<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2-Based Variant V1.0//EN" "dtd/kdex.dtd" [
<!ENTITY rosegarden "<application>Rosegarden</application>">
<!ENTITY MIDI "<acronym>MIDI</acronym>">
<!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE" > <!-- change language only here -->
<!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
]>
<!-- The language must be changed in the <book> tag for translations. -->
<!--
Notes on style and terminology for Rosegarden handbook
======================================================
* Try to use British spelling and idiom as much as you possibly
can, so the American bits don't stick out like a sore
thumb. Realise, not realize, colour, not color, though of
course an American is going to miss using colorful (oops)
British sayings like "a bit naff," and won't have any idea
what the bloody hell (that was good, but a bit too vulgar, of
course) words like "heuristic" mean.
* Aim to be clear, brief and direct, but be informal.
* Write instructions in the second person.
Good: "You can select segments by clicking on them with
the arrow tool."
Bad: "Segments can be selected by clicking on them with
the arrow tool."
Very bad: "The arrow tool allows the user to select segments
by clicking on them."
If you dislike the first of these because you want to make the
phrase "the arrow tool" more obvious by placing it at the
start of the sentence, then perhaps you should be using a
variablelist instead and making "the arrow tool" a list item.
* It's perfectly permissible to detour to explain why
something is the way it is, particularly if it might not be
obvious.
* It's also entirely permissible to omit advanced stuff. This
document is be about understanding how and why, not about
knowing every last clever detail. Initially we were going to
include a function reference section for the clever details,
but it proved too hard to keep up to date, and not all that
useful. Providing a quick bit of guidance is most of the job.
* Bear in mind we can link extensively from any part of
the handbook to any other. Unfortunately DocBook won't allow
you to write a link to a target that doesn't exist yet, so if
you want to link to something that's not yet been written,
either make a note of the planned link in an XML comment, or
go and create a stub for the bit that hasn't been written yet,
or else just write in a way that allows for a link to be
easily added later (we could do an editing phase specially for
links).
* Be strict about using the correct terminology for
Rosegarden data structures (segment, event, track, instrument,
composition), but don't capitalise the words. Capitalisation
is useful in technical documents to make it clear that you're
referring to a precise concept, but you shouldn't have to do
it to make your meaning clear in user documentation. If
something seems ambiguous without, try rewording it instead.
About Screenshots
=================
We recommend saving your current user preferences as a new theme
using the KDE theme manager, so you can restore your usual
desktop after your work on this manual is done. Then we
recommend that you spare yourself some effort, and use the
"Rosegarden Handbook" KDE theme I just created, and put here:
http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/Rosegarden\ Handbook.kth
If you can't use the theme for some reason, you must dial in
these changes by hand. Screenshots used with this documentation
should use the following style, colour and font settings:
(NOTE: These specs are from the KDE 2.x era, surely, and make no
particular mention of icon themes. I have no idea what icons
were used in the original version of this document, since it was
not specified. I have used the new default "Crystal SVG" icons
in creating the theme above. This will probably result in a
mis-match, but I find I really don't care.)
(NOTE in reply to the above: the scheme was originally from
KDE 2.x, yes. I suggest we don't worry about icon mismatches too
much, as most of the screenshots don't have icons in semantically
meaningful roles anyway. I use Crystal SVG too now and I don't
really intend to change that for the documentation.)
* KDE Style: "Light Style, 3rd Revision"
* Colour scheme: "Blue Slate", with high-contrast
setting and with the standard widget background set to white.
(I have this saved as a new scheme.)
* Fonts: Verdana 11px for general use and menus; Verdana
11px bold for window titles; antialiasing on, but sub-pixel
antialiasing off. (For pictures of the segment and instrument
parameter boxes I usually turn the size up to 13px, which
perhaps says something about our use of font size in these
boxes.) WARNING: This is not a reliable hint any more, as
the KDE font size is not in pixels but points that depend
on the detected monitor resolution. Go for something that
looks a bit like the existing screenshots; it will probably
be smaller than 11pt.
NOTE: switching off sub-pixel antialiasing is quite important,
as otherwise your text will look weird and fuzzy to any
readers with CRT monitors or LCDs with a different colour
ordering. The exact choice of font is less important: I
think you can get away with Vera or whatever.
* Window Decorations: "Quartz"
None of these would be my first choice for nice-looking
screenshots now, but we're not here to sell Rosegarden in this
document, we're here to provide clear and consistent help text.
So the priority is to make new screenshots look like the existing
ones, not to make them look fancy. Also, I think there is an
advantage to having screenshots in a help document look a bit
distinct from the user's own window decorations surrounding the
help text.
Screenshots of the whole program or of whole matrix or notation
windows may be taken using different themes if desired, but
screenshots of individual dialogs or window components must use
the above scheme.
-->
<!--
Notes on Usability Defects
==========================
This comment is a place to note anything I find difficult to
document, or anything where the functions for two necessarily
linked concepts are not actually linked in the GUI (etc).
* The audio file directory (in document properties) can't be
inspected or changed from the audio file manager. This is
arguably linked to a need for a project directory. There
are various other usability problems with the audio file
manager as well, e.g. there's no way to tell it to pull all
imported audio files into a single audio directory.
* Track buttons showing sometimes-instrument, sometimes-label.
* Mostly FIXED - Can't usefully double-click / right-click on
most rulers. This would be useful for a slower but clearer
way to set loops; adding and editing markers; etc. Setting
loops is particularly opaque especially in notation and
matrix views.
* Hideous inconsistency (documented in an RFE already) between
having to use RG for MIDI routing and being unable to use RG
for audio routing.
Troubleshooting
===============
Shall we have a troubleshooting section?
* I'm not seeing any MIDI outputs
* I'm not hearing any sound from my MIDI outputs
* I'm not seeing any audio outputs
* I'm not hearing any sound from my audio outputs
* I don't see any synth plugins
-->
<!--
Still to do (yeah right, in 30 to 75 years)
===========
* Control rulers
* Controller editing
* Event list
* Event editor dialogs
* Document properties
* Add images for the tools (move, split &c) when describing them
* Add images for transport buttons in transport section
* Update notation menu references
* Add new notation stuff <- "new" when this to-do item was added? when was that I wonder?
* Config dialog
* Make sure the guimenuitem etc tags are being used for all menu refs
* Give keyboard shortcuts for menu functions?
* Go through again changing Rosegarden -> &rosegarden; and double-hyphen ->
– or — and review any uses of "the ... function" to see
if these words are redundant
* Troubleshooter
* Check !!! items
* Fill gaps in revision history
* Consistent capitalisation: Instrument Parameter Box or instrument
parameter box? Audio Mixer or audio mixer? Device or device?
* Finally, review the structure again and adjust the <chapter>/<sect*>
for balance
-->
<book id="rosegarden" lang="&language;">
<!-- This header contains all of the meta-information for the document such
as Authors, publish date, the abstract, and Keywords -->
<bookinfo>
<title>The Rosegarden Handbook</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Chris</firstname>
<surname>Cannam</surname>
</author>
<author>
<firstname>Richard</firstname>
<surname>Bown</surname>
</author>
<author>
<firstname>Guillaume</firstname>
<surname>Laurent</surname>
<firstname>D. Michael</firstname>
<surname>McIntyre</surname>
<firstname>Pedro</firstname>
<surname>Lopez-Cabanillas</surname>
<firstname>Heikki</firstname>
<surname>Junes</surname>
</author>
<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>
<copyright>
<year>2002-2008</year>
<holder>Chris Cannam, Richard Bown, Guillaume Laurent, D. Michael
McIntyre, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas, Heikki Junes</holder>
</copyright>
<date>2008-05-05</date>
<releaseinfo>1.7.0</releaseinfo>
<abstract>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-mainwindow.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
Rosegarden is an audio and &MIDI; sequencer and musical notation
editor. This Handbook describes how to use it.
</para>
</abstract>
<keywordset>
<keyword>Rosegarden</keyword>
<keyword>sequencer</keyword>
<keyword>MIDI</keyword>
<keyword>audio</keyword>
<keyword>music</keyword>
<keyword>notation</keyword>
<keyword>score</keyword>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
</keywordset>
</bookinfo>
<!-- The contents of the documentation begins here. Label each
chapter so with the id attribute. This is necessary for two reasons:
it allows you to easily reference the chapter from other chapters of
your document, and if there is no ID, the name of the generated HTML
files will vary from time to time making it hard to manage for
maintainers and for the CVS system. Any chapter labelled (OPTIONAL)
may be left out at the author's discretion. Other chapters should
not be left out in order to maintain a consistent documentation
style across all KDE apps. -->
<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<sect1>
<title>About Rosegarden</title>
<para>
<application>Rosegarden</application> is a &MIDI; and audio
sequencer and musical notation editor. Rosegarden allows you to
record, arrange, and compose music, in the shape of traditional
score or &MIDI; data, or of audio files either imported or
recorded from a microphone, guitar or whatever audio source you
care to specify. You can use Rosegarden to write, edit, and
organise music to create a composition, which you can then
synthesise, add effects to, and mix down for burning to CD or
distribution on the web. Rosegarden also contains well-rounded
notation editing support for high quality printed output.
</para>
<para>
<application>Rosegarden</application> is designed to look and
act in a manner familiar to experienced users coming to Linux
from other platforms, whilst also being accessible and friendly
to users new to music software generally.
</para>
<sect2 id="intro-handbook">
<title>About this Handbook</title>
<para>
This handbook summarises the capabilities of &rosegarden; and
provides a reference for some of the concepts involved. It's
designed to make sense either read in order or used as a reference
to the concepts and functions available in Rosegarden. If you
would like to read a tutorial as well, <ulink
url="http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/en/chapter-0.html">you
can find one here</ulink>.</para>
<para>If there's something else that you
don't understand or require further help with, please visit
<ulink url="http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/support/">the
Rosegarden website</ulink> for Frequently Asked Questions and
mailing list instructions.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="intro-menufunctions">
<title>About Menus and Shortcuts</title> <para>This handbook
usually refers to the functions you can use in Rosegarden by
describing where they live on the menus. For example, the
function to add a single new track to the main track editor is
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Tracks</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Add Track</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>.</para>
<para>In many cases, this is not the only way to reach a
particular function. In this case the same function is also
available through the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+T, and it also
appears as an icon on one of the main window's toolbars. Both
the keyboard shortcut and the icon can quickly be learned,
because they are shown on the menu in Rosegarden alongside the
name of the function. You should bear in mind that although we
always give the full menu location in this documentation for
reference purposes, it's not necessarily the best or most usual
way to use a function, and you should keep an eye on the
keyboard shortcuts or toolbar icons as well.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="intro-optional">
<title>Optional Features</title> <para>This Handbook assumes
that your Rosegarden installation supports all the features of
which it is capable. Some of Rosegarden's features, including
some very major ones, are actually optional when building a
Rosegarden installation, depending on which other libraries and
supporting code is available. For example, the whole audio
subsystem is only compiled in if JACK libraries are available;
synth plugin support depends on a number of other modules;
etc.</para> <para>These dependencies are documented in the
Rosegarden README and configuration documentation. If you find
that this Handbook refers to features not visible in the version
of Rosegarden you're using, consult your configuration
documentation or distributor.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<!--
**********************************
PART I:
Discussion and tutorial material
**********************************
-->
<chapter id="file-operations">
<title>Rosegarden Files and Documents</title>
<para>
&rosegarden; stores each composition in its own document, using
its own internal format. When you save a document it is stored
on disc as a file with the .rg extension.<footnote><para>
Many users have complained about our opaque binary file
format. It is, in fact, nothing more than gzipped XML.
</para></footnote> &rosegarden; can also
handle a number of other standard file formats.
</para>
<sect1 id="file-creating">
<title>New compositions</title>
<para>
When &rosegarden; starts up, it does so with a new document,
containing an "empty" composition ready to start editing.
To put something in that composition, you must either record
something, or create some blank lengths of music (referred
to as "segments") that you can then fill in using the
various editing facilities.
</para>
<para>See <link linkend="recording">Recording</link> for details of how to record music, and see the <link
linkend="segment-view">Track Editor</link> section for a
description of how to create, edit, and manage segments of
music.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="file-midi">
<title>Using MIDI files</title>
<para>
To import and export MIDI files, use the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Import</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Import MIDI File</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
and
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Export MIDI File</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
functions.
</para>
<para>
Although &rosegarden; can load and save file formats such as
MIDI, it does not store MIDI data internally. You should
generally prefer to save files in &rosegarden;'s own format,
as &rosegarden; stores quite a lot of information that will
be lost when exporting to MIDI. This also applies if you merely
import a file, and then immediately export it back out. &rosegarden;
translates the raw MIDI to its internal format, and then translates that format
back into MIDI. Some details of the file structure can and do get
lost or rearranged in this translation, but the resulting performances
should be functionally identical.
</para>
<para>
When a MIDI file is loaded, &rosegarden; splits out the
music into one track per MIDI track or channel in the file,
<link linkend="studio-midi-import">sets up the appropriate
instrument mappings</link>, and <link
linkend="nv-quantization">attempts to calculate plausible
notation</link> for the MIDI performance data.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="file-rgproject">
<title>Rosegarden Project files</title> <para>A Rosegarden
composition file (.rg) contains all of the the note information
for your composition, as well as other data such as MIDI
controller settings, plugin details, and the names of any audio
files referred to in your composition. The audio files
themselves are not stored in the Rosegarden composition file;
instead you are expected to keep track of their location on disk
yourself (see <link linkend="segment-view-audio-segments">Audio
segments</link>). When you need to transfer a project from one
computer to another, or to a friend or colleague, this can be
inconvenient. This is where Rosegarden Project files are
useful. A Project file contains your composition, all of the
audio files it uses, any further data files required for plugins
used in the composition, and any additional files you may want
to include, all in one big bundle.</para>
<para>Use <menuchoice>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Export Rosegarden Project file...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> to export the current composition and its associated data into a Rosegarden Project file, and <menuchoice>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Import</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Import Rosegarden Project file...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> to expand a Rosegarden Project file back into a composition and load it.</para>
<para>Note that Rosegarden Project format is an interchange
format, not an archival format. Although Rosegarden composition
files are very carefully checked for compatibility from one
Rosegarden version to the next, no long-term guarantees are made for the
Project file format.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="file-other">
<title>Other file formats</title>
<para>Rosegarden can export to and import from a number of other file formats. Some of these are described here; see also <link linkend="file-printing">Printing</link> for information about LilyPond file export.</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Csound</term>
<listitem>
<para>You can export score files for the Csound synthesis system using
<menuchoice>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Export Csound score file...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>. Together with a suitable orchestra file (not supplied), this can be used to play the composition through <ulink url="http://www.csounds.com/">Csound</ulink>. Note that not all data in the Rosegarden composition necessarily can or will be saved in the Csound format.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Mup</term>
<listitem>
<para>You can use <menuchoice>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Export Mup file...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
to save the contents of the current composition into a new Mup file. This can then be processed by the <ulink url="http://www.arkkra.com/">Mup</ulink> music publication system, although it is likely that the file may need some tweaking to get really good quality output. Note that not all data in the Rosegarden composition necessarily can or will be saved in the Mup format.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>MusicXML</term>
<listitem>
<para>The <menuchoice>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Export MusicXML file...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function saves the contents of the current composition into a new MusicXML file. This can then be used with any music software that supports the MusicXML format. Note that MusicXML support is experimental and has not been well tested. Not all data in the Rosegarden composition necessarily can or will be saved in the MusicXML format.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Hydrogen</term>
<listitem>
<para>Rosegarden can import h2song files created by the Hydrogen drum machine. These are imported into a skeletal MIDI-style structure with one track per pattern. The audio samples they use are not imported. Use <menuchoice>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Import</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Import Hydrogen file...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> to import a Hydrogen file.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Rosegarden 2.1</term>
<listitem>
<para>Use the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu>File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Import</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Import Rosegarden 2.1 file...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> function to create a new composition from the contents of an existing X11 Rosegarden v2.1 (.rose) file.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="file-merge">
<title>Merging files</title> <para>As well as loading or
importing files, you can also merge them into the current
document, loading or importing the data from the file, as necessary,
and adding it to the existing composition.
</para>
<para>To merge a file, just use the relevant option on the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Merge</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
submenu, instead of using the Open or
Import option.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="file-printing">
<title>Printing</title>
<para>
You can print out a composition in the form of a musical
score, using the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Print</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function or the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Print with LilyPond</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function.
</para>
<para>
Producing a score from performance data is a hard task, and
in most cases it's unreasonable to expect a default printout
based on MIDI data to be very readable. You should use the
<link linkend="notation-view">notation editor</link> to tidy
up the score before printing. (See also <link
linkend="nv-quantization">Notation from performance
data</link>.)
</para>
<para>&rosegarden; is capable of producing very readable scores. Even
so, it is designed to be a screen editor and not primarily a
typesetter. If you want to produce true print-quality scores you
should consider using <ulink
url="http://www.lilypond.org">LilyPond</ulink> in conjunction
with &rosegarden;. LilyPond is music typesetting software that
reads a specialised text file format and produces high-quality
typeset output. &rosegarden; is capable of writing LilyPond files
using the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Export LilyPond</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function, and it
features special <link linkend="nv-lilypond-directives">exportable
directives</link> and <link linkend="track-parameters">track
parameters</link> that provide access to LilyPond features for
which there is currently no parallel within &rosegarden;'s own
native interface.
</para>
<para>LilyPond may be conveniently used with the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Preview with LilyPond</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function, which exports the file into a temporary file and processes
it directly with LilyPond for preview with a PDF viewer.
If you are happy with the preview, you may print the score using the
printing capability of the PDF viewer, or use the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Print with LilyPond</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function.
</para>
<para>
When Export, Preview, or Printing is done with LilyPond,
there is available also a collection of
<link linkend="lilypond-options">LilyPond options</link>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="lilypond-options">
<title>LilyPond options</title>
<para>If one of the LilyPond export functions is invoked, there will
appear a dialog in which options specific to LilyPond export may be
altered.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>LilyPond version</term>
<listitem><para>
LilyPond version installed into the system should be automatically
detected in the dialog, but it is possible to export to any other
LilyPond version since 2.6. Historically, LilyPond's syntax has
changed somewhat over time, but since LilyPond version 2.6 changes
have have been less radical and more maintainable.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Paper size and Landscape</term>
<listitem><para>
Paper size can be A3, A4, A5, A6, Legal, US Letter, and Tabloid.
All paper sizes may also be used in Landscape mode.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Font size</term>
<listitem><para>
Font size affects the size of the notes. If you want to fit more
staffs into the paper, you should decrease the font size.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Export content</term>
<listitem><para>
Export content concerns tracks that have segments in them, which
are the tracks that are not empty.
It is possible to export All tracks, Non-muted tracks, the current
Selected track, or Selected segments. If LilyPond export is
launched from the Notation view, Selected segments include
the same selection which was used in opening the Notation view.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Merge tracks that have the same name</term>
<listitem><para>
It is possible to Merge tracks that have the same name.
This options allows for example to make a piano score with
several independent voices. You may give first three tracks
name "Right" and three next tracks "Left" and then merge
them in LilyPond export. (This provides an easier way to manage
overlapping segments with the price that the top and bottom
parts will have different names on the page. If you wish both
of them to be named, eg. "Piano," then you will have to keep all
of the segments on the same pair of staffs. Consult <ulink
url="http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/supplemental/piano/">Piano
by Example</ulink> for a hands-on demonstration of this.) <!--
this comment makes absolutely no sense to me(dmm): Sometimes you
may encounter notes that overlap in printed form, you may avoid
them by selecting one of the collapsing notes and fine adjust
its position in Notation view function -->
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Fine Positioning</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Push Right/Left</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Export tempo marks</term>
<listitem><para>
Tempo marks are not exported by default. If tempo changes
rarely, you may want to export all tempo marks, but if
tempo changes too often, you may export only the first mark.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Export lyrics</term>
<listitem><para>
<link linkend="nv-text-lyrics">Lyrics</link> is exported if this
option is checked. Text is entered in Unicode, which
makes it possible to enter lyrics in all languages. Multiple
lines of lyrics per staff is also possible, see the section
on <link linkend="nv-text-lyrics">Editing lyrics</link>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Export beamings</term>
<listitem><para>
<link linkend="nv-beamed-groups">Beams</link> defined in
&rosegarden; can be exported, or the default
beam grouping of LilyPond can be used. Future versions
of &rosegarden; may support nested note grouping.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<!-- deprecated
<varlistentry>
<term>Add staff group bracket</term>
<listitem><para>
Staff group bracket may be added to cover all staffs.
Future versions of &rosegarden; may support nested staff
groupings.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry> -->
<varlistentry>
<term>Lyrics alignment</term>
<listitem><para>
Lyrics is aligned Left by default. Sometimes Center or
Right alignment provides results and more pleasant output.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Ragged bottom</term>
<listitem><para>
The staffs normally cover the whole page from top to bottom.
When there are only a few staffs, this option places the
extra vertical space at the bottom of the page instead.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry> <varlistentry>
<term>Enable "point-and-click" debugging</term>
<listitem><para>
If you export the LilyPond source with the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Export LilyPond</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function, you may open the LilyPond source by clicking
notes in the PDF output. Consult <ulink url=" http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.10/Documentation/user/lilypond/Point-and-click#Point-and-click">LilyPond documentation</ulink> for more
information.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry> <varlistentry>
<term>Export \midi block</term>
<listitem><para>
LilyPond is also capable of producing MIDI output. Check this
option if you wish the LilyPond source to use this option.
