to think of it in terms of algorithms :-)

So, in order to make development as easy as possible, I decided to try to
separate the complexity of the music notation from the complexity of font
design/scaling/display. This means working in discreet phases:

1) On-screen display/edit using static bitmaps, using XCopyPlane to allow
   choice of "pen" colour. Won't scale (or, at least, will scale VERY
   crudely). I may convert these bitmaps to BDF later.

2) Printing (PostScript, of course :-) using a Type3 font.

3) Convert the Type3 font to a Type1 font.

4) Add the option of using the Type1 font for on-screen display.

5) Add the option of using third-party Type1 or TrueType fonts.

Editing is not started yet: I'm still working on the internal representation
of the score and geometry management. Editing won't be started until I think
I've got these right. :-)

If you're interested in getting a project off the ground, drop me a line.
Otherwise, you're welcome to a copy of the bitmaps I've designed. They're
in XBM format.

Allan

P.S. I'm using Gnome, but only for the menubar and toolbar. The score editor
widget (read-only though it may currently be) is pure GTK+

ARB