Note however that MIDI output which you obtain via &rosegarden;
sequencer, via
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Export MIDI file</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>,
and via LilyPond's MIDI output may differ considerably.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry> <varlistentry>
<term>Headers</term>
<listitem><para>
Headers can be edited both in LilyPond export dialog and through the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Composition</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Edit Document Properties</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> function.</para><para>Some of the headers will appear
only in LilyPond output.
The position of the Printable headers match roughly with
the positions of the headers in the printed output.
Below is shown an example with all headers and lyrics
entered with Unicode text.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="headers-and-unicode-lyrics.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>LilyPond's output showing all headers and Unicode lyrics.</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="segment-view">
<title>The Track Editor</title>
<sect1 id="segment-view-overview">
<title>Overview</title>
<para>
&rosegarden;'s main layout is similar to many
other popular sequencers. It is based on a track
structure — the main window shows a track editor with
a list of tracks and their associated instruments down the
left hand side. You can manipulate and move blocks of
music data (referred to as “segments”) on the
track editor as well as opening the segments themselves in
specialised editors (<link
linkend="notation-view">notation</link>, <link
linkend="matrix-view">matrix</link>, <link
linkend="percussion-matrix-view">percussion matrix</link>, and <link
linkend="event-view">event list</link>).
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-trackeditor.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s Track Editor showing two segments of music data</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
Tracks govern what sort of segment you can create in a particular
place. If you create a segment on an audio track, it will be an audio
segment, no matter where that segment subsequently moves. If you
create a segment on a &MIDI; track, it will always be a &MIDI;
segment. You can set <link linkend="track-parameters">
track parameters</link> to pre-select various segment properties at the track
level, and to exercise fine control over &MIDI; recording.
</para>
<para>
Tracks can be assigned to a range of &MIDI;, plugin synth, or
audio instruments. In the picture above we see three segments
in the track editor on tracks assigned to General MIDI
instruments.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-trackbutton-labels.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s Track buttons showing track labels</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
The button area to the left of the segment canvas shows you
the track number, mute and record status, and the label of the
track. You can mute or unmute a track by clicking on the blue
LED-style button, and select a particular track as a record
target by clicking on the red one. To change the track label,
double-click on it.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-trackbutton-instruments.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s Track buttons showing instrument assignments</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
Track labels are only shown if the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Show Track Labels</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
menu option is enabled.
Otherwise, as in this picture, the instrument assignments for
the tracks are shown instead.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="segment-view-instruments">
<title>Tracks and instruments</title>
<para>
Each track must have an instrument assigned to it, in order to
be heard. By default the first 16 tracks are assigned to the
16 instruments of the first available MIDI device, and the
next 16 tracks are assigned to audio.</para>
<para>To change the instrument assignment for a track,
right-click on the track label: a pop-up menu will appear from
which you can select among all the available instruments.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-trackbutton-instrumentmenu.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s Instrument menu</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
An instrument can be understood as a single channel on a
&MIDI; device, or as a mono or stereo audio output or an audio
synth plugin. Tracks containing note data should be assigned
to &MIDI; or synth plugin instruments, and those containing
audio to audio instruments. You can assign more than one
track to the same instrument, in which case the multiple
tracks will produce sounds in the same way (&MIDI; tracks playing
panned to the left with a flute, or audio tracks playing with the same
volume levels, through the same stack of <link linkend="studio-plugins">
plugins</link>.)
</para>
<para>
You can change various properties of the instrument
associated with a track using the <link
linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox">Instrument
Parameter Box</link>. This is where, for example, you would
set a MIDI instrument to use a particular patch and so
produce a particular sound (piano, strings etc).
</para>
<para>
See the
<link linkend="studio-introduction">Studio</link> section
for more about instruments.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="segment-view-creating">
<title>Creating segments</title>
<para>
To create an empty segment, in order to begin composing
something new, you need to use the pencil tool (which is normally the
default active tool when you first start &rosegarden;). Click on
the pencil on the toolbar, and then click at the point where
you want the segment to start (at the correct height for the
track you want the segment to be on, and at a distance
across the editor window corresponding to the correct time)
and drag rightwards until the segment is the right number of
bars long.
</para>
<para>You can also create segments using the <link
linkend="segment-view-selector">Select tool</link>, by clicking
and dragging either with the middle mouse button, or with the
left button and Ctrl held down.</para>
<para>If you want to draw a segment longer than the visible
portion of the canvas, the canvas will scroll automatically once you
reach its edge. If you keep dragging past the end of the entire
composition, you can keep dragging, and will push the end marker right along
with you. (This is a welcome contrast to earlier versions of
&rosegarden;.)
</para>
<para>
Usually each new segment starts on a barline and extends bar
by bar, but this snap-to-grid effect can be prevented by
holding down Shift while clicking and dragging.
</para>
<para>New segments are created in a yellow colour, with a treble clef by
default. You may wish to jump ahead and have a look at <link
linkend="track-parameters">track parameters</link> to explore
other possibilities.
</para>
<para>If you wish to draw a segment that begins in the middle of an
existing segment, hold Ctrl and Alt when clicking. The track will
automatically expand to accommodate this new segment. This is especially
useful for some situations involving music notation.
</para>
<para>
Once you have created a segment, you can then begin editing
using the <link linkend="matrix-view">matrix</link>, <link linkend="percussion-matrix-view">percussion matrix</link> or <link
linkend="notation-view">notation</link> editors. To use one
of these editors, either double-click on the segment, or
else click with the right mouse button and choose the editor
you want from the context menu.
</para>
<para>
If you are intending to <link
linkend="recording">record</link> from a MIDI device or audio
input, you don't need to create a new segment to record into
first -- each separate recording always goes into a new
segment, created automatically during recording.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="segment-view-audio-segments">
<title>Audio segments</title>
<para>
An audio segment contains recorded or sampled audio data,
instead of editable note-event data. Rosegarden allows you to
record, play, arrange and split audio segments, but does not
contain audio waveform editing facilities.
</para>
<para>To create an audio segment, you can <link
linkend="recording">record</link> from an audio source onto a
track assigned to an audio instrument, or you can work with
existing WAV files. To do this, you need to use the audio
manager dialog (reached via <menuchoice><guimenu
lang="en">File</guimenu><guimenuitem>Manage Audio Files</guimenuitem></menuchoice>).
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-audiofilemanager.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The audio file manager</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>You can drag-and-drop audio files from the KDE file
browser or your KDE desktop into the audio file manager, or you
can open them using its File menu. Then you can either
drag-and-drop them onto Rosegarden's track canvas, or use the
audio file manager's <menuchoice><guimenu
lang="en">Action</guimenu><guimenuitem>Insert into Selected
Audio Track</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu function, provided the current
selected track in the main window is assigned to an audio
instrument. Newly-recorded audio segments also appear in the
audio file manager dialog.</para>
<para>Details of the audio files associated with a particular
composition are saved with that composition, but the audio files
themselves are not. You should ensure your document has a
sensible audio file search path (via <menuchoice><guimenu
lang="en">Composition</guimenu><guimenuitem>Edit Document
Properties...</guimenuitem><guimenuitem>Audio</guimenuitem></menuchoice>)
so as to keep your audio files accessible together. You can also export
your project to a &rosegarden; project package file (.rgp) via
<menuchoice><guimenu lang="en">File</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Export</guimenuitem><guimenuitem>Export Rosegarden Project File
</guimenuitem></menuchoice> to collect any scattered audio files
together in one place.</para>
<para>The audio manager dialog also shows the sample-rate and
other information for each audio file, and marks with an
asterisk any audio file whose sample rate does not match that of
the current JACK audio session that Rosegarden is using.
Rosegarden will resample these files at playback time using a
very low quality zero order hold resampler. You are advised to
resample them separately using a separate dedicated audio editor
instead.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="segment-view-manipulating">
<title>Manipulating segments</title>
<para>
The main window contains a selection of "tools" for editing
segments. These are available from the main toolbar: first
select the tool you want from the toolbar, and then click
and drag on the segments on the main canvas.
</para>
<sect2 id="segment-view-selector">
<title>The Select tool</title>
<para>
The select tool <inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-select.png"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject>
is actually a
multipurpose tool: it can be used to select, move, copy,
resize and create segments.</para>
<para>The most obvious use is
selection: select a single segment by clicking on it with
the select tool, or select several by clicking with Shift
held down, or by clicking in an empty area of the window and
dragging out an area.
</para>
<para>To move segments with the select tool, simply click and
drag on the segment. To create copies, click and drag with
Ctrl held down. To resize a segment, click and drag on the
right-hand edge of the segment. To create new segments, click
and drag on an empty area either with the middle mouse button
or with the left mouse button and Ctrl held down.</para>
<para>
The select tool doesn't replace the other tools completely,
though — sometimes you need to be more precise about
which operation you intend, particularly when working on small
segments.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="segment-view-move-resize">
<title>Move and Resize tools</title>
<para>To move a segment to a different start time or track,
use the move tool <inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-move.png"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject>
and click and drag on the segment you want
to move. If you hold down the Ctrl key while dragging, the
segment will be copied instead of moved.</para>
<para>To resize a segment, use the resize tool <inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-resize.png"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject>
and click and drag on the right-hand end of the segment.
Resizing a segment has the effect of extending or
shortening it, by subtracting some of its contents or adding
silence at the start or end. If you hold down the Ctrl
key, the segment will be <link
linkend="segment-view-rescale">rescaled</link> (stretched
or squashed) instead of extended or shortened.</para>
<para>For both move and resize you can hold Shift for fine
positioning, to avoid snapping to a particular grid position.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="segment-view-rescale">
<title>Stretching and squashing segments</title>
<para>Resizing a segment normally makes it shorter or longer
by subtracting content or adding some extra space. However,
by holding the Ctrl key while resizing, you can instead
stretch or squash the contents of the segment. You can also do this by selecting the segment and then using <menuchoice><guimenu lang="en">Segments</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Stretch or Squash...</guimenuitem></menuchoice>.</para>
<para>
For segments that contain MIDI events, this re-spaces the
events so that they are spread across the new segment's
duration, playing back faster or slower than before but in
the same relative proportions.
</para>
<para>
For audio segments, this time-stretches the audio, altering
its played speed without altering its pitch (as would happen
if the audio was simply played back faster or slower).
Time-stretching usually adds some audible artifacts as well,
so the quality of your results may vary.
</para>
<para>
&rosegarden; does not alter the original audio file when
time-stretching an audio segment, and if you rescale the same
segment repeatedly it will always work from the original
file instead of accumulating timestretching artifacts with
each rescale. You can rescale both mono and stereo audio.
</para>
<para>
(For reference, &rosegarden; uses a frequency-domain
time-stretcher based on a phase vocoder with phase-locking
at percussive transients. This usually produces good
results with stable harmonic sounds such as pads and basses
as well as purely percussive sounds such as drum loops, but
is less effective for composite material or music with soft
or breathy note onsets.)
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="segment-view-split-join">
<title>Split tool</title>
<para>
You can use the split tool
<inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-split.png"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject>
to split a single segment
into two separate segments. To split your segment, select the
split tool and click on the segment you wish to split.
</para>
<para>
By default segments are split on the closest barline to the
cursor, but this can be prevented by holding down Shift
while splitting the segment.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="segment-view-split-by-pitch">
<title>Other Split functions</title>
<para>The Segments menu contains a number of other Split functions.</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Split on Silence</term>
<listitem><para><menuchoice>
<guimenu>Segments</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Split</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Split on Silence</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
splits the selected segments on silences.
This function works slightly differently depending
on whether the selected segments contain audio or
MIDI data. For audio segments, it offers you a
dialog in which you can choose a threshold below
which the segment is considered "silent"; it then
splits the segment whenever its amplitude falls
below this threshold. For MIDI segments, it simply
splits the segment everywhere that a full bar of
silence occurs.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Split by Pitch</term>
<listitem><para>
<menuchoice>
<guimenu>Segments</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Split</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Split by Pitch...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
splits the currently selected segments into higher and
lower parts.
This function invokes a dialog allowing you to
choose a pitch as a "split point", and then splits
the selected segments in half with all the notes on
or above that split point in the "higher" segment
and all the notes below it in the "lower".
</para>
<para>
If the music in the segment consists of two separate
parts (e.g. left and right hand piano parts) that
are not always completely on either side of a single
split point, you may with to select the "ranging
split-point" option. If this is selected,
Rosegarden will attempt to track the two parts as
they move up and down, usually doing a slightly
better job of separating out notes that were
intended to lie in the two separate parts.
</para>
<para>
The resulting segments are both created on the same
track, with one overlapping the other.
</para>
</listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Split by Recording Source</term><listitem><para><menuchoice>
<guimenu>Segments</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Split</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Split by Recording Source...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> splits the currently selected segments according to the MIDI channel and device their events were recorded from.</para><para>If you have recorded events from more than one MIDI channel or device into the a single segment, you can use this function to split them into separate segments afterwards. Select the channel or device whose events you want to split out, and the segment will be split into two segments, one containing events from the selected channel or device and the other containing the remaining events. The two segments are both created on the same track, with one overlapping the other.</para><para>See also <link linkend="recording">Recording</link> and <link linkend="track-recording-filters">Track recording filters</link> for more details on how to select the source MIDI channel or device for a recording.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Split at Time</term><listitem><para>The <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Segments</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Split</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Split at Time...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> function simply splits the currently selected segments into two parts at the time you specify.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="segment-view-tempo-timesig">
<title>Tempo and Time Signature</title>
<sect2 id="tempo">
<title>Tempo in Rosegarden</title>
<para>
&rosegarden; considers a composition to be accompanied by a
single stream of "tempo changes" and "time signature
changes", which you can edit to adjust the tempo and the
number and structure of beats in each bar.</para>
<para>A tempo change
can be to a constant fixed tempo, or it can be "ramped"
— changing smoothly to a different target tempo at a
given future time. Each tempo change takes effect until the
following one is reached, so any two consecutive tempo changes
together describe a region that will be played at a constant
or smoothly ramping tempo.
</para>
<para>
Tempo and time signature are related, because &rosegarden;
displays tempo in beats per minute, and the duration of a
beat depends on the time signature. &rosegarden; only
permits a single time signature to be in effect in any given
bar (that is, you can't have different time signatures in
different tracks). Each new time signature causes a new bar
to start, so you can place two time signatures closer
together than the natural bar duration in order to obtain a
partial bar.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="tempo-ruler">
<title>Tempo rulers</title>
<para>
The &rosegarden; <link linkend="segment-view">track editor</link>, <link
linkend="matrix-view">matrix editor</link> and <link
linkend="notation-view">notation editor</link> each contain
a tempo ruler, which can be optionally displayed at the top
of the editing area.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-temporuler.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s tempo ruler (and the bar and beat ruler beneath it)</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>The tempo ruler shows changes to tempo and time
signature throughout the composition, and can be used for
editing tempo.</para>
<para>To increase or decrease the tempo within the range of a
single tempo change, click and drag the horizontal line (or
sloped line, for ramped tempos) representing that tempo
upwards or downwards.</para>
<para>To insert a new tempo change, right-click on the ruler
for a menu and select <guimenuitem>Insert Tempo
Change</guimenuitem>. This will insert a new tempo change
with the same tempo as the prior one, which you can then drag
to increase or decrease.</para>
<para>You can also click and drag the starting point of a
tempo change left or right to move that tempo change to a
different time, and you can click and drag the ending point of
a tempo change up or down to make the tempo ramp gradually
towards an ending tempo value.</para>
<para>Double-click on the tempo ruler to open the <link linkend="tempo-timesig">tempo and
time signature editor</link>.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="tempo-timesig">
<title>Tempo and time signature editor</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-tempotimesig.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s tempo and time signature editor</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>The tempo and time signature editor window lists all of the tempo and time signature changes in the composition. You can edit an individual tempo or time signature change by double-clicking on it.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="tempo-edit">
<title>Changing Tempo</title>
<para>
You can edit an existing tempo change, or add a new one, by using the <link linkend="tempo-ruler">tempo ruler</link>, by double-clicking on the tempo display in the <link linkend="transport">Transport window</link>, by using the <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Composition</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Add Tempo Change...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> menu function, or by double-clicking on an existing tempo in the <link linkend="tempo-timesig">tempo and time signature editor</link>. Each of these will bring you to some variation of the tempo editing dialog:</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-tempodialog.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s tempo dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>To set a new tempo, either dial it into the numeric tempo spinbox at the top, or else click repeatedly on the Tap button at approximately the speed you want and let &rosegarden; work out the tempo for you.
</para>
<para>By default, a new tempo is "fixed"; that is, the tempo remains constant from the tempo change until the next tempo change is reached. Alternatively, you can tell &rosegarden; to make the tempo ramp smoothly to a particular value, or to the following tempo value, by the point at which the next tempo change is reached. See also <link linkend="tempo">Tempo</link> for more details on tempo handling.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="time-signature">
<title>Time signature</title>
<para>
To change the time signature, use <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Composition</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Add Time Signature Change...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> or double-click on the existing time signature in the <link linkend="transport">Transport window</link> or <link linkend="tempo-timesig">tempo and time signature editor</link>.</para><para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-timesigdialog.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s time signature dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="tempo-from-segment">
<title>Setting tempo from an existing segment</title>
<para>&rosegarden; provides two ways to set tempo from a segment that you have recorded or imported:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Audio Segment Duration</term>
<listitem><para>Use the <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Composition</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Set Tempo to Audio Segment Duration</guimenuitem></menuchoice> function when you have imported or recorded an audio segment that you know is exactly one bar long, and you want to ensure that the tempo for surrounding note events is set appropriately.</para><para>This function uses the duration of the selected segment (which must be an audio segment of a single bar) to work out a single matching tempo setting. It does not analyse the content of the audio segment in any way; it simply looks at how long it is.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Beat Segment</term>
<listitem><para><menuchoice>
<guimenu>Composition</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Set Tempos from Beat Segment</guimenuitem></menuchoice> analyses a segment of MIDI events that are assumed to be at beat positions for the current time signature, and sets a series of tempo changes according to the time elapsed between consecutive beats.</para>
<para>You can use this to set an overall tempo map for a composition by "tapping" tempo in a recorded segment. For example, you can record from a MIDI keyboard and tap a series of single notes at approximate beat positions, speeding up and slowing down gradually; then select the recorded segment and use this function to set a tempo map that speeds up and slows down to match your tapping.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="markers-ranges-loops">
<title>Markers, ranges, and loops</title>
<sect2 id="markers">
<title>Markers</title>
<para>Markers are moments in time that have labels. You can
create any number of markers in your &rosegarden; composition,
to define particular points that you wish to remember the
locations of. Marker positions and labels will be saved in
your &rosegarden; file.</para>
<para>Markers are shown in the main ruler at the top of each
of &rosegarden;'s editor windows.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-markerloop.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>A marker and a loop range</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>To add
a new marker, double-click on the marker area (top half) of
the ruler to open the marker editor. Make sure &rosegarden;'s
playback pointer (see <link linkend="transport">The
Transport</link>) is in the location you want to add the
marker at, and then click the Add button to add a new marker
at the playback position. You can then double-click on the
marker's entry in the marker editor window to edit its name or
adjust its location.</para>
<para>Click on the text of a marker in the marker ruler to
move the playback pointer directly to that marker.</para>
<para>You can set a <link linkend="ranges-loops">loop range</link>
between two marker positions, by clicking in the area between
the markers in the marker ruler with the Shift key
pressed.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="quick_marker">
<title>Quick Marker</title>
<para>The quick marker is a special moment in time that can be defined
on the fly with a single key (by default Ctrl-1) from the main window
(track editor). Once defined it appears as a red line in the loop ruler
(it does not appear among other markers, since it does not have a label).
At any time when in the track editor you can jump to the quick marker
position with a single key (by default simply 1).
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-quickmarker.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>Quick Marker at the start of the third bar</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>A typical use of the quick marker is when you want to record the same bars
on different instruments: after setting the quick marker at the first bar of
the working interval, it is easy to jump to the quick marker each time you need
to record a new part.</para>
<para>Note that the quick marker position is not saved in your &rosegarden; file.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="ranges-loops">
<title>Ranges and loops</title>
<para>
&rosegarden; allows you to highlight a period of time in the
main ruler, which will be used as a "range" for editing
operations and which will be looped during playback.
</para>
<para>To set the current range, click and drag with the Shift
key pressed on the subdivided area of the main ruler at the
top of the editing window. The range that you drag will be
highlighted in white as you drag it, and will snap to the
nearest beat boundary at both ends. Any subsequent playback
will then be constrained to looping this range.
</para>
<para>You can also set a range between two <link
linkend="markers">markers</link> by shift-clicking between the
marker positions in the marker ruler, or set a range using the
<link linkend="transport-overview">Transport</link> window.
The Transport contains small buttons to set the start and end
of the current range to the current playback pointer position.
Either of these methods allows you to set more precise end
points for your range than you can with click-drag.</para>
<para>To clear a range and restore normal playback, click on
the subdivided area of the main ruler with the Shift key
pressed, or toggle the loop button on the Transport.</para>
<para>Note that playback looping when a range is defined is
not the same thing as the <link
linkend="segment-view-segmentparameterbox">repeating
segment</link> function available in the segment parameters
(which seamlessly repeats individual segments rather than
causing the transport to jump).</para>
<sect3 id="range-operations">
<title>Range editing</title>
<para>You can carry out edits
on the current range in order to cut and paste sections
of music that include the relevant parts of all
segments, tempos and time signatures within the range.
</para>
<para>Set a range and then use the <menuchoice> <guimenu
lang="en">Edit</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Cut
Range</guimenuitem> </menuchoice> or
<menuchoice><guimenuitem>Copy
Range</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu functions to cut or
copy the range to the clipboard.</para>
<para>You can paste a range using the standard <menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Paste</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu function
to overlay its contents onto the rest of the composition at
the current playback pointer position, or you can use
<menuchoice> <guimenu lang="en">Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Paste Range</guimenuitem></menuchoice> to
insert the range from the clipboard into the composition at
the current playback pointer position.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="range-insert">
<title>Inserting a range</title>
<para>You can also insert an empty range at the current
playback position using the <menuchoice> <guimenu
lang="en">Edit</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Insert
Range</guimenuitem> </menuchoice> menu function. You can
specify how much space you want to insert, and then all of
the segment content, tempos and time signatures following
the playback position will be pushed along in time by that
duration to leave an empty space.
</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="triggered-segments">
<title>Triggered segments</title>
<para>A triggered segment is a segment that does not appear on
the main canvas and is not positioned at a particular time or
on any particular instrument, but is instead triggered during
playback by one or more notes in other segments. These
triggering notes serve as a shorthand for the full triggered
segment, in the same way as written ornaments such as trills
in notation serve as shorthand for the notes that make up the
trill. One use of triggered segments is in fact for
<link linkend="nv-ornaments">playing ornaments</link>.</para>
<para>Rosegarden can optionally stretch or squash each triggered
segment to match the duration of the note that triggers it, and
can raise or lower the pitch and velocity of the segment likewise
to match. A triggered segment is played on the same instrument as
its triggering event.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-triggersegment.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s Trigger Segment dialog, as reached from the matrix editor</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>Triggered segments are managed through a window available
via the <menuchoice> <guimenu
lang="en">Segments</guimenu><guimenuitem>Manage Triggered
Segments</guimenuitem></menuchoice> option in the main segment
canvas. To make a new triggered segment, copy a segment or part
of a segment to Rosegarden's clipboard, then use the <menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Edit</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Paste as New
Triggered Segment</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu option in this
manager window. You can then set a particular note to play this
triggered segment instead of the original note, using the
<menuchoice> <guimenu lang="en">Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Trigger Segment...</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
function in the matrix or <menuchoice> <guimenu
lang="en">Note</guimenu><guimenuitem
lang="en">Ornaments</guimenuitem> <guimenuitem>Trigger
Ornament...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> function in the notation
editor.</para>
<para>When triggering a segment, you will be offered a choice for
how it is played in terms of timing, because the triggered segment
(or ornament) may have a different underlying duration from your
triggering note. The options for playback timing are:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>As stored</term>
<listitem>
<para>Play the triggered segment with a start time
coinciding with that of the note, and at the original speed.
Keep playing the triggered segment until it ends, even if it
is longer than the triggering note.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Truncate if longer than note</term>
<listitem>
<para>Play the triggered segment with a start time
coinciding with that of the note, and at the original speed.
If the triggered segment is longer than the triggering note,
truncate it so that it ends at the end time of the note.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>End at same time as note</term>
<listitem>
<para>Play the triggered segment with its end time
coinciding with the end of the note, and at the original
speed. This means the start of the triggered segment may be
chopped off if it is longer than the triggering note.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Stretch or squash segment to note duration</term>
<listitem>
<para>Speed up or slow down the triggered segment so that it
fits exactly into the duration of the triggering note. This
is the default.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>A triggered segment may contain silence at the start or end,
and this will be "played" (and stretched or squashed if
appropriate) as well as the notes and other events in the segment.</para>
<para>It is not currently possible to make a triggered segment
start playing before the start time of its triggering note. You
also can't trigger a segment from within another triggered
segment, and you can't trigger audio segments.</para>
<para>To edit the contents of a triggered segment, either
double-click on it in the Manage Triggered Segments window, or
double-click on any note that triggers it. Apart from editing the
notes in the segment, you can also change the duration of the
segment itself from the Edit menu of the resulting event list
view. Remember that editing a triggered segment will affect all
the notes that trigger it, not just the one that you
double-clicked to get to the editing window.</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="transport">
<title>The Transport</title>
<para>
When you play a composition,
&rosegarden; sweeps a playback pointer across
the tracks from left to right playing the contents of the
segments as it crosses them. The pointer's position on the
screen is tracked and controlled by a window called the
Transport.
</para>
<sect1 id="transport-overview"><title>Overview</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-transport.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s Transport window</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
If the Transport isn't visible, you can activate it with <menuchoice> <guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Show Transport</guimenuitem> </menuchoice>.
</para>
<para>The Transport shows the time reached by the playback
pointer, in seconds by default.</para>
<para>You can switch it to show
musical time (bar and beat counts), musical time with a flashing
visual metronome, or audio sample frame times, using the topmost
of the small buttons <inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-button-bar-time.png"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject> on the left of the transport window.</para>
<para>The
button immediately below that <inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-button-from-end.png"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject> toggles the display so as to show
time remaining to the end of the composition instead of from the
start.</para>
<para>
The main controls on the transport start the sequencer playing
and pause it, fast forward the pointer position, rewind it, stop
it or jump to beginning or end of composition.
</para>
<para>
The transport display also shows the tempo and time signature in
effect at the current playback position. Double-click on either
of these to insert a new tempo or time signature change. See
<link linkend="segment-view-tempo-timesig">Tempo and Time
Signature</link> for more ways to adjust these elsewhere in Rosegarden.
</para>
<para>
You can also double-click anywhere on the main time display on
the transport window, to enter a precise time that you want the
playback position to be set to.
</para>
<para>Additional controls and a &MIDI; event display are hidden on
the bottom flap on the transport, which can be toggled on or off
using the arrow button next to it at the left. Also on this extra
portion there are buttons for recording, setting the loop start
and end (see <link linkend="ranges-loops">Ranges and loops</link>),
soloing individual tracks, turning on or off the metronome (see
<link linkend="studio-metronome">Metronomes</link>), and silencing
your MIDI devices (the panic button). </para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="recording">
<title>Recording</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-trackbuttons.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>Track buttons in various states of recording readiness</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
To record a new segment into a track, first make sure the
right tracks are armed for recording by selecting the red
(for audio tracks) or yellow (for MIDI tracks) LED-style
buttons on the track labels, and then use the <link
linkend="transport-overview">Transport's</link> record
control. This has the effect of both starting the transport,
thus playing the existing composition, and recording into the
appropriate track, or tracks.
</para>
<para>
You can record any number of &MIDI; and audio tracks at once so long
as your computer is powerful enough, and you have enough disk space.
Be careful not to accidentally leave tracks selected when you have
finished using them and are trying to record somewhere else.
</para>
<para>
Alternatively you can use punch-in record to separate the acts
of starting the transport and entering record mode. Punch-in
record is toggled with the <keycap>Space</keycap> bar. You can press
<keycap>Space</keycap>
while playing a composition to switch instantly between
playback and recording without stopping the transport, or you
can use <keycap>Space</keycap> to arm for recording when the transport is
stopped, so that a subsequent Play will in fact record as
well. (The latter is handy when synchronising to an <link
linkend="transport-external">external transport</link>.)
</para>
<para>
If you record to MIDI tracks, you will record from the
MIDI devices that are selected for recording in the
<link linkend="studio-device-editor">MIDI device
manager</link>, as filtered through the <link
linkend="track-recording-filters">track level recording filter</link>
and the global <link linkend="studio-midi-filters">MIDI filters</link>.
</para>
<para>
If you record to audio tracks, your recording to each track
will be from the input currently selected for that track's
instrument in the <link
linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox">instrument
parameter box</link>. This will either be an external audio
input or an audio submaster or master (for performing
mixdowns). If it's an external input, it will by default
record from your soundcard's first available physical record
in. You may wish to use a JACK connection tool to
connect some other JACK audio application to the input
instead. See also <link
linkend="studio-audio-routing">Audio Routing</link>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="transport-external">
<title>Synchronising to external transports</title>
<sect2 id="transport-jack">
<title>JACK Transport</title>
<para>
Rosegarden supports the JACK transport mechanism for
synchronising its transport with other JACK applications on
the same computer. To activate it, go to
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Configure Rosegarden...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
and check the <guimenuitem>Use JACK transport</guimenuitem> box.</para>
<para>When the JACK transport is in use, all of the applications
that are subscribed to it share a common transport control, and
you can start, stop, and move the transport from any one of
them.</para>
<para>Many Linux audio applications that use the JACK audio
server also support JACK transport: consult their
documentation for details of whether and how.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="transport-mtc">
<title>MIDI Time Code</title>
<para>
Rosegarden supports MIDI Time Code (MTC) synchronisation in
master and slave modes. This is particularly useful for
synchronising the Rosegarden transport with a hardware
MTC-capable device, or with software running on other
computers connected via MIDI.
</para>
<para>To make Rosegarden the MTC Master, so that it will
control any MTC slave device or application connected to it,
go to
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Configure Rosegarden...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
and in the MIDI page's MIDI Sync tab, select "MTC
Master" from the MIDI Time Code menu. To make Rosegarden an
MTC Slave so that Rosegarden's transport will automatically
be synchronised with incoming MTC events, select "MTC
Slave".
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="infrared-remote-controls">
<title>Infrared Remote Controls</title>
<para>
Rosegarden supports infrared remote controls for
almost all transport functions. In order to use it,
you need either the internal LIRC client, which is
an optional feature at Rosegarden's compile time,
or the KDE IRKick application (KDE LIRC daemon)
that you can find in your Linux distribution's
repositories. In both cases, you need to install
and configure the LIRC server daemon. The exact
details depend on your remote control and receiver,
and you should refer to the <ulink url="http://www.lirc.org/html">
LIRC web site</ulink> for more information.
</para>
<para>
You can find more details online about the internal
LIRC client configuration file and IRKick basics, at
<ulink url="http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/resources/documents/infrared-remotes.shtml">
Rosegarden's web site</ulink>.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="studio">
<title>The Studio</title>
<sect1 id="studio-introduction">
<title>Devices, instruments and connections</title>
<para>Rosegarden uses the term Studio to refer to everything it
knows about the sound systems attached to the computer. This
may include &MIDI; and audio hardware and other sound software,
and includes information about connections, configuration,
&MIDI; patches and so on. The Studio is built-in to every
composition you create with Rosegarden.</para>
<para>Three pieces of terminology are essential here:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Device</term>
<listitem>
<para>A <quote>device</quote>, as far as Rosegarden is
concerned, is simply something capable of producing
sounds. This may be a MIDI or audio device. MIDI
devices do not necessarily correspond directly to
physical MIDI ports: they are just things with names
that you can refer to, expected to work in particular
ways. Configuration information such as MIDI patch maps
can be attached to devices.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Instrument</term>
<listitem>
<para>Each device has a number of
<quote>instruments</quote>, each of which is assumed
to make a particular sound. These are the things that
you can assign tracks to in order to choose which
sound they play. By default, a device contains 16
instruments, created for you at startup: if the device
is a MIDI device, then these will each be initialised
to one of the 16 MIDI channels. The instrument is
where you set all the properties of a particular
voice, such as program settings, reverb, volume etc.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Connection</term>
<listitem>
<para>While a MIDI device is simply a name and a
collection of configuration information, the
<quote>connection</quote> specifies which MIDI port it
is physically attached to. This can be configured in
the <link linkend="studio-device-editor">MIDI device
manager</link>. (Audio and synth plugin devices do not
have connections in the same way.)
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
<para>For example, imagine a setup consisting of a PC with two
physical MIDI ports, one of which has an external synth
attached to it. Here you would normally configure Rosegarden
so as to have one MIDI device, corresponding to the synth.
You could then configure this device with the correct name and
patch map, and then specify a connection for it that
corresponded to the relevant MIDI port on your soundcard.
Each of the 16 default instruments on the device could then be
configured with a suitable program, and you would then assign
tracks to those.</para>
<para>
In practice, Rosegarden will by default create a device for
each of the available connections on startup. So in the
example above, two MIDI devices will be created by default
even though you only need one. You would generally then
rename and apply patch maps to the first, and delete or
simply not use the second. Remember that there is no way
for Rosegarden to know what synths you actually have plugged
in to the MIDI ports on your computer: for this reason, the
devices created at startup are just intended to be a default
set, and it's up to you to ensure that the devices you
configure match those you are really using.
</para>
<para>Once configured, the studio setup is stored with every
Rosegarden-format file you save.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-device-editor">
<title>Managing MIDI devices</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-devicemanager.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The MIDI device manager</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
The MIDI device manager dialog shows you the MIDI devices
that you currently have available to you, and where they are
connected. To reach this dialog, use <menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Studio</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Manage MIDI Devices</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>.
</para>
<para>
As described in the <link
linkend="studio-introduction">Devices, Instruments and
Connections</link> section, by default Rosegarden tries to
provide a plausible set of devices for you at startup, and
to make sensible connections for those devices. But the
default configuration might not always be suitable, and so
this dialog allows you to rename devices and modify their
connections and play/record direction.
</para>
<para>
Each of the Play devices listed here provides a target for
MIDI tracks to talk to: if you add a new Play device, you
will then have 16 new instruments on this device which you
can assign tracks to. If you then assign a connection for
that device, the tracks assigned to it will play to the
appropriate channel (depending on the instrument) of any
MIDI synth attached to that connection.
</para>
<para> The Record devices listed here represent possible
sources for recording MIDI. You can make one or more of them
current (so that Rosegarden will listen to them when
recording) using the checkboxes on each line, as shown in this
dialog. </para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-bank-editor">
<title>Managing banks and programs for MIDI devices</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-bankeditor.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The MIDI bank and program editor</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
Remember that each MIDI device contains a number of
instruments, and that you can assign tracks to those
instruments. In MIDI terms, each instrument corresponds to
a single channel on your MIDI synth. You can choose which
of the available voices (sounds) on your synth each
instrument uses, but in order to do this, you need to let
Rosegarden know the names for all of the available voices.
</para>
<para>
This dialog allows you to attach banks of programs (names for
voices) to your MIDI devices, thus permitting each
instrument on a device to be set to use one of those voices
in the <link
linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox">Instrument
Parameter Box</link>.
</para>
<para>
The usual way to set up the program names for a device is
simply to import them from one of the supplied device
(".rgd") files. To do this, select a device in the list on
the left of the dialog, then click the Import button below
the list and choose the .rgd file corresponding to your
synth.
</para>
<para>
If there is no current .rgd file available for your synth,
then you can use this dialog to create a new bank. To do this
you will have to find the program map in your synth's MIDI
Implementation Chart and enter all the names by hand: you can
then Export them to a .rgd file to share with other Rosegarden
users. Contact the rosegarden-user mailing list if you have
made a new .rgd file and would like to share it. (This is how
all of the existing .rgd files have come to be included with
Rosegarden: other users have contributed them.)
</para>
<sect2 id="studio-keymappings">
<title>Percussion Key Mappings</title>
<para>
Many MIDI synthesizers have at least one percussion program,
in which each "pitch" plays a different type of sound.
Rosegarden contains a dedicated percussion matrix editor to
view and edit notes against a scale consisting of the
correct names for the pitches, instead of against the
conventional piano keyboard pitch scale.
</para>
<para>
The key mappings available for a particular MIDI device are
also defined in the Rosegarden device (".rgd") file. Each
MIDI program that is defined as a percussion program can
have a key mapping associated with it; if there is one, then
it will be used by default in any track that is assigned to
this program. Like program and bank definitions, key
mappings can be imported from and exported to .rgd files.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="studio-soundfonts">
<title>SoundFonts</title>
<para>
If you happen to be using a soft-synth or soundcard synth
that uses SoundFont (.sf2) files, you can simply load the
correct program names directly from your .sf2 file into this
dialog. Just ask to Import as normal, and then choose the
.sf2 file that you are using instead of a .rgd file.
</para>
<para>Note that the Studio only manages information about
existing MIDI devices for Rosegarden, it does not actually
handle tasks such as loading a SoundFont to your soundcard in
the first place. If you want to make sure a SoundFont is
loaded to your soundcard when Rosegarden starts up, you should
use the special "Load SoundFont to SoundBlaster card at
startup" option in the sequencer configuration in
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Configure Rosegarden...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="studio-variations">
<title>Variations</title>
<para>
Some MIDI devices (for example, those from Roland)
organise their program names using a scheme known as
"variations". For these devices, you generally want to
select a program by first selecting the basic program name
— such as a piano — and then selecting one
of a set of variations on that program — such as an
electric piano. This is in contrast to General MIDI-based
synths, which organise their programs into banks and
expect you to choose a bank first and then a program from
that bank.
</para>
<para>
Rosegarden can support devices that use variations, but
you still have to enter the program names in a bank
format. Internally, devices that use variations still use
MIDI bank select controllers to choose between the
variations; you need to find out from your synth's
documentation whether your device uses the LSB or MSB bank
select to choose variations, and which bank number
corresponds to which variation. You can then enter the
banks as normal, and use the "Show Variation list based on
MSB/LSB" option on the bank dialog to tell Rosegarden to
show variations instead of banks when displaying that
device in an instrument parameter box.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="studio-midi-import">
<title>Program mapping on &MIDI; import</title>
<para>
When you import a &MIDI; file into a composition, &rosegarden;
uses the existing studio setup to determine how to map the
&MIDI; programs onto &rosegarden; instruments. The aim is to
ensure that every &MIDI; program gets mapped to an instrument
that really exists in your studio (and thus is actually
attached to your computer), so that all the &MIDI; tracks
can be heard.
</para><para>
The &MIDI; program-change and bank-select events found in the
imported file are used when importing, but only as an aid to
help find the appropriate instrument for each &MIDI; track
from the set of instruments in your studio. So, for
example, if your studio is currently set up to contain only
<acronym>GM</acronym> instruments, and you import a &MIDI; file with <acronym>GS</acronym> program
changes onto it, &rosegarden; will remap the <acronym>GS</acronym> banks back
onto <acronym>GM</acronym> because they're all it knows that you have at the
time you import the file. It doesn't remember the original
<acronym>GS</acronym> program numbers.
</para><para>
This means that you should always ensure that your studio is
correctly configured for the devices you actually have,
before you import the &MIDI; file. Otherwise the program data
in the &MIDI; file may be lost.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-audio-routing">
<title>Audio Routing</title>
<para>
Any Rosegarden track assigned to an audio or synth plugin
instrument becomes part of Rosegarden's audio routing
architecture. There are 16 audio instruments and 16 synth
plugin instruments, and each of these has a set of adjustable
parameters including fader level, pan, effects and so on.
These are generally configurable in the <link
linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox">Instrument
Parameter Box</link> or <link
linkend="studio-audio-mixer">audio mixer</link>. Each audio
instrument also has an input connection, and both audio and
synth plugin instruments have an output connection.
</para>
<para>An instrument's input connection defines where Rosegarden
will read audio data from when recording to this instrument.
The most usual setting would be to one of Rosegarden's external
audio inputs, the number of which is configurable in the <link
linkend="studio-audio-mixer">audio mixer</link>. These
correspond to JACK audio ports exposed by Rosegarden, to which
you can connect outputs from any other JACK audio application or
soundcard capture ports using an external JACK router
application such as <ulink
url="http://qjackctl.sf.net/">QJackCtl</ulink>. You can also
set an instrument's audio input to the output of one of
Rosegarden's built-in audio submasters or master output for
mixdowns.
</para>
<para>An instrument's output connection defines where the audio
goes when played. Instruments default to sending their audio to
Rosegarden's master output, which is another (stereo pair of)
external JACK port(s) that can then be connected up using the
same external JACK router. However, Rosegarden also supports up
to eight internal submaster busses, to which you can send
instrument outputs instead so as to group instruments into
related categories. You can control the number and routing of
these in the <link linkend="studio-audio-mixer">audio
mixer</link>.
</para>
<para>
Rosegarden currently supports effects using a set of pre-fader
insert effects slots for each audio instrument. You cannot
yet assign effects to the submaster busses, and Rosegarden
does not yet support send effects, although you can obtain
similar results using an external JACK effects and mixing
architecture.
</para>
<para>Some further details of audio routing configuration,
mixing, and effects are discussed in the <link
linkend="studio-audio-mixer">audio mixer</link>, <link
linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox">instrument
parameter box</link> and <link
linkend="studio-plugins">audio plugins</link> sections.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-midi-routing">
<title>MIDI Routing</title>
<para>&rosegarden; is able to instantly send incoming MIDI events to
some output device and MIDI channel. This feature is known as MIDI Thru.</para>
<para>MIDI Thru is enabled by default in &rosegarden;. You may want
to globally disable it using the menu option <menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Studio</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>MIDI Thru Routing</guimenuitem></menuchoice>, if you prefer
to use an external MIDI routing system. There is also a global filter by
MIDI event type, which you may use to ignore some event types and let other
types to be routed. It is explained in the section <link linkend="studio-midi-filters">
MIDI filters</link>.</para>
<para>MIDI Thru routing works quite differently when &rosegarden; is playing
or stopped than when it is recording.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>When &rosegarden; is playing or in stopped state, the MIDI
thru function routes events to the selected track instrument. The selected
track has its track name highlighted.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>When &rosegarden; is recording, the MIDI events are routed
to the armed track instruments, based on the <link linkend="track-recording-filters">
recording filters</link>. It doesn't
matter which track is selected. Only one instrument is selected for each event,
corresponding to the first track with a matching record filter.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-audio-mixer">
<title>The Audio Mixer</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-audiomixer.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s Audio Mixer</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
Rosegarden's audio mixer window, reached through
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Studio</guimenu> <guimenuitem>Audio
Mixer</guimenuitem></menuchoice>, resembles a hardware audio
mixer and provides a way to see and change the state of a
number of audio instruments at once. It contains many of
the same controls as found in the audio and synth plugin
<link
linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox">instrument
parameter boxes</link>, most importantly a playback level
meter and fader control for each audio and synth plugin
instrument, as well as routing controls, pan, mono/stereo
and effects plugin slots.
</para>
<para>
The audio mixer window is also where you see and control the
master audio output level (at the far right of the picture
above), as well as the record level (to the left of the master
fader) and submaster output levels.
</para>
<para>
The audio mixer's <menuchoice> <guimenu
lang="en">Settings</guimenu></menuchoice> menu is particularly
relevant. Apart from controlling what will be shown in the
mixer window, this menu also contains the <link
linkend="studio-audio-routing">audio routing</link> settings
for the number of stereo audio record inputs available and the
number of submasters. These are studio settings whose values
are saved with your Rosegarden format file.</para>
<para>Note that if you are not actually using any submasters
(i.e. if there are no instruments configured to route their
output to a submaster) you may see a small performance
improvement if you set the number of submasters explicitly to
None, rather than keeping unused ones in the configuration.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-midi-mixer">
<title>The MIDI Mixer</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-midimixer.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s MIDI Mixer</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
Rosegarden's MIDI mixer window, reached through
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Studio</guimenu> <guimenuitem>MIDI
Mixer</guimenuitem></menuchoice>, provides a way to see and
edit the <link
linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox-midi">instrument
parameter values</link> for a number of MIDI instruments at once.</para>
<para>The window is organised using a tabbed pane. Along the
bottom, you will see one tab for each playback MIDI device in
your studio configuration. When you select a device tab, the
rest of the window will update to show the controls for the 16
instruments of that device.
</para>
<para>
The controls shown for each instrument are those set up in the
<!-- !!! link linkend="studio-device-controllers" --> control
parameter manager, as well as volume (corresponding to the
MIDI volume control change, not to MIDI velocity or audio dB
levels) and an approximate output level indicator.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-plugins">
<title>Audio Plugins</title>
<para>An audio plugin is a piece of software, separate from
Rosegarden, that Rosegarden can load and use in order to perform
a particular audio processing task. These can be broadly
divided into effects plugins and synth plugins. Effects plugins
take an audio input and manipulate it to produce a different
audio output; synth plugins take MIDI-like events as input and
turn them into audio output. Rosegarden uses the Linux standard
LADSPA plugin API for effects and the DSSI plugin API for
synths, permitting the use of large numbers of open-source
plugins made available by many developers.
</para>
<para>The use of plugins has a cost in CPU time, as audio
processing in real time usually takes a significant amount of
work even on a modern CPU. It also has a potential cost in
reliability: when Rosegarden is running a plugin, if the plugin
hangs or crashes, so does Rosegarden. Many plugins are very
reliable, but it's inevitable that some will not be so well
tested.
</para>
<sect2 id="studio-plugins-effects">
<title>Effects plugins</title> <para>An effects plugin is
something that you can use to modify an audio signal in a
controllable way. Examples include reverb, delay effects,
dynamic compression and so on.
</para>
<para>Every audio or synth-plugin instrument in Rosegarden has
five associated effects slots. By default these are empty,
but you can load plugins into them in order to chain up to
five effects onto the audio signal before it goes through
fader level and pan processing.</para>
<para>To load a plugin to a slot, click its button on the
<link linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox-audio">instrument
parameter box</link>:
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-pluginbuttons.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>Plugin Slot Buttons</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>(These buttons are also optionally available in the <link
linkend="studio-audio-mixer">audio mixer</link> window.)
</para>
<para>Clicking a plugin button will
pop up the plugin dialog. This shows you
the available categories of effects in the first menu; select
one, and you can then choose your plugin in the second menu.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-plugin-dialog.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>A &rosegarden; Plugin Dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>Below the plugin selection menus, the dialog gives you a
varying number of rotary controllers showing all the
modifiable parameters for the plugin you have selected. To
change a value, just click a rotary and drag up and down or
left and right. (Up or right to raise the value, down or left
to lower it.) You can also roll the mouse wheel to change the
value, or click with the middle mouse button to reset it to
its initial default.</para>
<para>It is also possible to copy one plugin with its current
configuration into another slot, so as to use the same plugin
settings with more than one instrument, or to base one plugin
configuration on another. Just click the Copy button when you
have the plugin set up the way you want it, and then open
another plugin slot's plugin dialog and click Paste.</para>
<para>Finally, you can use the Bypass toggle to remove a
plugin temporarily from processing while retaining its
configuration.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="studio-plugins-synths">
<title>Synth plugins</title>
<para>
Synth plugins can be used in place of hardware or standalone
soft-synth MIDI devices, to generate sounds from your note
event segments.</para>
<para>Using a synth plugin gives you somewhat better control
and repeatability than using an external MIDI device, because
Rosegarden will be able to load the correct plugins for you
and use the correct settings the next time you load your same
file. Plugins may also offer better timing resolution than
external MIDI devices, and synth plugin instruments have the
advantage of being routable like audio instruments, which also
means you can add effects plugins on top of them.
</para>
<para>To make use of a synth plugin, first <link
linkend="segment-view-instruments">assign a track</link> to a
synth plugin instrument, and then load a synth plugin by
clicking on the topmost button in the <link
linkend="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox-synth">instrument
parameter box</link>:</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-synthpluginbuttons.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>Synth Plugin Buttons</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>This will bring up the same plugin dialog as shown above
for effects plugins, but with a list of synth plugins instead
of effects. Once again, you will be shown the particular set
of rotary parameters for the synth you have selected. Synth
plugins may also have "programs", selectable from a menu --
this menu will only appear if you have chosen a synth that supports
them. When you have selected and configured a synth plugin
for an instrument, any MIDI data on tracks assigned to that
instrument should play through that synth, as should
incoming MIDI data during recording or monitoring.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="studio-plugins-guis">
<title>Plugin native editor windows</title>
<para>Most plugins can be controlled completely using the
rotary controllers in Rosegarden's plugin dialog. However, a
few plugins (generally synths) also have their own editor
windows which can be switched on or off from Rosegarden and
which may provide more complete or more organised
controls.</para>
<para>When you select a plugin that has its own editor window,
the button at the lower left of the plugin dialog labelled
"Editor" will become active:</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-plugineditorbutton.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>A Plugin Editor Button</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>(For synth plugins, there is a similar button in the
instrument parameter box.) Clicking this button should show
the plugin's own editor window. Any changes you make in this
editor window should also be reflected in Rosegarden's own
plugin dialog, if visible, and of course should be saved in
your Rosegarden file as normal.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-metronome">
<title>Metronomes</title>
<para>
Rosegarden has two built-in metronomes, one for use during
recording and one that can be switched on during normal
playback. They work by sending notes to a MIDI instrument,
and both metronomes use the same instrument, pitch and
velocity information.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-metronome.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s metronome configuration dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
To configure the metronomes, use
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Studio</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Manage Metronome</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
to bring up the metronome dialog.
Here you can select a MIDI instrument for the metronome and
choose the metronome's resolution (whether it should tick
once per beat, once per subdivision of a beat, or only once
per bar), pitch, and velocities. Properties such as the
actual voice the MIDI synth uses for the metronome tick
depend on the instrument selected, just as the voice used
for a MIDI track depends on the instrument that track is
assigned to. You can configure the instrument by assigning
a track to it on the main window and selecting the correct
program from the instrument parameter box.
</para>
<para>
The record and play metronomes can be switched on or off
from the Transport window, using the metronome button. This
button controls the record metronome when recording is armed
or in progress, and the play metronome at other times. By
default, the record metronome is switched on and the play
metronome switched off.
</para>
<para>
Rosegarden also has a "visual metronome": the transport window
can be told to flash brightly to mark each beat. See <link
linkend="transport">the Transport section</link> for more
details.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-midi-filters">
<title>MIDI filters</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-midifilter.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The MIDI filter dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
Using this dialog you can decide which MIDI events Rosegarden
will ignore or accept, either when forwarding events using
MIDI THRU or when simply recording them. Use the check boxes
on this dialog to tell Rosegarden which types of MIDI events
you don't want to forward or record.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="studio-external-controllers">
<title>External MIDI control surfaces</title>
<para>
Rosegarden's audio and MIDI mixer windows and main canvas can
also be controlled to some degree by an external MIDI device.
To set this up, you will need to use an ALSA MIDI connection
manager such as qjackctl to connect your MIDI controller
device to Rosegarden's "external controller" input and output
MIDI ports.
</para>
<para>
Rosegarden accepts MIDI control change messages to adjust the
mixer track corresponding to the incoming MIDI channel on each
controller event, and also sends out MIDI messages when
something is changed in a mixer track in order to support
controllers with powered faders or knobs.
</para>
<para>Rosegarden accepts MIDI controller number 81 to change the
currently active window. Send controller 81 with data value 0-9
to select the main window, 10-19 to select the audio mixer
window or 20-29 to select the MIDI mixer window.</para>
<para>Rosegarden accepts MIDI controller number 82 to change the
currently selected track in the main window. The stepping of
this controller depends on the number of tracks in the window --
the ratio of controller data value to track number will be
calculated so as to use the full MIDI controller data range,
provided there are no more than 128 tracks in the window.</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="segment-instrument-parameters">
<title>Special Parameters</title>
<sect1 id="track-parameters">
<title>The Track Parameter Box</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-trackparameterbox.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s track parameter box</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
The track parameter box can be found at the left side of the
&rosegarden; main window. It displays the parameters for the
currently selected track. (If you can't see it, try using <menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Show Special Parameters</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>.)
</para>
<para>
It allows you to assign instruments to tracks, control what
incoming &MIDI; data from which sources will be recorded to
particular tracks, control staff attributes (currently only for LilyPond
export,) make selections that govern how &MIDI; segments
will be created for each track that is assigned to a non-audio
instrument, and apply these selections to existing segments (as when
converting a trumpet part from an imported &MIDI; file to be
represented as notation playable by a real human on a real instrument,
for example.)
</para>
<para>This box is divided into three sections:</para>
<sect2 id="track-playback-parameters">
<title>Playback parameters</title>
<para>
These provide an alternative mechanism to the <link
linkend="segment-view-instruments">menu-based
system</link> of instrument assignment.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="track-recording-filters">
<title>Track recording filters</title>
<para>
These provide you a way to control what events are recorded to this track. If you leave the default values ("all") for both parameters, every received event will be stored in the track. This setting is safe and convenient if you are recording only one MIDI track. Otherwise, you should adjust one or both parameters to select only the desired events for the track.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Device</term>
<listitem>
<para>You can record from only one of the available devices marked for recording in the <link linkend="studio-device-editor">device manager</link>, or from all of them simultaneously.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Channel</term>
<listitem>
<para>You can record from all channels, or limit recording to only one of the 16 available MIDI channels. In this case, only MIDI channel messages matching the channel number will be recorded, and system messages not having a channel (as system exclusive events) will be discarded.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>
Both parameters are cummulative: you can filter only a device, only a channel, or both a device and a channel simultaneously. It is not mandatory to ensure mutually exclusive selections for all the armed tracks, but if you don't do so you will find duplicated events at several recorded tracks.
</para>
<para>
The recording filters are also used to <link linkend="studio-midi-routing">route MIDI events </link> to the assigned track instrument when you are recording.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="track-staff-params">
<title>Staff export options</title>
<para>
These provide you with a means of exporting notation to render
at either normal, small, or tiny size (eg. for printing certain
parts at cue size,) and allow you to export a variety of nested
brackets.
</para>
<para>
You are responsible for creating a series of bracket start and
end markers that will yield a functional result, and if you make
a mistake with these, it is likely that your file will not
export or preview correctly in LilyPond.
</para>
<para>For a detailed, hands-on demonstration of brackets in action,
please see
<ulink url="http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/supplemental/fidelio/fidelio.html">this
online tutorial.</ulink>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="track-create-with">
<title>Create segments with</title>
<para>
These provide you with a means of controlling many of
the <link
linkend="segment-view-segmentparameterbox">segment
parameters</link> for segments that don't yet
exist. They are aimed especially at notation users,
and they facilitate operations that require you to use
more than one segment on a track (as when using
<!-- link -->repeats, or <link
linkend="nv-lilypond-directives">alternative
endings</link>), by allowing you to create a series of new
segments that all have the same properties by default.
</para>
<para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Preset</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The <guimenuitem>Load</guimenuitem> button
launches a dialog that allows you to pick
a pre-defined collection of parameters
that provide guidelines for how you should
write parts for real-world instruments, and
optionally convert any existing segments on this
track to take on these new parameters.
<!-- needs a tutorial somewhere, and a link to
that tutorial DMM -->
</para>
<para>
<inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-loadpreset.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject>
</para>
<para>
You first pick a Category, then an Instrument,
and finally choose whether you wish to write a
part for an amateur or a professional player.
<footnote><para>This database was compiled by
Magnus Johansson, who deserves all the special
mention we can muster for his outstanding effort
on this.</para></footnote> The Scope controls
allow you to choose whether these parameters
will only affect segments that don't yet exist
(which you will subsequently record, or draw
with the pencil) or should convert any existing
segments to take these parameters as well. (For
a demonstration of the latter case in action,
please see
<ulink url="http://rosegarden.sourceforge.net/tutorial/supplemental/fidelio/fidelio.html">
this online tutorial.)</ulink>
Clicking the <guimenuitem>OK</guimenuitem>
button injects the appropriate parameters into
the remaining widgets in this part of the track
parameters box, where you can tweak them if you
desire.<footnote><para>No facility is provided
at this time for assembling your own database of
presets, or customizing the existing ones in a
permanent way.</para></footnote> </para>
<para>
Once you have loaded a preset, the name of
your chosen preset will be used as the label
for any segments you subsequently draw or
record on this track, even if you change some
or all of the associated parameters away from
the values you just loaded.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Clef</term>
<listitem>
<para>This lets you choose the clef for any
segments you subsequently draw or record on
this track. Clefs are events, not properties.
Your segments will be created with an initial
clef event of the appropriate type (which you
may subsequently alter or delete, should you
have some occasion to do so.)
</para>
<para>
The clefs available include a variety of named
clefs representing standard clefs with various
octave offsets.
</para>
<!-- !!! I would enumerate this list, but I have
no idea how to do it in docbook. I'm just winging
it by the seat of my pants here. Why do you think
I avoided touching this hateful mess until now? I
wrote Rosegarden Companion using OO.o, and didn't
touch tag one. Wah. -->
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Transpose</term>
<listitem>
<para>
This causes segments on this track to be
created so that their note events sound at a
given transposition. Useful, especially, for
writing parts for transposing instruments.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Colour</term>
<listitem>
<para>
This causes segments on this track to be
created using a given colour.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Range</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The <guimenuitem>Low:</guimenuitem> and
<guimenuitem>High:</guimenuitem> buttons,
launch a dialog that allows you to pick a
pitch using a staff. The lowest and highest pitches
you select will then appear right on these
buttons.
</para>
<para>
These represent the lowest and highest
playable notes, respectively, on the instrument for which you
are writing notation. In some cases, these
limits will be hard and fast, like the low B
on a Transverse Flute (B foot). In others,
they may only serve as guidelines to help you
make good choices for instruments with which
you are not intimately familiar.
</para>
<para>
If you enter, record, or import data that has
pitches exceeding the values specified, the
note heads will appear in red by default. You
can turn this behavior off with
<menuchoice><guimenu>Settings</guimenu><guimenuitem>Configure
Rosegarden</guimenuitem><guimenuitem>Notation</guimenuitem><guimenuitem>Show
notes outside playable range in
red</guimenuitem></menuchoice>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="segment-view-segmentparameterbox">
<title>The Segment Parameter Box</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-segmentparameterbox.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s segment parameter box</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
The segment parameter box can be found at the left side of the Rosegarden main window. (If you can't see it, try using <menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Show Special Parameters</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>.)
It allows you to modify some aspects of the
selected segments.</para><para>If a single segment is currently selected, its
parameters will be shown in the segment parameter box and can be
edited there. If several segments are selected, the parameter box
will only show the current values where they are the same for all
of the selected segments -- but you can still edit them, and your
changes will apply to the whole selection.
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Label</term>
<listitem>
<para>Shows the label of the selected segment (or segments, if
they all have the same label). Click the "Edit" button to edit
the label.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Repeat</term>
<listitem>
<para>Switches repeat on or off for the selected segments. A
repeating segment will repeat until the start of the following
segment on the same track, or until the end of the composition
if there is no following segment.</para>
<para>The repeated parts of a repeating segment are shown on
the main canvas in a fainter colour than the original segment.
You can turn them into real editable copies of the original
segment either by using
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Segments</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Turn Repeats into Copies</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>, or simply by double-clicking on the
individual repeating blocks.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Quantize</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Shows the quantization setting for the selected
segments. You can change this to quickly quantize
the start times of all their notes. For more
advanced quantization, use <menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Segments</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Quantize...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>. See <link
linkend="quantization">Quantization</link> for more
details.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Transpose</term>
<listitem>
<para>Shows the transposition (in semitones) currently applied
to the selected segments. This transposition is applied when
the segment is played, and is not shown in the notes displayed
in the matrix, notation or event list editors. You can use
this to quickly change the pitch of part or all of a
composition, and it is commonly used with segments containing
notation written for transposing instruments, such as the
clarinet.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Delay</term>
<listitem>
<para>Shows the delay currently in effect on the selected
segments. You can set a delay here in order to cause an entire
segment to play later than written. This delay is applied when
the segment is played, and is not shown in the notes displayed
in the matrix, notation or event list editors.
</para>
<para>
You can set a delay either in musical time (by
choosing a note duration from the delay dropdown),
in which time the exact delay will depend on the
tempo, or in real time (by choosing a time in
milliseconds from the dropdown).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Colour</term>
<listitem>
<para>Shows the colour being used for the display of the
selected segments. You can choose another colour from the
dropdown, or choose the "Add New Colour" option if you want a
colour not in the dropdown.
</para>
<para>
You can also manage and rename colours using
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Composition</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Edit Document Properties...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
(then choose the Colour page on the document properties
dialog). The modified colour palette will be saved
with the composition in the Rosegarden file.
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-colours.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s colour manager</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox">
<title>The Instrument Parameter Box</title>
<para>
The instrument parameter box can be found at the left side of
the Rosegarden main window, near the <link
linkend="segment-view-segmentparameterbox">Segment Parameter
Box</link>. (If you can't see it, try using
<menuchoice> <guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Show Special
Parameters</guimenuitem> </menuchoice>.)</para>
<para>It shows you
which instrument is assigned to the current selected track,
and contains all of the editable controls for that instrument.
Remember that because any number of tracks can be assigned to
the same instrument, the settings in this box may affect more
than one track at a time.</para>
<para>The layout and contents of the instrument
parameter box depend on the type of instrument: MIDI, audio,
or synth plugin.
</para>
<sect2 id="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox-midi">
<title>MIDI Instrument Parameters</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-ipb-midi.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s instrument parameter box for a MIDI instrument</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>When you select a track assigned to a MIDI instrument,
the instrument parameter box shows MIDI parameters.
</para>
<para>At the top, this box
shows the name of the instrument and the connection that its
device is using.
</para>
<para>Below that, you can see and edit the MIDI
channel number and the <link linkend="studio-bank-editor">bank
and program</link> settings that should be sent to the
instrument at the start of playback (including a "percussion"
toggle that controls whether only percussion programs should
be offered in these settings).</para>
<para>Finally this box shows you the <!-- !!! link
linkend="studio-device-controllers" --> controllers available
for this device (those for a General MIDI device are shown
above). Any settings you make here will be sent to this
instrument's channel at the start of playback.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox-audio">
<title>Audio Instrument Parameters</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-ipb-audio.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s instrument parameter box for an audio instrument</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
When you select an audio track, the instrument parameter
box shows audio parameters.
</para>
<para>
The box has two main faders, one with a blue surround for
playback level and the other with a red surround for the
record level when recording to this instrument. Between
them is a playback level meter.
</para>
<para>The two menus at the top of the box are used to select
the input and output <link linkend="studio-audio-routing">audio routing</link> for this
instrument. Below them you can select whether the instrument
is mono or stereo, and the pan setting for position in the
stereo field. (Audio instruments are always ultimately
stereo, because the pan setting is always applied. But if you
set the instrument to mono, it will reduce any audio data and
effect outputs to mono before applying pan.)
</para>
<para>The column of five buttons at lower left are the effects
slots. Click on them to select and activate plugin effects
for this audio instrument, and to control them using the <link linkend="studio-plugins">plugin editor dialog</link>. These are insert effects,
applied in order from top to bottom before the fader and pan.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="segment-view-instrumentparameterbox-synth">
<title>Synth Plugin Instrument Parameters</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-ipb-synth.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s instrument parameter box for a synth plugin instrument</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>When you select a track assigned to a synth plugin
instrument, the instrument parameter box shows synth
parameters. You will notice that although a synth plugin
track uses segments with MIDI data in them, in terms of
control and routing it behaves more like an audio track.
</para>
<para>The most important control here is the button at top
left (saying Xsynth in the above picture) which shows the name
of the synth plugin in use for this instrument. Click this to
select a particular synth and control it in the standard
Rosegarden <link linkend="studio-plugins">plugin editor dialog</link>. Once
you've selected a plugin, you may also be able to click the
Editor button below it in order to open a dedicated GUI editor
for the particular plugin (if the plugin has one).
</para>
<para>The remaining controls here are the same as for audio
instruments: the playback fader, playback level, output
routing, mono/stereo and pan settings and effects slots are
all exactly the same.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="quantization">
<title>Quantization</title>
<para>
"Quantization" is the process of repositioning notes and other
events so that they start or finish on exact beat divisions. It
is traditionally used to make an approximate performance into a
precise but rather mechanical-sounding one -- either because
precision is the desired effect, or for reasons such as making
the notes clearer in notation.
</para>
<para>
For general quantization, use
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Segments</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Quantize</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
in the main window or
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Quantize</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
in matrix or notation editors. This shows you a dialog in which
you can select the precise quantization parameters you need, and
then it applies these to all of the selected segments or notes.
(You can also quickly reach this dialog by pressing the "="
key.)
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-gridquantizer.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s quantize dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
The quantize dialog offers a selection of quantizers, each with
its own set of parameters. The quantizers available are:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Grid quantizer</term>
<listitem>
<para>The grid quantizer moves the start times of notes so
that they start at the nearest point on some grid (defined
by various parameters of the quantizer). Thus notes that
initially vary slightly in start time will be aligned by the
quantizer, making for a more precise and mechanical
performance.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Legato quantizer</term>
<listitem>
<para>The legato quantizer carries out a simple grid
quantization, and also adjusts the note durations so as to
remove any gaps between notes by extending each note so as
to (at least) continue until the start of the following one.
You can also obtain this legato effect without the
accompanying grid quantization using the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Quantize</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Legato</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> function in the Matrix editor.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Heuristic notation quantizer</term>
<listitem>
<para>The notation quantizer attempts to adjust note start
times and durations so as to produce readable notation. See
<link linkend="nv-quantization">Notation from performance
data</link> for a description of this quantizer and its
uses.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>The grid quantizer has the following adjustable parameters:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Base grid unit</term>
<listitem>
<para>This is the size of the grid used for quantization.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Swing</term>
<listitem>
<para>This is a percentage figure which adjusts the degree
by which alternate beats are quantized "late".</para>
<para>If set to
None (the default), quantization will be to an even grid
spaced according to the base grid unit.</para>
<para>If set to 100%,
every second grid line will be placed two-thirds of the distance
between the previous and next ones, instead of only half.
This will result in notes being quantized to the first and
third triplets of a swing beat.
</para>
<para>Other settings will produce proportionately varying degrees of
swinginess. You can also set this parameter to negative
figures (for alternate beats to start early) or to figures
greater than 100%.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Iterative amount</term>
<listitem>
<para>The default behaviour of the grid quantizer is to move
each note exactly onto its nearest grid line. But if you
set the iterative amount to something less than 100% (the
"Full quantize" default), each note will only be moved that
percentage of the distance toward its nearest grid line,
resulting in a nearly-but-not-quite quantized effect.</para>
<para>This quantizer may be applied repeatedly so as to try
out gradually increasing degrees of quantization, hence the
name "iterative". Use
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Quantize</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Repeat Last Quantize</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> in the Matrix editor to do so.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Quantize durations as well as start times</term>
<listitem>
<para>If this option is enabled, the quantizer will quantize
the notes' end times to the same grid as their start times.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>The quantize dialog also has an optional Advanced section
containing further options for
<link linkend="nv-quantization">notation quantization</link>.
</para>
<para>
Another simple way to apply a grid quantizer is to do it in the
main window, using the <guimenuitem>Quantize</guimenuitem> menu
on the <link linkend="segment-view-segmentparameterbox">Segment
Parameter Box</link>. If you select some segments and change
the value shown in the menu, the segments will immediately be
grid-quantized to the resolution shown in the menu.
</para>
<para>
Finally, there is also a <link
linkend="matrix-grid-quantize">quantize control</link> in the matrix
view.</para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="matrix-view">
<title>The Matrix editor</title>
<para>
The &rosegarden; matrix editor enables you to view and edit
music in a simple, logical format: each note represented as a
block in a grid, at a height corresponding to the pitch.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-matrixview.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s matrix editor</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
Each matrix editor window shows a single segment. To edit a
segment, just right-click on it in the main canvas and select
the matrix editor from the menu. Alternatively, you can
configure Rosegarden to make the matrix editor the default
editor available when you double-click on a segment.
</para>
<sect1 id="matrix-grid-quantize">
<title>The Grid and Quantize controls</title>
<para>
The matrix view contains Grid and Quantize menus in its main
toolbar.
</para>
<para>The Grid menu controls the size of the visible grid in the
background of the matrix view, as well as the time resolution
used when entering and moving notes. After you set it to a
particular time value, the normal note insertion and drag
operations will then snap automatically to grid points spaced at
that time width. You can override the snap-to-grid effect
temporarily by holding down Shift during editing, or you can
disable it by setting the Grid menu to None.
</para>
<para>The Quantize menu works rather differently. Rather than
controlling the behaviour of other editing tools, it actually
performs an action. When you change the value in this menu, the
selected notes -- or the whole segment if nothing is selected
-- will immediately be quantized using a grid quantizer of the
chosen resolution.
</para>
<para>The Quantize menu also shows you continuously what
resolution the current segment or selection is quantized to.
For example, if you select a set of notes that start on
consecutive quarter-note beats, the Quantize menu will update
itself to show 1/4, as this is the coarsest resolution
consistent with the existing quantization of the current
selection.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="matrix-insertion">
<title>Inserting notes</title>
<para>
The simplest way to enter a note in the matrix view is to
use the mouse. To do this, select the pencil tool on the
toolbar, and then click and drag on the matrix editor. The
note will be entered at the time and pitch corresponding to
the point you click at, and will have a duration
corresponding to the distance you drag before releasing the
mouse button.</para>
<para>You can also draw notes using the Select tool (the
arrow), by clicking and dragging either with the middle mouse
button, or with the left mouse button and Ctrl pressed.</para>
<para>By default, the time and duration are snapped to a
particular grid unit, according to the Grid setting on the
View menu or the toolbar. You can prevent this effect by
holding down Shift while clicking and dragging.
</para>
<sect2 id="matrix-insertion-keyboard">
<title>Typing notes with the PC keyboard</title>
<sect3>
<title>Duration</title>
<para>The durations of notes entered from the keyboard are
controlled by the Grid setting on the View menu or
toolbar. You can set this using the number keys:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><keycap>5</keycap> – Whole bar</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>1</keycap> – Beat</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>2</keycap> – Half note (minim)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>4</keycap> – Quarter note (crotchet)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>8</keycap> – Eighth note (quaver)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>6</keycap> – Sixteenth note (semiquaver)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>3</keycap> – Thirty-second note (demisemiquaver)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>0</keycap> – Sixty-fourth note (hemidemisemiquaver)</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Pitch</title>
<para>Once the correct duration is selected in the Grid
menu, you can insert a note at the current position of the
<link linkend="nv-rulers">insert cursor</link> by pressing
one of the pitch keys:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><keycap>A</keycap> – Do (the tonic of the current key in the current clef)<!-- !!! FIXME: no clef in matrix view --></para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>S</keycap> – Re</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>D</keycap> – Mi</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>F</keycap> – Fa</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>J</keycap> – So</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>K</keycap> – La</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>L</keycap> – Ti</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Holding <keycap>Shift</keycap> while pressing a key
will sharpen the note (except for Mi and Ti, which don't
have sharpened versions) and holding <keycap>Shift</keycap>
and <keycap>Ctrl</keycap> together will flatten it (except
for Fa and Do).</para>
<para>To enter notes an octave higher, use the corresponding
keys on the next row up: <keycap>Q</keycap>,
<keycap>W</keycap>, <keycap>E</keycap>, <keycap>R</keycap>,
<keycap>U</keycap>, <keycap>I</keycap>, and
<keycap>O</keycap>. Likewise to enter notes an octave
lower, use <keycap>Z</keycap>, <keycap>X</keycap>,
<keycap>C</keycap>, <keycap>V</keycap>, <keycap>B</keycap>,
<keycap>N</keycap> and <keycap>M</keycap>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Other remarks</title>
<para>All of the insertion commands are also available on a
submenu of the Tools menu. It's unlikely you'd ever want to
navigate the menus just to insert a single note, but the
menus show the keyboard shortcuts and so provide a useful
reference in case you forget which key is which.</para>
<para>The keyboard shortcuts are currently designed for use
with a QWERTY-layout keyboard. There is not yet any way to
remap the keys for another layout, short of reassigning each
key individually using <menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Configure Shortcuts...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="matrix-insertion-midi">
<title>Entering notes using a MIDI keyboard</title>
<para>
You can enter notes into the matrix editor one at a time
using a MIDI keyboard or other MIDI control device. The
matrix editor uses the pitches you play on the keyboard,
but the durations you have selected in the Grid setting of
the editor itself. This is known as "step recording".
</para>
<para>
To start entering notes from a MIDI keyboard, first make
sure the keyboard is configured as a MIDI
record device. Then make sure you have the right Grid
setting in the View menu or toolbar, as this controls the
note duration. Then press the <!-- !!! image of button
--> step recording button on the matrix editor's toolbar,
or select Step Recording from the Tools menu. From that
point on all notes pressed on the MIDI keyboard will be
inserted at the current insertion time in that window,
until step recording is switched off again or activated in
a different window or the window is closed.
</para>
<para>
You can change the Grid setting while step recording is in
progress, in order to insert notes of different durations.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="matrix-selection">
<title>Selecting notes</title> <para>To select notes in the
matrix editor, switch to the Select (arrow) tool and then
outline a rectangular area containing the notes you want to
select. The selected events will then be highlighted in blue.
If you instead click on a single event, just that event will
be selected.
</para><para>If you hold <keycap>Shift</keycap> while dragging
out a rectangle or clicking on a note, the new selection will
be added to any existing selection instead of replacing it.
</para>
<para>
To clear a selection, click in an empty space on the matrix
editor, or hit the Escape key.</para>
<para>You can also select all of the notes of a given pitch,
by shift-clicking on a key in the piano keyboard down the left
side of the matrix editor. You can also shift-click and drag
to select a range of pitches. This selection is added to any
existing selection you have, so if you want a clean new
selection, clear the old one first.
</para>
<sect2 id="matrix-selectionfilter">
<title>Filtering the selection</title>
<para>The <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Filter Selection</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> function offers you the ability to filter a range of events in
any of several categories out of your selection. You can use this to refine the selection, if you want some action to apply to only certain events in it.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-eventfilter.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The event filter dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
All ranges may be either inclusive or exclusive.
</para>
<para>
An inclusive range will remove events on either side of it
from the selection. You can use this, for example, to
filter everything below middle C and above the A above
middle C out of your selection.
</para>
<para>
An exclusive range will remove the events within the range
itself, leaving everything on either side of it selected.
Using the same search points as in the previous example,
you would use an exclusive range to remove everything
between middle C and the A above middle C from your
selection, while leaving everything above and below that
range selected.
</para>
<para>
Once your selection has been filtered, you can manipulate
it by any conventional means.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="matrix-editing">
<title>Moving and copying notes</title>
<para>
You can move notes in both time and pitch on the matrix
editor by either clicking and dragging them with the Move
tool, or selecting them and then dragging them with the
Select tool.
</para>
<para>
To copy notes, select them and then use the standard copy
and paste functions. After the paste the pasted notes will
be selected instead, and you can then drag them wherever you
need them. You may also copy notes by selecting them with
the Select tool, then keeping Ctrl pressed click-and-drag
the selected notes in a new position.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="percussion-matrix-view">
<title>The Percussion Matrix editor</title>
<para>The Percussion Matrix editor is identical to the <link
linkend="matrix-view">Matrix editor</link>, except that it shows
pitch names on the vertical scale instead of a piano keyboard, and
it does not show the duration for each note. This is intended for
use with percussion programs on MIDI instruments, in which each
note pitch plays a different percussion sound.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-percussionmatrix.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s percussion matrix editor</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
The pitch names are only shown if the segment being edited is
playing through a percussion instrument that has an associated
key mapping to define the names; otherwise the standard matrix
view piano keyboard will appear instead. See <link
linkend="studio-keymappings">Percussion Key Mappings</link> for
more information about key mappings.</para>
</chapter>
<chapter id="notation-view">
<title>The Notation editor</title>
<!-- Introduction, purpose -->
<sect1 id="nv-introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>
The &rosegarden; notation editor enables you to view and edit
one or more staffs in traditional score notation.
</para><para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-notationview.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s notation editor</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
&rosegarden; aims to present scores with the best possible
layout compatible with its primary focus as a sequencer
application. This means that although the editor supports
chords, overlapping and nested beamed groups, triplets and
arbitrary tuplets, grace notes, dynamics, accents, text and so
on, it does not provide as much fine control over layout
(especially in contrapuntal music) as a dedicated score
editing program might. &rosegarden; does not aim to produce
typeset-quality score, although it can export LilyPond files,
which may form a good basis for typesetting.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- Single and multiple staffs, and "current staff" -->
<sect1 id="nv-staffs">
<title>Single and multiple staffs</title>
<para>
There are three ways to open a notation editor from the
&rosegarden; main window. (They all require that you
have some existing segments in the main window first,
so if you're starting a new composition, you should
create your segments before you start thinking about
how to edit them.)
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Double-clicking on segments</term>
<listitem>
<para>The most obvious way is just to double-click on
a segment in the main canvas. This opens the segment
in whatever you have configured <!-- !!!Link --> as
the default editor (notation, matrix, or event list),
and by default this is the notation editor. So
double-clicking a single segment will open it as a
single staff in a Notation editor window.</para>
<para>You can also open a multi-staff editor this way:
holding down the Shift key, select (with a single
mouse click) each of the segments on the main view
that you want to open, but double-click on the last
one. All of the selected segments will then be opened
together in a single notation window.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>The Open in Default Editor menu function (the Return key)</term>
<listitem>
<para>The Return key is a shortcut for the Open in
Default Editor menu function, which does much the same
thing as double-clicking: opens all of the currently
selected segments together in a notation editor, or in
whichever other editor you have configured as your
default. </para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>The Open in Notation Editor menu functions</term>
<listitem>
<para>Alternatively, you can use the main window's
Open in
Notation Editor menu function, either on
the Segments menu or on the right-button popup menu on
a segment in the canvas. Select the segments you want
to edit (by shift-clicking as above, or by using the
Select All Segments function) and
then select Open in
Notation Editor.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
<para>
If you have more than one staff (i.e. segment) visible in the notation
editor, only one of them can be "current" at once. The
current staff can be distinguished because it has the insert
cursor on it (see <link linkend="nv-rulers">Rulers and
Cursors</link>), and this is the staff on which any editing
operations that use the insert cursor will take place. The
topmost staff is the current one by default, but you can
switch to a different staff by ctrl-clicking on it, or by using the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu><guimenuitem>Local
Cursor</guimenuitem><guimenuitem>Cursor Up Staff</guimenuitem></menuchoice> and
<menuchoice><guimenuitem>Cursor Down Staff</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu functions.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- Linear and page layouts -->
<sect1 id="nv-layout">
<title>Linear and page layouts</title>
<para>
The usual way the notation editor displays staffs is known
as Linear layout: one staff on top of another, with each
staff as a single, horizontally scrollable long line. Some
of the functions of the editor (such as the <link
linkend="nv-rulers">Rulers</link>) are only available in
Linear layout.
</para>
<para>
However, you can also display staffs in two different
page-based layouts: Continuous Page and Multiple Page.</para>
<para>In Continuous Page layout, the music is arranged in one
infinitely-tall page of the same width as the window. Each
staff breaks at the end of a line, starting a new line below
the remaining staffs.</para>
<para>In Multiple Page layout, the music is divided up into
real pages much as it will be when printed. The size of each
page is calculated so that approximately the same amount of
music will fit on each line as it will when actually printed
(according to the point size specified for the printing
resolution in the configuration dialog). The printed version
is unlikely to be exactly the same, as it depends on the
precise paper size and margins in use when printing, but it
should be fairly close if you happen to be using A4
paper.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-notationview-multipage.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s notation editor in Multiple Page layout</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para><para>
Most, but not all, of the display and editing functions
work in the page layout modes as well as in linear layout.
</para>
<para>
To switch between these layout modes, use the Linear Layout, Continuous Page Layout and Multiple Page Layout menu functions.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- Rulers and Cursors -->
<sect1 id="nv-rulers">
<title>Rulers and cursors</title>
<para>
The &rosegarden; Notation editor window includes two graduated rulers,
each associated with its own cursor. The rulers are the horizontal strips
divided up with tickmarks at top and bottom of the main
notation canvas, and the cursors are the coloured vertical
lines shown initially at the start of the top staff in the
editor. In addition to these main two, there are the <guimenuitem>chord
name</guimenuitem> ruler, the <guimenuitem>tempo</guimenuitem> ruler,
and the <guimenuitem>raw note</guimenuitem> ruler.
</para>
<para>
Note that the rulers are only shown in <link
linkend="nv-layout">Linear layout</link> mode, and several of them
are not displayed by default.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-cursors.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The notation editor's two cursors</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
The purple cursor is the insert cursor. It shows the point
at which operations such as insert and paste will take
place. You can reposition the insert cursor by clicking or
dragging on the top ruler, or by clicking with the Select
tool on an empty part of the staff (avoiding any events), or
by clicking anywhere with <keycap>Ctrl</keycap> held down.
</para>
<para>You can also use the left and right arrow keys to move
the insert cursor one event at a time. If you hold <keycap>Ctrl</keycap> while
pressing the arrow keys, the cursor will move a whole bar at a
time; if you hold Shift, the cursor will <link
linkend="nv-tools-selections">select the events</link> as it
passes over them.
</para>
<para>
The blue cursor is the playback pointer. Just like the
similar cursors in the main window and the matrix views,
this shows the location of the current playback or record
position, and it sweeps across the notation while the transport is
rolling. It can be repositioned using the bottom ruler.
</para>
<sect2 id="nv-raw-note-ruler">
<title>The raw note ruler</title>
<para>The raw note ruler is particularly
useful when editing <link linkend="nv-quantization">quantized
notation</link> where the display duration on the page
differs from the duration of the actual performance.
Enabled via
<menuchoice>
<guimenu>Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Rulers</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Show Raw Note Ruler</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>, it draws a small bar above
each note, similar to the way notes appear in the matrix. In this
example screenshot, you can see how interpreted, quantized notes
appear on this ruler. The tenuto notes have full performance
durations, while the staccato notes are considerably shorter, and
the accented notes have a higher velocity (more red colour) than
their neighbors.
</para>
<para>
Raw note ruler marks only notes in the selected segment in the track.
The colour of the selected segment is used in the background of
the raw note ruler between the start and end time of the segment.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata
fileref="rg-rawnoteruler.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The raw note ruler,
showing notation whose performance duration value differs
from what appears on the staff</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="nv-chord-name-ruler">
<title>The chord name ruler</title>
<para>The chord name ruler analyzes the tonality of the piece, and
attempts to display which chords are sounding. This is for
informational purposes only, and you can neither print nor edit the
contents of this ruler.
<!-- !!! throw in a link to how to do proper chords with text, and
should probably get into fretboards too, but I'm not going to mention
fretboards in this manual at this time (for 1.3) because it's too
rough, and I just don't care to get into that yet -->
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="nv-tempo-ruler">
<title>The tempo ruler</title> <para>The tempo ruler displays
the global tempo, and provides a vehicle for entering,
editing, and manipulating it. It works the same way as the
tempo rulers in the main window and the matrix editor. See
<link linkend="tempo-ruler">Tempo Rulers</link> for more
information.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- Display conventions (annotated picture with some selected notes,
some quantized notes, a bar of incorrect length etc) -->
<!-- Tools and Selections -->
<sect1 id="nv-tools-selections">
<title>Tools and selections</title>
<para>
Most of the menu and toolbar editing functions in the
&rosegarden; Notation editor fall into one of three
categories: <quote>tools</quote>, <quote>functions that
operate on selections</quote>, and <quote>drag
operations</quote>.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Tools</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The basic tools are the selection tool, the erase
tool, and those for inserting notes, rests, text and so
on, which are usually accessed from the toolbar buttons.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata
fileref="rg-notationtools.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The insert, erase, text, and guitar chord tools</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
Choosing a tool changes the default behaviour of the
mouse buttons on the main notation canvas, at least
until another tool is chosen instead. For example,
choosing the selection tool allows you to make
selections and so to use the selection-based functions
(below); choosing an insertion tool (such as one of the
notes) switches the <acronym>GUI</acronym>'s behaviour so as to insert
notes by clicking on the canvas; choosing the erase tool
allows you to remove events by clicking on them.
</para>
<para>
You can also change the current tool using the Tools menu.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Functions that operate on selections</term>
<listitem>
<para>
The majority of the remaining menu functions require a
selection to be made on the canvas before they can be
used. Some of them (such as <guimenuitem>Cut</guimenuitem>
or the <guimenuitem>Note Style</guimenuitem>
functions) will operate on any selected events; others
(<guimenuitem>Stem Directions</guimenuitem> function)
will refuse to work unless the selection contains
some notes.
</para>
<para>
To select some events on the canvas, switch to the
Select (arrow) tool and then outline a rectangular area
containing the events you want to select. The selected
events will then be highlighted in blue. If you click
on a single event, just that event will be selected <footnote>
<para> You can also double-click on a single event to open an
editing dialog for that event, but that's got nothing to
do with selections.</para> </footnote>).
</para><para>If you hold
<keycap>Shift</keycap> while dragging
out a rectangle, its contents will be added to any
existing selection instead of replacing it.
</para>
<para>
To select a whole bar, double-click with the Select tool
on some empty space within that bar; to select the whole
staff, click three times. The Edit menu carries
functions for selecting extended areas based on the
location of the insert cursor, and you can also select
events around the insert cursor by holding Shift and
pressing the left or right arrow keys.
</para>
<para>
It is not possible to select events from more than
one staff at once.
</para>
<para>After selecting some events, you can filter your selection further using the <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Edit</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Filter Selection</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice> function. For more details, refer to <link linkend="matrix-selectionfilter">the corresponding function in the matrix editor</link>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Drag operations</term>
<listitem>
<para>
You can also do a certain amount of editing just by
dragging things around. Switch to the Select (arrow)
tool, and then you can change the pitch of notes by
just click-and-dragging their heads up or down, and
change the times of notes and other events by dragging
them left or right. (You can't drag rests or time
signatures, but you can drag everything else. If you
have more than one event selected, the whole selection
will be dragged at once.)
</para>
<para>
Dragging is usually a less accurate way of editing
things than using the menu or toolbar functions, but
it can be easier.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<sect2>
<title>Transposing</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="transpose-by-interval.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>Transposing by interval</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
In Notation view menu there are two functions which can be
used to transpose notes by an arbitrary interval, namely
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Transpose</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Transpose by Semitones</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function which asks just the number of semitones to be
transposed, and
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Transpose</guimenuitem>
<guimenuitem>Transpose by Interval</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function which shows a neat dialog that can be used to
transpose notes. In the latter, the dialog shows an example
notes before and after transposing and expresses the
interval in written form. The interval may be changed either
by dragging the notes shown by the dialog or by changing
separately the base note, its octavation and accidentals.
</para>
<para>
In Segment view, Notation view, and Track view there is also
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">Segment(s)</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Transpose by Interval</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function which makes a transpose to entire segment. In this
dialog you may also choose whether only the notes are
transposed or the keys of the segment are transposed also.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- Insertion: notes, auto-ties, accidentals -->
<sect1 id="nv-insertion">
<title>Inserting notes and rests</title>
<para>To insert a note, select one of the note tools by clicking
on a particular duration of note on the toolbar, and then click
on the staff at the point where you want to add the note.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata
fileref="rg-notation-toolbars.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The duration, rests, and accidentals toolbars</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>You can also select one of the accidentals on the toolbar
to insert sharpened or flattened notes. If no accidental is
selected, the note inserted will follow the key signature.
Alternatively, you can select the "Follow previous accidental"
icon (shown as a note with an arrow pointing back from where the
accidental would appear) to make the note follow whatever
accidental was last used at the same height on the staff.</para>
<para>If you add a note at the same time as an existing note of
different duration, the editor will generally assume that you
want to create chords and will split the existing or new note
accordingly so as to create one or more chords with ties. If
you really do want to chord two different durations, you can
select the tied noteheads and use the Collapse Equal-Pitch Notes
function to merge them together. Alternatively, the default
behaviour can be changed in the &rosegarden; configuration dialog
so as not to do the split at all.</para>
<para>If you add a note exactly over an existing note of
different duration (i.e. at the same pitch), the duration of the
existing note will be changed to that of the new one.</para>
<para>If you add a rest at the same time as an existing note,
the note will be silenced for the duration of the rest,
shortening or possibly removing it altogether.</para>
<sect2 id="nv-insertion-keyboard">
<title>Typing notes and rests with the PC keyboard</title>
<sect3>
<title>Duration</title>
<para>First, ensure a notation tool is selected to indicate
the duration of note (or rest) you wish to insert. You can
select the various note types using the number keys:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><keycap>5</keycap> – Breve</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>1</keycap> – Whole note (semibreve)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>2</keycap> – Half note (minim)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>4</keycap> – Quarter note (crotchet)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>8</keycap> – Eighth note (quaver)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>6</keycap> – Sixteenth note (semiquaver)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>3</keycap> – Thirty-second note (demisemiquaver)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>0</keycap> – Sixty-fourth note (hemidemisemiquaver)</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>You can switch to a triplet version of the note
duration by pressing the <keycap>G</keycap> key. Pressing it
again will switch back to the normal duration. The status
bar at the bottom of the window will notify you of when a
triplet duration is active.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Pitch</title>
<para>Once a notation tool is selected, you can insert a
note at the current position of the <link
linkend="nv-rulers">insert cursor</link> by pressing one of
the pitch keys:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para><keycap>A</keycap> – Do (the tonic of the current key in the current clef)</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>S</keycap> – Re</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>D</keycap> – Mi</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>F</keycap> – Fa</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>J</keycap> – So</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>K</keycap> – La</para></listitem>
<listitem><para><keycap>L</keycap> – Ti</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Press the "." key to togggle between dotted and
undotted durations.</para>
<para>Holding <keycap>Shift</keycap> while pressing a key
will sharpen the note (except for Mi and Ti, which don't
have sharpened versions) and holding <keycap>Shift</keycap>
and <keycap>Ctrl</keycap> together will flatten it (except
for Fa and Do).</para>
<para>To enter notes an octave higher, use the corresponding
keys on the next row up: <keycap>Q</keycap>,
<keycap>W</keycap>, <keycap>E</keycap>, <keycap>R</keycap>,
<keycap>U</keycap>, <keycap>I</keycap>, and
<keycap>O</keycap>. Likewise to enter notes an octave
lower, use <keycap>Z</keycap>, <keycap>X</keycap>,
<keycap>C</keycap>, <keycap>V</keycap>, <keycap>B</keycap>,
<keycap>N</keycap> and <keycap>M</keycap>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Rests</title>
<para>To insert a rest instead of a note, press
<keycap>P</keycap>. Alternatively, you can use the
<keycap>T</keycap> and <keycap>Y</keycap> keys to switch the
current tool to a rest tool and back to a note tool again.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Chords</title>
<para>The default behaviour of the notation editor is to
move the insert cursor forward after inserting a note, so as
to be ready to insert another note after it in a melody;
this can be changed using the <keycap>H</keycap> key, which
switches to chord mode so that subsequent insertions occur
at the same time as the last one. Pressing
<keycap>H</keycap> again switches back to the melody
insertion behaviour.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Changing note durations</title>
<para>You can use the keyboard to change the durations of
notes that you've already entered. Make sure the notes you
want to change are selected, and then press
<keycap>Ctrl</keycap> plus the number key for the note you
want. You can also add or remove dots, by pressing
<keycap>Ctrl</keycap> plus "." — use this repeatedly to
select between one dot, two dots and no dots.</para>
<para>If you also hold <keycap>Alt</keycap> as well as
<keycap>Ctrl</keycap>, you will change the durations of the
notes as displayed in the notation editor without changing
their performed durations. This can be very useful for
tidying up a score: see also <link
linkend="nv-quantization">notation from performance
data</link>.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Other remarks</title>
<para>All of the insertion commands are also available on a
submenu of the Tools menu. It's unlikely you'd ever want to
navigate the menus just to insert a single note, but the
menus show the keyboard shortcuts and so provide a useful
reference in case you forget which key is which.</para>
<para>The keyboard shortcuts are currently designed for use
with a QWERTY-layout keyboard. There is not yet any way to
remap the keys for another layout, short of reassigning each
key individually using the "Configure Shortcuts..." option
on the Settings menu.</para>
<para>Holding the <keycap>Ctrl</keycap> key while pressing a
number will select the corresponding dotted-note
tool.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="nv-insertion-midi">
<title>Entering notes using a MIDI keyboard</title>
<para>
You can enter notes into the notation editor one at a time
using a MIDI keyboard or other MIDI control device — a
process known as step recording. The notation editor uses
the pitches you play on the keyboard, but the durations you
have selected in the editor itself.
</para>
<para>
To start entering notes from a MIDI keyboard, first make
sure the keyboard is configured as your default MIDI
record device. Then make sure a notation tool is selected
to set a duration. Then press the <!-- !!! image of
button --> step recording button on the notation editor's
toolbar, or select Step Recording from the Tools menu.
From that point on all notes pressed on the MIDI keyboard
will be inserted at the current insertion time in that
notation window, until step recording is switched off
again or activated in a different window or the window is
closed.
</para>
<para>
You can select another notation tool while step recording
is in progress, in order to insert notes of different
durations; and you can also switch into Chord mode <!--
!!! link --> to insert chords.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- Keys, Clefs and Time Signatures -->
<sect1 id="nv-signatures">
<title>Clef and key</title>
<!-- !!! rework -->
<para>The first thing to know about the way &rosegarden; handles
these is that time-related changes (tempos and time
signatures) are treated entirely differently from clefs and
keys. In order to simplify managing playback and recording as
well as notation, &rosegarden; requires that when the tempo or
time signature changes, it does so in all staffs at once. You
can't have one staff in 2/4 and another in 6/8 simultaneously,
or one staff playing at 120 to the beat and another at 90.
This applies only to time: there is no such restriction on the
use of clef and key changes. See also <link linkend="tempo">Tempo in Rosegarden</link>.</para>
<para>To change the clef, key, tempo or time signature within a
notation editor window, position the <link
linkend="nv-rulers">insert cursor</link> at the point where you
want the change to happen, and use one of the Edit menu's Add
Clef Change..., Add Key Change..., Add Tempo Change... and Add
Time Signature Change... functions. You will then see a dialog
box in which you can choose the particular clef, key, tempo or
time signature setting you want to apply, as follows.</para>
<sect2 id="nv-signatures-clef">
<title>Clef</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-clefdialog.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s clef dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>The dialog allows you to choose a clef, but also
to choose how you want the clef to be applied, in
cases where there are already some notes following
the point where the clef is to be inserted. You
must choose one of the following:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Maintain current pitches</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Any notes following the clef will keep
their current performance pitches.
</para>
<para>
For example, inserting a
tenor clef in the middle of a previously
treble-clef section will cause the notes following
the clef to be moved an octave
higher up the staff, because they will still have
their treble-clef pitches.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Transpose into appropriate octave</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Any notes following the clef will
retain their pitch within the octave, but
may be moved into a different octave to
match the new clef, and therefore will play
at a new pitch.
</para>
<para>
For example, inserting a tenor clef in the
middle of a previously treble-clef section
will cause the notes following the clef to
move by one staff line only to adjust to the new
clef, but to play an octave lower than before.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="nv-signatures-key">
<title>Key</title>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-keysigdialog.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s key signature dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>The dialog allows you to choose a key signature, but also
to choose how you want the key signature to be applied. You
must choose among the following:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Key signature</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Used to dial up the actual key signature. The dialog will
attempt to analyze the tonality of the piece, and guess at
the key signature if no key is already in effect at that
point in the notation.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Key transposition</term>
<listitem>
<para>You must choose whether to transpose the key according
to segment transposition, or to use the key exactly as
specified.
</para>
<para>
For example, if you are inserting a key of Bb major into a
transposed Bb trumpet part that's sounding at a
transposition of -2, you use this option to tell
&rosegarden; whether the key of Bb you have entered should
be written as a Bb (concert Ab), or should be transposed
against the segment to result in the trumpet key of C major
(concert Bb).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Scope</term>
<listitem>
<para>
You must choose whether to apply this key signature to
the current segment only, or to all segments, on all
tracks, at this time.
</para>
<para>
If you elect to apply the change to all segments at
this time, the previous key transposition choice will
govern whether all segments receive the specified key,
or a key appropriately transposed segment by segment.
(This is a convenient way to deal with notation for
transposing instruments, because it frees you to think
of all keys in concert pitch, and allow &rosegarden;
to work out what key is used for what transposition.)
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Existing notes following key change</term>
<listitem>
<para>
You must choose whether any existing notes following
this key change will maintain their current pitches,
maintain their current accidentals in the key, or
whether Rosegarden should make an attempt to transpose
the part into the new key.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- Text -->
<sect1 id="nv-text">
<title>Text, Lyrics, and LilyPond directives</title>
<para>A staff can contain various sorts of text, in text
events. There are two basic classes of user-editable text event: single
text items used for point annotations etc., and lyrics, plus a third
type used especially for tweaking LilyPond export. User-editable
types can be created (and so associated with a particular
time in the staff) using the Text tool, which is available on
the
<inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-text-cursor.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject>
button in the toolbar. Lyrics can
also be created this way, but are more easily created using
the <link linkend="nv-text-lyrics">lyric editor</link>.</para>
<para>To add a piece of text, select the Text tool and click
at the point where you want to add it. If you want the text
associated with a particular note or rest, it may be helpful to click
the T cursor directly on that note, so as to ensure proper placement
in time. A dialog box will appear, into which you can type the text
and choose its intended purpose. (Rosegarden prefers to store what
the text is for, rather than how it should look; this is so that in
future we may be able to configure how the various sorts of text are
presented for each individual user.)
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-textdialog.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s text dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
The available
purposes (or styles) are:</para>
<variablelist>
<!-- NOTE: I have removed the "by default" in the following
descriptions. There is no "by default" to this. It does
what it does, and there is no changing it without editing
source code. (dmm) -->
<varlistentry><term>Dynamic</term><listitem><para> Used for
minor local indications such as the dynamic marks "p", "mf"
etc. Shown below the staff in small italic
type. </para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Direction</term><listitem><para> Used
when indicating significant changes in style or mood. Shown
above the staff in large roman type.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Local Direction</term><listitem><para>
Used to indicate less significant changes in style or mood.
Shown below the staff in a smaller bold-italic roman
type. </para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Tempo</term><listitem><para> Used to
indicate significant changes in tempo. Shown above the
staff in large bold roman type.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Local Tempo</term><listitem><para> Used
to indicate more minor or local changes in tempo. Shown
above the staff in a small bold roman type.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Chord</term><listitem><para> Used
to indicate chord changes for guitarists, etc. Shown
above the staff in a small bold roman type.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Lyric</term><listitem><para> Although
lyrics are usually created in the <link
linkend="nv-text-lyrics">lyric editor</link>, they can also
be entered word by word if necessary using this style. This
style is shown below the text in a small roman typet.
(Warning: if you enter lyrics this way and later
edit the staff's lyrics using the lyric editor, any lyrics
entered this way may be modified or moved if their
positioning is not compatible with that expected by the
lyric editor.) </para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>Annotation</term><listitem><para> Used
for helpful text that is not strictly considered part of the
score. Shown below the staff, boxed-out in a yellow
sticky-label-style box. These may not be visible
initially, and can be turned on via
<guimenu>Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Show Annotations</guimenuitem>
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>LilyPond Directive</term><listitem><para> Used
as the mechanism for exporting special tags that are
only understood by the LilyPond exporter. These
provide a means to extend &rosegarden;'s capabilities
beyond what it can do within its own native interface.
Shown above the staff, in a green box. These may not be visible
initially, and can be turned on via
<guimenu>Settings</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Show LilyPond Directives</guimenuitem>
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>For many of the styles, a new combo box will appear that allows
you to select from a variety of commonly-used texts appropriate for
that style, such as "Allegro" and "ritardando." Selecting one of
these texts saves typing, but in no way impedes your ability to type
your own text by hand, should you so desire.
</para>
<para>You can also edit text after creating it, by clicking on
the existing text with the text tool.</para>
<sect2 id="nv-text-lyrics">
<title>Editing lyrics</title>
<para>The Lyric editor, available from the
<menuchoice>
<guimenu lang="en">View</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Open Lyric Editor</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
function, allows you to edit all of
the lyric events for a single staff at once, using a fairly
rudimentary textual editing system. To use it, just
activate the menu option, edit the lyric text in the
resulting dialog, and then hit OK.</para>
<para>The lyrics you enter should follow a particular
format. Bar lines are vital to avoid the editor getting
confused, and are represented with a slash ("/"). Within
each bar the individual syllables are separated by spaces
(at least one space: the editor doesn't care about any extra
whitespace). Each syllable in turn will be attached to the
next subsequent note or chord within that bar (although at
the moment the editor can get quite confused by chords that
are not exact, i.e. that require smoothing or
quantizing).</para>
<para>If you want a note to have no syllable attached to it,
you need to provide a dot (".") as the syllable for that
note. (This is why the default lyric text for a segment is
usually full of dots.) Remember to separate the dots with
spaces, so that they are clearly separate syllables.</para>
<para>If you want more than one syllable on the same note,
with a space between them, use a tilde ("~") instead of the
space. It will be shown as a space on the score.</para>
<para>If you want to split a syllable across two notes, with
a hyphen, you need to enter a space following the hyphen so
the editor knows to treat it as two syllables. (Hyphens get
no special treatment within syllables.)</para>
<para>Syllables consisting only of numbers surrounded by
square brackets (like "[29]") will be ignored; this is the
format used for the automatically-generated bar numbers
shown in the editor.</para>
<para>You should also be aware that the textual format of
lyrics is only used for editing: the lyrics are actually
stored as distinct text events (one per syllable). This
means that the text format may potentially change in the
future to accommodate more advanced editing capabilities,
although the event format should not change and so your
saved files should continue to be compatible.</para>
<para>&rosegarden; supports also multiple lines of lyrics.
You may always attach one more verse into a single staff
by clicking Add Verse in the lyrics editor. All the verses
are entered with the same syntax. If you leave the last verse
without syllables, or make it empty, it is removed from
the list of verses next time you open the lyrics editor.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="nv-lilypond-directives">
<!-- text has a link here because the reading chain is:
intro -> lilypond directives, which puts you at a point well away
from any explanation of the whole text dialog and whatnot -->
<title>Using special LilyPond directives</title>
<para>LilyPond directives are a special kind of <link
linkend="nv-text">text</link> that you can
use to export .ly files that take advantage of
functionality not yet available directly through &rosegarden;'s
own native interface.
</para>
<para>Some of these are a bit fiddly with respect to how their
placement in time affects their function. It is not always
immediately apparent at a glance just where they are, or what notes
or barlines they will affect, so I have made placement suggestions
to help ease the process of getting them in the right spot.
</para>
<para>
These directives are:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Segno</term><listitem><para>used to export a
<inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-segno.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject>
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Coda</term><listitem><para>used to export a
<inlinemediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-coda.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
</inlinemediaobject>
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Alt1</term><listitem><para>Placed anywhere in a
measure, designates that the measure(s)
that follow this one should be exported as the
first alternate ending (see file
lilypond-alternative-endings.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Alt2</term><listitem><para>Placed anywhere in a
measure, designates that the measure(s)
that follow this one should be exported as the
second alternate ending (see file
lilypond-alterantive-endings.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>|| -></term><listitem><para>Placed anywhere in a
measure, designates that the next calculated barline will be
rendered as a double barline (see file
lilypond-directives.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>|. -></term><listitem><para>Placed anywhere in a
measure, designates that the next calculated barline will be
rendered as a terminating barline (see file
lilypond-directives.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>: -></term><listitem><para>Placed anywhere in a
measure, designates that the next calculated barline will be
rendered as a dashed barline (see file
lilypond-directives.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Gliss.</term><listitem><para>Placed by clicking
directly on a notehead, draws a glissando between
the target note and the note immediately following (see file
lilypond-directives.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Arp.</term><listitem><para>Placed by clicking
directly on a chord, draws a wavy line arpeggio
symbol immediately to the left of the affected chord (see file
lilypond-directives.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Tiny ->.</term><listitem><para>Placed anywhere,
designates that notation immediately following this
directive should be rendered at the "tiny" size (see file
lilypond-directives.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Small ->.</term><listitem><para>Placed anywhere,
designates that notation immediately following this
directive should be rendered at the "small" size (see file
lilypond-directives.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Norm. ->.</term><listitem><para>Placed anywhere,
designates that notation immediately following this
directive should be rendered at the normal size;
usually used to cancel a Tiny -> or Small ->. (see file
lilypond-directives.rg for example)
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- Indications -->
<sect1 id="nv-guitarchords">
<title>Guitar Chords</title>
<para>
Like text, it is possible to add guitar chord diagrams to a
notation track (or to edit previously added ones). This is
done by toggling the
<guimenuitem>Guitar Chord</guimenuitem>
button, and then clicking on the same area as for adding text.
This will open the Guitar Chord dialog. With it you can select
which guitar chord diagram you want to add from a chord
dictionary which comprises most of the common chord fingerings
by specifying a chord's root and its extension. For
convenience, the fingerings are sorted in three different
categories :
<guimenuitem>beginner</guimenuitem>
,
<guimenuitem>common</guimenuitem>
and
<guimenuitem>all</guimenuitem>
. These categories are actually based on the chord extension
(A7 is a beginner chord, while A13 isn't), not on the
fingering itself, so you can still see "advanced" chord
fingerings listed, even in beginner mode.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-guitarchorddialog.png"
format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s chord selector dialog
</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>
It is also possible to add your own fingerings if needed. To
do this, click on the 'New' button. This will pop up a chord
editor, where you can "draw" which fingering you want to add,
and specify its root, chord extension, and starting fret
number.
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata
fileref="rg-guitarchordeditordialog.png" format="PNG" />
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s chord editor dialog
</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
Note that while you can choose the extension from a list of
predefined values, you can also type whatever value you want.
However, in that case, the new fingering will only be
available in the 'all' list. Also, you can only delete and
edit your own chords. Those from the predefined dictionary
cannot be changed. If you spot a mistake in one of them,
please report it to the development team.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- Indications -->
<sect1 id="nv-indication">
<title>Slurs and hairpins</title>
<para>Slur and hairpin (crescendo/decrescendo) dynamic markings are stored as events,
just like notes or rests. To create one, select the area you
want it to cover (a series of notes or whatever), and then use
the <guimenuitem>Add Slur</guimenuitem>,
<guimenuitem>Add Crescendo</guimenuitem> or
<guimenuitem>Add Decrescendo</guimenuitem> options from
the <guimenu>Phrase</guimenu> menu.</para>
<para>Placement of hairpins can be somewhat tricky, and this is
especially so with haripins that run in line with dynamic markings.
It is commonly the case that a hairpin that doesn't quite look right
in &rosegarden;'s own notation editor will nevertheless come out just
fine once exported to LilyPond. &rosegarden;'s slurs generally come
out best when all the stems are running in the same direction, and
occasionally need to be <link
linkend="nv-microposition">repositioned</link> by hand to achieve
better placement. Slurs also tend to fare slightly better once
exported to LilyPond.
</para>
<para>You remove a slur or hairpin in the same way as any
other event: either select it with the selection tool and then
hit <keycap>Delete</keycap>, or click on it with the erase tool active.</para>
</sect1>
<!-- Stem direction, slashes etc -->
<sect1 id="nv-note-qualities">
<title>Note stems and slashes</title>
<para>You can set the stem direction of any selected notes
(provided they are a sort that have stems) using the three
Stem Direction options on the Notes menu. The options allow
you to either fix the stems up or down, or revert to the stem
direction that &rosegarden; would otherwise have chosen. See
also <link linkend="nv-beamed-groups">Beams</link>.</para>
<para>The <guimenu>Note</guimenu> menu also contains options for adding slashes
across note stems, for example to indicate short repeated
notes or drum rolls. These are currently purely notational;
&rosegarden; will not take them into account when playing the
staff or generating &MIDI;.</para>
</sect1>
<!-- Beamed groups, including overlapping and nesting them -->
<sect1 id="nv-beamed-groups">
<title>Beams</title>
<para>Adding beams to notes is considered a grouping operation
in the &rosegarden; Notation editor, available on the <guimenu>Phrase</guimenu>
menu. Select the notes you want to beam, and use the
<guimenuitem>Beam Group</guimenuitem> menu option. To remove a beam, select the notes and use
the <guimenuitem>Unbeam</guimenuitem> menu option.</para>
<para>It is possible to have more than one beamed group
happening at the same time — you just select and beam the
separate groups one at a time — but Rosegarden is usually not
yet clever enough to work out which notes should have stems up
and which should have stems down for simultaneous beamed
groups, so you will probably have to set the stem directions
of the notes in the groups explicitly as well as beaming them.</para>
<para>&rosegarden; can attempt to guess a sensible beaming for a
piece of music, provided it's not too complicated. To invoke
this, select the notes you want to calculate the beaming for
(for example by triple-clicking to select a whole staff) and
then use the <guimenuitem>Auto-Beam</guimenuitem> option on the
<guimenu>Phrase</guimenu> menu. Auto-beaming
is also done automatically when loading a &MIDI; file, for
example, and the editor also does some automatic beaming as
you enter notes (this can be disabled by changing the
"Auto-Beam when appropriate" setting on the configuration
dialog or the insertion tool's right-button menu).</para>
</sect1>
<!-- Tuplets -->
<sect1 id="nv-tuplets">
<title>Triplets and other tuplets</title>
<para>A triplet group consists of three notes or chords played
in the time of two. (More precisely, it consists of notes
with a total duration of three arbitrary units played in the
time of two of those units.)</para>
<para>We use the word <quote>tuplet</quote> to describe the general
situation in which notes with a total duration of any given
number of units are played in the time of a different number
of those units: nine notes in the time of eight, or six in the
time of four, or a crotchet and a quaver in the time of a
single crotchet, or even two notes in the time of three. (At
present &rosegarden; does not support the last example — tuplet
groups must always be played with a shorter duration than
written.)</para>
<para>The triplet and tuplet menu functions work by taking an
existing series of notes or rests and squashing them so they
play quicker, filling in the left-over space at the end of the
series with a final rest and drawing the whole as a tuplet
group. You can therefore create a new series of triplets by
entering the first two notes of the series (in their normal
form), making them into triplets, and then filling in the rest
left over by the triplet operation with the final note of the
triplet. Or you can apply the triplet operation before you
enter any notes, thus turning the original rest itself into
triplet form, and then insert the notes of the triplet on top
of it. Some examples may help:</para>
<!-- Need examples and screenshots -->
<!-- Then discuss general tuplet dialog... -->
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-tupletdialog.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s general tuplet dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>To specify a general tuplet group, we need to know what
the base note is (for example, if we play three crotchets in
the time of two then the base is a crotchet) and the ratio of
the number of base notes written to the number played.</para>
<!-- Then discuss "tuplet mode": with a subtitle? -->
</sect1>
<!-- Grace notes -->
<!-- Paste -->
<sect1 id="nv-paste-types">
<title>Paste types</title>
<para>
The meaning of <quote>cut and paste</quote> is less obvious for a music
editing program than it is for something like a word
processor in which the letters and words go in a simple
linear order. Accordingly, &rosegarden;'s Notation editor
offers several different types of Paste operation, as well
as separate Cut and Cut and
Close functions.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-pastedialog.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s paste-type dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
The types of Paste operation are:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Restricted</term>
<listitem>
<para>Requires an existing gap (containing nothing but
rests) of enough duration to completely contain the
clipboard's contents. The contents are pasted into
the gap. If there is no gap long enough, the paste
is not carried out.
</para>
<para>
This is the default paste type.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Simple</term>
<listitem>
<para>Erases enough events to make a gap long enough to
paste into, and then pastes into that. The pasted
events therefore completely replace any existing ones
in the time covered by the paste.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Open and Paste</term>
<listitem>
<para>The opposite of Cut and
Close. <!-- !!! define that --> Makes room for the paste by moving all of the
subsequent events further towards the end of the
composition.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Note Overlay</term>
<listitem>
<para>Carries out a paste in the way that it would
happen if you entered each of the notes in the clipboard
yourself using the notation editor: if there are other
notes overlapping with them, the new or existing notes
will be split into ties appropriately.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Matrix Overlay</term>
<listitem>
<para>Carries out a paste in the way that it would
happen if you entered each of the notes in the clipboard
yourself using the matrix editor: the notes presently
in the way of the paste will be ignored, allowing the new
notes to overlap arbitrarily with them.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>All of these take effect at the current position of the
insert cursor on the current staff. To choose between the various
paste types, use the Paste...
menu option (with dots) on the Edit menu.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nv-adjustments">
<title>Adjusting Notation</title>
<sect2 id="nv-adjustments-note-rest-durations">
<title>Adjusting note and rest durations</title>
<sect3 id="nv-normalize-rests">
<title>Normalizing rests</title>
<para>Sometimes as a result of editing or quantization
operations, a piece of notation can end up with incorrect
rest durations for the current time signature. You can use
the <menuchoice><guimenu>Adjust</guimenu><guimenuitem>Rests</guimenuitem><guimenuitem>Normalize Rests</guimenuitem></menuchoice> function to
fix these. This examines each sequence of
consecutive rests found in the selection, and adjusts,
splits and merges rests as necessary to ensure that the
rests have theoretically correct durations and fall on the
correct boundaries.
</para>
<para>For example, a 4/4 bar containing a crotchet
(quarter-note), then a minim (half-note) rest and a
crotchet rest will be rearranged to place the crotchet
rest first, as the minim rest should not cross the
central beat boundary of the bar.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="nv-make-viable">
<title>Splitting very long notes</title> <para>The
<menuchoice> <guimenu>Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Notes</guimenuitem> <guimenuitem>Tie Notes at
Barlines</guimenuitem> </menuchoice> is intended to deal
with notes that have excessively long durations, and
therefore overflow barlines or are too long to be
displayed as a single note. It takes any such notes and
splits them into shorter, tied notes.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="nv-de-counterpoint">
<title>Splitting overlapping notes</title>
<para>The
<menuchoice> <guimenu>Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Notes</guimenuitem> <guimenuitem>Split-and-Tie Overlapping Chords</guimenuitem> </menuchoice> function can be used to turn "counterpoint" notes into a series of split-and-tied notes and chords.</para>
<para>It can be applied to a selection that contains
overlapping notes. It will split overlapping notes at the
point where they overlap, and tie together the resulting
split notes, ensuring that the music takes the form of a
series of chords and/or single notes starting and ending in
neat blocks, with some notes possibly tied.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="nv-rescale">
<title>Rescaling note durations</title>
<para>The
<menuchoice> <guimenu>Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Rescale</guimenuitem> <guimenuitem>Halve
Durations</guimenuitem> </menuchoice> and
<menuchoice> <guimenu>Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Rescale</guimenuitem> <guimenuitem>Double
Durations</guimenuitem> </menuchoice> functions can be
used to perform the most simple rescaling functions.
</para>
<para>For more elaborate rescalings, use the
<menuchoice> <guimenu>Adjust</guimenu>
<guimenuitem>Rescale</guimenuitem> <guimenuitem>Stretch
or Squash...</guimenuitem> </menuchoice> function with
which you scale the total lenth of the selection.
</para>
</sect3>
<!-- need a proper section for this and diatonic transpose
<varlistentry id="nv-transpose">
<title>Transpose</title>
<para><action>Alters the pitch of the selected
notes.</action> This submenu contains basic
transposition functions which move the selected notes
up or down a semitone or a whole octave in pitch, as
well as a general transpose function that allows you
to choose how far up or down you want to transpose the
selection.
</para>
<para>These functions simply change the stored pitches
of the notes in the selection, so that they both play
and appear at the new pitches. They do not deal with
performance transposition (displaying one pitch and
playing another), for which see the main window's
segment parameter box; nor do they help you with
transposing from one key into another, for which see
<link linkend="nv-signatures-key">Key
Signatures</link>.
</para>
</varlistentry>
-->
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title id="nv-microposition">Repositioning notation elements</title>
<para>
You may occasionally wish to to nudge the positioning of some
element of notation that Rosegarden's layout algorithm has not
placed in an optimal location. Use Ctrl-click and drag to move slurs, hairpins,
text events, and several other sorts of events. You may not reposition notes in
this fashion.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nv-interpret">
<title>Interpreting Performance Cues in Notation</title>
<!-- !!! -->
<para>
You can use the Interpret function<menuchoice>
<guimenu>Adjust</guimenu><guimenuitem>Interpret...</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>
to modify the velocities and timings of notes according to any
written or indicated dynamics found. The selection of
interpretations available is as follows:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Apply text dynamics (p, mf, ff etc)
</term>
<listitem><para> Sets a velocity to each note
based on the last piece of text of "Dynamic"
type seen on the same staff (only texts of the
form pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, fff, etc., are matched; these are
the texts that are available by default when entering text events
of this style).
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Apply hairpin dynamics
</term>
<listitem><para> Makes the notes gradually
increase or decrease in velocity during a
crescendo or decrescendo hairpin.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
Stress beats
</term>
<listitem><para> Makes notes that land on bar or
beat boundaries slightly louder (greater
velocity) than the surrounding notes.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
Articulate slurs, staccato, tenuto etc
</term>
<listitem><para> Shortens unslurred notes,
shortens staccato notes more, and gives notes
inside slurs and tenuto notes their full length.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- Quantization, smoothing, and display of quantized notes -->
<sect1 id="nv-quantization">
<title>Notation from performance data</title>
<para>
&rosegarden; is a multi-purpose program: it is a notation
editor, but it is primarily a sequencer and editor for
performed music. And in performance, of course, the times
and durations of notes are rarely as precise as they are on
a printed score.
</para>
<para>
This means that it's often desirable for &rosegarden; to do
a lot of tidying of the basic note times and durations when
attempting to make meaningful notes to show in the notation
editor. This is a kind of quantization, but a kind that
requires a surprising amount of guesswork to do well.
&rosegarden; includes a quantizer designed to do a slightly
better job of this than the plain grid quantizer.
</para>
<para>Applying
quantization strictly for notation is rather unimaginatively
referred to as <quote>notation quantization</quote>: it only
applies to the notes you see and edit in notation, and
doesn't affect the notes that play, or that you edit in
other views such as the matrix. This quantization is
automatically applied to music imported or recorded from
MIDI, although not all of its possible capabilities are
enabled by default.
</para>
<para>
There are two ways to see which notes have been quantized
for notation. By default, each notation view contains a <link
linkend="nv-raw-note-ruler">raw
note ruler</link> (in the group of rulers above the score) showing
a rectangular block for each note. This block is positioned
so as to represent the time and duration of the note as
performed, but with the top and bottom edges of the
rectangle extended or shortened to represent the time after
notation quantization. If this is too much information for
you, you can alternatively choose (in the configuration
dialog) to show in a green colour all note heads in the
score that have had their timings altered by notation
quantization.
</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-notationquantizer.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s notation quantize dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para><para>
If the quantization &rosegarden; has used is not suitable,
either for the entire score or for a selection of notes, you
can choose to use a different level of quantization or none
at all. To apply a different quantization to some notes,
select the notes and use the Quantize...
menu function (tick the box labelled <quote>Quantize for
notation only</quote>). The quantization level or type used
by default can be changed in the configuration dialog.
</para>
<sect2 id="nv-quantization-parameters">
<title>Configurable parameters for the heuristic notation quantizer</title>
<sect3 id="nv-quantization-parameters-during">
<title>Parameters for quantization itself</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Complexity</term>
<listitem>
<para>The "complexity" of a notation quantizer is its
most fundamental parameter. A "complex" quantizer
will be more prepared to accept that complex-looking
music is in fact intended to be complex, whereas a
"simple" quantizer is more likely to assume that
complex-looking music results from an imprecise
performance of simple music.
</para>
<para>The default setting is intended to produce
reasonable results for a fairly wide range of music.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Base grid unit</term>
<listitem>
<para>The base grid unit (set to a note duration
value) specifies the absolute minimum unit of note
that will be permitted to remain in the score after
quantization. For example, if set to a semiquaver,
all notes will be placed on boundaries of a multiple
of a semiquaver, with durations also a multiple of a
semiquaver.
</para>
<para>The setting of the base grid unit is not quite
as significant for a notation quantizer as it is for a
plain grid quantizer, because all it does is impose an
absolute limit on the level of precision permitted by
the complexity parameter. Mostly, when you find a
case in which increasing the grid unit produces better
results, you've actually found a case in which the
quantizer simply didn't do as good a job as it should
have been able to with the smaller unit.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Tuplet level</term>
<listitem>
<para>The notation quantizer is capable of identifying
tuplets (triplets and other time-squashed groups),
within reasonable limits. This parameter controls how
ambitious it will attempt to be when looking for
tuplets, by setting a limit on how many notes per
tuplet group it will attempt to identify. If it is
set to <quote>None</quote>, the quantizer will not
attempt to identify tuplets at all.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="nv-quantization-parameters-after">
<title>Parameters that control tidying up after quantization</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>Re-beam</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Causes the notes to be re-beamed into groups
appropriately after quantization. This is usually
desirable.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Add articulations (staccato, tenuto,
slurs)</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Causes the quantizer to attempt to identify, based
on the durations of individual and consecutive
notes, which notes should be notated with staccato
marks (for notes that fall significantly short of
the following note, but not apparently short
enough to merit a rest), tenuto (for notes that
almost or just overlap the following note) and
slurs (for series of notes that meet or overlap).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Tie notes at barlines etc</term>
<listitem>
<para>Causes any notes that are still found after
quantization to overlap barlines or to have
durations not exactly expressible with single note
heads to be split into multiple notes appropriately,
and tied. This has the same effect as applying the
<!-- !!! link --> "Tie Notes at Barlines" function
in the notation view.
</para>
<para>
This parameter is not set by default because it
changes the number of note events, which is
undesirable when using &rosegarden; partly or
principally as a MIDI sequencer.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Split-and-tie overlapping chords</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Causes overlapping notes to be split and tied, so
as to make strict chords with individual noteheads
tied as necessary. This has the same effect as
applying the <!-- !!! link --> "Split-and-Tie
Overlapping Chords" function in the notation view.
</para>
<para>
This parameter is not set by default partly because
it changes the number of note events, which is
undesirable when using &rosegarden; partly or
principally as a MIDI sequencer.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect3>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nv-ornaments">
<title>Playing ornaments</title>
<para>Rosegarden supports playback of ornaments using its <link
linkend="triggered-segments">triggered segments</link>
mechanism. You can create triggered segments containing any of
the various types of trill or ornament you might want, and
associate them with the notes that want to play them.</para>
<para>To create a new type of ornament, first write out the
notes "in longhand" that you want the ornament to play, and then
select the notes and use <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Note</guimenu><guimenuitem>Ornaments</guimenuitem><guimenuitem>Make
Ornament...</guimenuitem></menuchoice>. This cuts the notes to
the clipboard, pastes them into a new triggered segment, and
replaces them with a single note of the same duration that
triggers this segment.</para>
<para>To make a note play an existing ornament, select it and
use <menuchoice>
<guimenu>Note</guimenu><guimenuitem>Ornaments</guimenuitem><guimenuitem>Trigger
Ornament...</guimenuitem></menuchoice>.</para>
<para>
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-useornament.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s Trigger Ornament dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
<para>To edit the notes played in a triggered ornament, you can
double-click on the note that triggers it. This will
change all uses of that ornament, not just the one that you
double-clicked on.</para>
<para>Note that while Rosegarden can shift triggered segments up
and down in pitch to match their triggering notes, it is not
clever enough to perform transposition into a different
key or scale position.</para>
<para>See <link linkend="triggered-segments">triggered
segments</link> for more details about ornaments and other uses
of triggered segments.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nv-note-styles">
<title>Note styles</title>
<para>
&rosegarden; also allows you to change various aspects of the
way the various types of notes are drawn, such as the choice
of note heads, the number of tails, whether notes are filled
or unfilled and so on.
</para>
<para>
A set of standard styles (Classical, Cross, Triangle and
Mensural) is provided, and you can change the style used for
individual notes by selecting them and then using the Note
Style menu options. Each note remembers which
style has been chosen for it, and this information is saved
as part of the composition. You can also change the default
style for new notes using the
<guimenuitem>Configure Rosegarden...</guimenuitem> option in the
<guimenu>Settings</guimenu> menu.
</para>
<para>
It is also possible to create your own note styles by
describing them in <acronym>XML</acronym> files. (Even the
standard styles are defined this way: the only reason the
editor knows that a Classical semiquaver has a tilted oval
filled head, a stem, two flags, etc., is that the description
in Classical.xml says so.) See <link
linkend="developers-note-styles">Customising Rosegarden</link>
for more information.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nv-note-fonts">
<title>Note fonts</title>
<para>
&rosegarden; is supplied with a single scalable notation
font, the Feta font developed by the LilyPond project. Feta
is an extremely high quality font that should be suitable
for nearly all classical work.
</para>
<para>&rosegarden; also includes support as standard for a
number of other notation fonts. You will need to provide the
fonts themselves in TrueType (.ttf) or PostScript Type-1
(.pfb, .pfa) format, and you will need the relevant
permissions to install them to the same place as &rosegarden;
was installed. To install a supported notation font, locate
the share directory for the &rosegarden; installation (usually
a subdirectory of the KDE desktop installation tree, such as
/opt/kde/share/apps/rosegarden). You will find that this
directory has a subdirectory called "fonts": copy the font
files into there, and restart &rosegarden;. If your font is
supported, it should now appear on the font menu in the
notation editor.</para>
<para>Complete or partial support is currently provided for
the following fonts: Fughetta, by Blake Hodgetts; Petrucci,
the "original" Finale font; Maestro, the "new" Finale font;
Opus, the Sibelius font; Inkpen, the Sibelius jazz font;
Sonata from Adobe; Steinberg, from the Cubase sequencer; and
Xinfonia. (Most of the above font names are registered
trademarks of the respective companies.) THE ROSEGARDEN TEAM
MAKES NO REPRESENTATION AS TO THE LEGAL STATUS OF ANY USE OF
THESE FONTS WITH ROSEGARDEN. It is your responsibility to
ensure you are in compliance with the licence (if any) under
which a font was provided to you, before attempting to use it.
If you are not sure whether you have the right to use a font,
don't: apart from anything else, the standard Feta font is
better than most of these anyway.</para>
<para>It is also possible to provide new mapping files so as
to use new fonts. For some fonts that have similar mappings
or metrics to fonts in the above list, this may be as simple
as editing the name of the font in the mapping file. See
<link linkend="developers-note-fonts">Customising Rosegarden</link>
for more information.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="event-view">
<title>The Event List editor</title>
<sect1 id="ev-introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<para>
The &rosegarden; Event List editor shows the events in a
single segment in a raw form, and enables you to edit the
precise properties of those events individually.
<screenshot>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="rg-eventlisteditor.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&rosegarden;'s event list editor</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<!--
**********************************
PART III:
Technical material
**********************************
-->
<chapter id="developers">
<title>Customising Rosegarden</title>
<sect1 id="developers-note-fonts">
<title>Configuring custom notation fonts</title>
<para>If you have a notation font installed on your system in a
scalable format (TrueType or Type-1) but it is not currently
supported by Rosegarden, you can create your own mapping XML
file to describe the font's character map and metrics in a way
Rosegarden can use. These files are installed in the
fonts/mappings subdirectory of the Rosegarden installation
directory, and a number of samples are included with the
distribution.</para>
<para>You can also use these mapping files to define new
pixmap-based fonts, in which every shape in a particular size is
loaded from a separate pixmap file. The two standard notation
fonts supplied with Rosegarden are pixmap fonts defined in
exactly this way.
</para>
<para>It is even possible to define a notation font as using one
or more scalable system fonts, augmented with pixmaps for
particular sizes or for characters not found in the scalable
fonts. This is because most of the mapping file format is the
same for scalable and pixmap fonts, and where there are
different elements for the different sorts of fonts, it is
usually possible to include both of them. Rosegarden will
usually use pixmaps where available and scalable fonts
otherwise.
</para>
<para>You may also wish to edit the mapping files supplied with
Rosegarden if you find their measurements for alignment or
sizing are not to your liking. (If you believe that any of the
supplied files are actually wrong, please let us know.)
</para>
<sect2 id="developers-note-fonts-codes-glyphs">
<title>Codes and Glyphs</title>
<para></para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format">
<title>Notation font mapping XML format</title>
<para>Here is a summary of the XML elements that may be used
in the font mapping file.</para>
<sect3 id="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-encoding">
<title>rosegarden-font-encoding</title>
<para>This element must exist in every mapping file, and
should contain all the other elements. The only attribute
is "name", which contains the font's name as shown in the
font selection dropdown. Although the file format will
permit any name to be used here, Rosegarden will only pick
up the font corectly if the XML file has the same name as
the contents of this attribute (except that the XML file
should be named in lower-case and should end in ".xml").
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-information">
<title>font-information</title>
<para>This should normally be the first child element of
"rosegarden-font-encoding". It may have any of the
following attributes, all of which are optional:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>origin</term>
<listitem>
<para>A textual description of the likely origin of
the mapped font (not the origin of the mapping
file).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>copyright</term>
<listitem>
<para>A textual description of the likely copyright
status of the mapped font (not the copyright status
of the mapping file). Note that because the mapping
file contains information such as origin and
copyright of the font itself, it is usually
advisable to make separate mapping files for
separate fonts where practical, even if the fonts
share other mapping data.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>mapped-by</term>
<listitem>
<para>The name of the creator of the mapping file
(i.e. you, presumably).</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>type</term>
<listitem>
<para>The type of the font. This attribute should
contain one of the values "pixmap" or "scalable".
Fonts that are loaded into the windowing system and
are available to Rosegarden as standard system fonts
have type "scalable"; fonts that need to be loaded
from pixmap files corresponding to individual sizes
of pixmap (such as the feta and rg21 fonts included
with Rosegarden) have type "pixmap".</para>
<para>This information is only intended for the user
reference; it isn't actually used by Rosegarden. It is
legitimate in practice for a font to be a mixture of the
two, but in general we will assume in this documentation
that a font is either scalable or pixmap.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>smooth</term>
<listitem>
<para>A boolean attribute indicating whether the
font is antialiased (smooth) or not. Should have
the value "true" or "false". If the font is smooth,
other display elements such as beams and slurs that
are not generated from the font will also be
antialiased.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>autocrop</term>
<listitem>
<para>Only relevant for scalable (system) fonts.
Rosegarden usually expects the metrics for a font to
contain the vertically smallest bounding boxes for
elements such as note heads and accents, rather than
including empty space above or below these elements
for alignment purposes. Most fonts do not do what
Rosegarden expects. Therefore for these fonts you
should set the autocrop attribute to "true"; then
Rosegarden will crop any unnecessary space from the
top and bottom of these elements when rendering
them.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-requirements">
<title>font-requirements</title>
<para>
This element is only relevant for scalable fonts. It is
used to specify that this font should only be offered if
certain system fonts are available, as well as to
associate IDs with those system fonts to refer to in the
<link
linkend="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-symbol-map">font-symbol-map</link>
element. This scheme is used to decide which notation
fonts should be offered to the user, and also allows you
to compose a Rosegarden notation font from more than one
system font if desired.
</para>
<para>The "font-requirements" element should contain a list
of "font-requirement" child elements. Each of these has two
attributes: "font-id", containing a numerical ID of your
choice for reference elsewhere in the file, and either a
"name" or a "names" attribute. If "name" is provided, it
will be used as the name of a single system font to be
associated with the font id; if "names" is provided, it will
be treated as a comma-separated list of system fonts and the
first one found will be associated with the font id.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-sizes">
<title>font-sizes</title>
<para>The "font-sizes" element specifies which notation font
sizes are available, and how the nominal font size relates
to the dimensions of non-font elements such as stems, staff
lines and beams. The "size" of a notation font is assumed
to be the distance in pixels between staff lines, or more
precisely, the height of a conventional note head that
completely fills the space between lines: the size therefore
does not include the thickness of either of the neighbouring
staff lines.
</para>
<para>
<!-- !!! TODO throughout this section: how to mark up XML element/attribute names? equiv of <code> in HTML would do -->
There are two possible child elements of "font-sizes":
"font-scale" and "font-size". Their use depends on the
type of font being described.</para>
<para>
For pixmap (non-scalable) fonts, the "font-sizes" element
should contain a list of "font-size" elements, one for
each size of pixmaps available. The pixmaps themselves
must be installed in the
fonts/<font-name>/<font-size> subdirectory of
the Rosegarden installation directory, where
<font-name> is the name of the font (as specified in
the "rosegarden-font-encoding" element at the start of the
mapping file), or a lower-case version of the name, and
<font-size> is the pixel size of the font. A font
size will only be made available to the user if it has an
entry in the "font-sizes" list and the pixmap directory is
found.
</para>
<para>
For scalable fonts, the "font-sizes" element should
contain one "font-scale" element that defines the
relationships between font and non-font elements in a
general way, and also defines the relationship between
Rosegarden's nominal font size and the size of the
corresponding system font. If this "font-scale" element
is found, then Rosegarden will assume the font is
available in any size. You can however still include one
or more "font-size" elements to define precise proportions
for any particular size for which the general proportions
do not quite work correctly, for example because of
rounding error.
</para>
<para>
The attributes of "font-scale" and "font-size" are very
similar. The main difference is that all attributes of
"font-scale" are floating-point values relative to the
font size, where 1.0 is the base font size (i.e. the
distance between staff lines), whereas attributes of
"font-size" are integer pixel values. The attributes
available are as follows. (Those marked "optional" have
vaguely sensible defaults, so it's a good idea to try not
setting them first.)
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>note-height</term>
<listitem>
<para>This attribute is only available for the
"font-size" element, and it is mandatory in that
element. It defines the base size of font to which the
other attributes in this element apply, and a size that
will be offered to the user and used when looking up
pixmaps for this font.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>font-height</term>
<listitem>
<para>May be used in either "font-size" or "font-scale".
This is only relevant for scalable fonts, but is
mandatory for them if used in the "font-scale" element.
This defines the size of the system font used to draw a
given size of notation font.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>beam-thickness</term>
<listitem>
<para>Optional. Defines the thickness of a beam.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>staff-line-thickness</term>
<listitem>
<para>Optional. Defines the thickness of a staff line.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>stem-thickness</term>
<listitem>
<para>Optional. Defines the thickness of a note stem.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>flag-spacing</term>
<listitem>
<para>Optional. Defines the gap between note flags in
cases where multiple flags are drawn by drawing a single
flag several times.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>border-x</term>
<listitem>
<para>Optional. Specifies that the note head pixmaps
have a fixed area to left and right that should not be
considered part of the note head. This attribute gives
the thickness of that area.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>border-y</term>
<listitem>
<para>Optional. Specifies that the note head pixmaps
have a fixed area to top and bottom that should not be
considered part of the note head. This attribute gives
the thickness of that area.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-symbol-map">
<title>font-symbol-map</title>
<para>
This element lists the symbols available in this notation
font, and which pixmap files or system font code points
they should be drawn from.</para>
<para>It should contain a list of "symbol" elements. These
have several possible attributes, the choice of which will
normally depend on whether the font is based on pixmaps or
system fonts:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>name</term>
<listitem>
<para>Mandatory. This attribute should contain the
name of the notation symbol. If the symbol exists in
the <ulink
url="http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1D100.pdf">Unicode
3.2 standard</ulink>, the name should be that used to
identify the symbol in the standard.</para>
<para>Most of the symbols Rosegarden expects to find
are in the standard; one exception is that many fonts
have a special version of the flag symbol that is
intended to be used when composing multiple flags from
individual single flags. Rosegarden refers to this as
"MUSICAL SYMBOL COMBINING FLAG-0", a name not used in
the Unicode standard (which has flags 1-5 only).</para>
<para>For a definitive set of the symbol names
Rosegarden knows about, see the file
"gui/notecharname.cpp" in the Rosegarden source
distribution. Note however that it is possible to use
additional symbol names by introducing them in a <link
linkend="developers-note-styles">notation
style</link>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>src</term>
<listitem>
<para>The name of the pixmap file from which this
symbol should be loaded, without a directory or
extension. This is the usual way of describing a
symbol in a pixmap font. The file itself should be
installed to
fonts/<font-name>/<font-size>/<src>.xpm
under the Rosegarden installation directory.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>inversion-src</term>
<listitem>
<para>The name of a pixmap file from which an inverted
version of this symbol may be loaded, without a
directory or extension. If this attribute is absent
and an inverted version of the symbol is required, it
will be generated simply by loading the normal version
and reflecting it in a central x-axis.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>code</term>
<listitem>
<para>The code point at which this symbol may be found
in the relevant system font, as a decimal integer.
This is a way of describing a symbol in a scalable
font. This attribute will only be referred to if no
pixmap file is supplied, or if the pixmap file fails
to load.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>inversion-code</term>
<listitem>
<para>The code point at which an inverted version of
this symbol may be found in the relevant system font.
If this attribute is absent and an inverted version of
the symbol is required, it will be generated simply by
loading the normal version and reflecting it in a
central x-axis.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>glyph</term>
<listitem>
<para>The raw glyph index at which this symbol may be found
in the relevant system font, as a decimal integer.
This is a way of describing a symbol in a scalable
font. This attribute will only be referred to if no
pixmap file is supplied, or if the pixmap file fails
to load.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>inversion-glyph</term>
<listitem>
<para>The raw glyph index at which an inverted version of
this symbol may be found in the relevant system font.
If this attribute is absent and an inverted version of
the symbol is required, it will be generated simply by
loading the normal version and reflecting it in a
central x-axis.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>font-id</term>
<listitem>
<para>The id of the system font from which this symbol
should be loaded, as defined in the <link
linkend="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-requirements">font-requirements</link>
element. The default is 0.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>codebase</term>
<listitem>
<para>This (decimal integer) attribute may be of use
if many of the symbols in a scalable font cover a
short range of code points starting at a relatively
high code page. If supplied, the codebase value will
be added to each of the subsequent code and
inversion-code values when looking up a symbol.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>
Although none of these attributes is mandatory except for
the name, a symbol obviously needs to supply at least one
of "src", "inversion-src", "code", "inversion-code",
"glyph", or "inversion-glyph" to stand any chance of being
rendered at all. It is of course perfectly legitimate to
supply several or all of these attributes.
</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-hotspots">
<title>font-hotspots</title>
<para>
</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="developers-note-styles">
<title>Creating new notation styles</title>
<para>
Rosegarden's notation editor has the ability to display and
edit notes in various standard styles: classical, diamond
heads and so on. These styles are all defined in XML style
definition files installed along with the application, and
it's possible to create a new one by writing a simple XML
file. Rosegarden simply looks at the set of installed files
to determine which styles to offer the user. You can refer to
the default set of files in the styles subdirectory of the
Rosegarden installation directory for examples.
</para>
<para>
The file format is not yet especially comprehensive; at the
moment it has been designed to be powerful enough to describe
the standard styles that come with Rosegarden, but not much
more. If you should try to create new styles this way, we'd
be very interested in your feedback on the Rosegarden
mailing-lists.
</para>
<sect2 id="developers-note-styles-format">
<title>Notation style XML format</title>
<para>
Here is a summary of the XML elements that may be used in
a style definition file.
</para>
<sect3 id="developers-note-styles-note-style">
<title>rosegarden-note-style</title>
<para>This element must exist in every style file, and
should contain all the other elements. It has one optional
attribute, "base-style", which may be used to name a style
from which this style takes the default values for any
parameters not specified elsewhere in the present file.
It's often good practice to define a style in terms of the
minimal difference from a given base style: see the supplied
Cross.xml for a particularly simple example.
</para>
<para>Note that the "rosegarden-note-style" element does not
give the name of the style being defined, which is instead
currently drawn from the name of the file. At some point in
the future we may add internationalizable style name
attributes to this element.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="developers-note-styles-global-note">
<title>global, note</title>
<para>Within the "rosegarden-note-style" element, there may
be one "global" element and any number of "note" elements.
We describe these together, as they have almost identical
sets of attributes. The "global" element simply provides
default values for those parameters not specified for a
particular note type in any following "note" element.
</para>
<para>The attributes for these elements are as follows. All
of these are optional except as described:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>type</term>
<listitem>
<para>Only relevant to the "note" element, and
mandatory for that element. This attribute specifies
which sort of note is being styled. Legal values are
textual American or British note names (from "64th",
"sixth-fourth note", "hemidemisemiquaver" etc to
"double whole note").
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>shape</term>
<listitem>
<para>Defines a note head shape for this style. Any
string is a legal value, but the only values
implemented so far are "angled oval", "level oval",
"breve", "cross", "triangle up", "triangle down",
"diamond" and "rectangle". The value "number" is also
recognised but not yet implemented.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>charname</term>
<listitem>
<para>Defines a note font character name to be used as
the note head for this style. An element may supply a
"shape" or "charname" attribute, but not both. The
name should be one of those defined in the current
notation font's <link
linkend="developers-note-fonts-mapping-format-font-symbol-map">symbol
map</link> (in a "name" attribute).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>filled</term>
<listitem>
<para>Specifies whether this note should have a filled
head (where applicable, i.e. where the shape attribute
supplies a shape that is available both filled and
unfilled). Must be "true" or "false".
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>stem</term>
<listitem>
<para>Specifies whether this note should have a stem.
Must be "true" or "false".
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>flags</term>
<listitem>
<para>Defines how many flags or beams this note should
have. The valid range is 0 to 4.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>slashes</term>
<listitem>
<para>Defines how many slashes this note should have
across its stem.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>hfixpoint</term>
<listitem>
<para>Specifies in which x position the stem fixes to
the note head. Acceptable values are "normal" (the
right side when the stem points up, the left when it
points down), "central", and "reversed" (left side
when the stem points up, right when it points down).
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>vfixpoint</term>
<listitem>
<para>Specifies in which y position the stem fixes to
the note head. Acceptable values are "near" (the stem
fixes to the top when pointing up, the bottom when
pointing down), "middle", or "far".
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</sect3>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<!-- (OPTIONAL) A Programming/Scripting reference chapter should be
used for apps that use plugins or that provide their own scripting hooks
and/or development libraries. -->
<!-- cc: I think we should document the DCOP API here, but I don't
think we should include extensive developer docs, although we should
point to where they can be found in the source tree or online. -->
<!--
<para>
Programming <application>Rosegarden</application> plugins is
a joy to behold. Just read through the next
66 pages of <acronym>API</acronym>'s to learn how!
</para>
-->
<!-- Use refentries to describe APIs. Refentries are fairly
complicated and you should consult the docbook reference for
further details. The example below was taken from that reference
and shortened a bit for readability. -->
<!--
<refentry id="re-1007-unmanagechildren-1">
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>XtUnmanageChildren</refentrytitle>
<refmiscinfo>Xt – Geometry Management</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv>
<refname>XtUnmanageChildren
</refname>
<refpurpose>remove a list of children from a parent widget's managed list.
</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsynopsisdiv>
<refsynopsisdivinfo>
<date>4 March 1996</date>
</refsynopsisdivinfo>
<synopsis>
void XtUnmanageChildren(<replaceable>children</replaceable>, <replaceable>num_children</replaceable>)
WidgetList <replaceable>children</replaceable>;
Cardinal <replaceable>num_children</replaceable>;
</synopsis>
<refsect2 id="r2-1007-unmanagechildren-1">
<title>Inputs</title>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable>children</replaceable>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Specifies an array of child widgets. Each child must be of
class RectObj or any subclass thereof.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><replaceable>num_children</replaceable>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Specifies the number of elements in <replaceable>children</replaceable>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</refsect2></refsynopsisdiv>
<refsect1 id="r1-1007-unmanagechildren-1">
<title>Description
</title>
<para>
<function>XtUnmanageChildren()</function> unmaps the specified widgets
and removes them from their parent's geometry management.
The widgets will disappear from the screen, and (depending
on its parent) may no longer have screen space allocated for
them.
</para>
<para>Each of the widgets in the <replaceable>children</replaceable> array must have
the same parent.
</para>
<para>See the “Algorithm” section below for full details of the
widget unmanagement procedure.
</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id="r1-1007-unmanagechildren-2">
<title>Usage</title>
<para>
Unmanaging widgets is the usual method for temporarily
making them invisible. They can be re-managed with
<function>XtManageChildren()</function>.
</para>
<para>
You can unmap a widget, but leave it under geometry
management by calling <function>XtUnmapWidget()</function>. You can
destroy a widget's window without destroying the widget by
calling <function>XtUnrealizeWidget()</function>. You can destroy a
widget completely with <function>XtDestroyWidget()</function>.
</para>
<para>
If you are only going to unmanage a single widget, it is
more convenient to call <function>XtUnmanageChild()</function>. It is
often more convenient to call <function>XtUnmanageChild()</function>
several times than it is to declare and initialize an array
of widgets to pass to <function>XtUnmanageChildren()</function>. Calling
<function>XtUnmanageChildren()</function> is more efficient, however,
because it only calls the parent's <function>change_managed()</function>
method once.
</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id="r1-1007-unmanagechildren-3">
<title>Algorithm
</title>
<para><function>XtUnmanageChildren()</function> performs the following:
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>-
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Ignores the child if it already is unmanaged or is being
destroyed.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>-
</term>
<listitem>
<para>Otherwise, if the child is realized, it makes it nonvisible
by unmapping it.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>
</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1 id="r1-1007-unmanagechildren-4">
<title>Structures</title>
<para>
The <type>WidgetList</type> type is simply an array of widgets:
</para>
<screen id="sc-1007-unmanagechildren-1">
typedef Widget *WidgetList;
</screen>
</refsect1>
</refentry>
-->
</chapter>
<chapter id="credits">
<title>Credits and License</title>
<para>
<application>Rosegarden</application>
</para>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Rosegarden is Copyright 2000-2008 Guillaume Laurent,
Chris Cannam and Richard Bown. The moral rights of
Guillaume Laurent, Chris Cannam and Richard Bown to be
identified as the authors of this work have been asserted.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Parts of Rosegarden are derived from X11 Rosegarden 2.1,
which is Copyright 1994 – 2001 Chris Cannam, Andrew Green,
Richard Bown and Guillaume Laurent.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
For musical notation display Rosegarden uses pixmaps
derived from the Feta font, part of the <ulink
url="http://lilypond.org/">LilyPond</ulink> software,
which is Copyright 1997 – 2001 Jan Nieuwenhuizen and
Han-Wen Nienhuys.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Other major contributors include Randall Farmer, Ron
Kuris, Hans Kieserman, Michael McIntyre, and Pedro
Lopez-Cabanillas.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The Rosegarden splash-screen image is Copyright 2006 Carolyn H. McIntyre,
used by permission.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<para>
Documentation copyright 2002-2006 Chris Cannam, Richard Bown, Guillaume Laurent
</para>
<!--
<para>
Translations done by:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Babel D. Fish <email>babelfish@kde.org</email> (Sanskrit)</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
-->
<!-- For URL links to common stuff like the one below,
always use paths like "common/gpl-licence".
In this path, "common" will be a symbolic link built at "make install" time.
This link will normally point to $TDEDIR/share/doc/HTML/en/common,
where "en" should be replaced with the current language. -->
<para>
This program is licensed under the terms of the
<ulink url="common/gpl-license.html">GNU General Public License</ulink>.
</para>
</chapter>
<!-- Note that the revhistory tags apply to the documentation
version and not to the app version. That is why we use an
ItemizedList instead for this list of revisions to the app. -->
<chapter id="rosegarden-revhistory">
<title>Rosegarden Revision History</title>
<para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
1.7.0 – May 2008: notation track headers, nested brackets in
LilyPond export, grace notes finally functional, quick playback
position marker, ties can be flipped, variable-height tracks allow
access to all previously overlapping segments, take track
transpose into account while recording, convert existing segments
when loading an instrument preset, etc., bug fixes galore
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
1.6.0 – November 2007: fretboards, diatonic transpose, multiple lines of lyrics, marker ruler improvements, overlapping notes visibility, LilyPond export enhancements and new dialog, better infrared remote control support, better configuration dialog, fixes
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
1.5.1 – March 2007: bug fixes
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
1.5 – February 2007: audio timestretching and input format conversion, matrix usability improvements, tempo tapping, context help, some features, code reorganisation and new build system (again)
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
1.4 – September 2006: LilyPond export vastly improved,
exportable LilyPond directives, cut/copy/paste by ranges that
include tempo and time data, tempo entry and manipulation vastly
improved, multi-track MIDI recording, MIDI recording filters,
track paramter box, create segments using preset parameters from
a database of over 300 real-world instruments, texts like
"Allegro" offered as a parallel alternative to typing, LilyPond
preview, assorted smaller features, many bug fixes
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
1.2.4 – July 2006: bug fixes
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
1.2.3 – February 2006: new segment canvas, percussion matrix, multi-track audio recording, project packager, external MIDI controllers, MTC sync, proper ALSA MIDI ports, new icons, new build system
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
1.0 – February 2005: many fixes, DSSI effects, latency compensation
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.9.9 – July 2004: plugin synths, triggered segments, notation improvements
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.9.8 – May 2004: better audio subsystem
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.9.7 – February 2004:
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.9.6 – December 2003: bug fixes
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.9.5 – November 2003: a great lot of stuff
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.9.1 – May 2003: step recording, Mup export, many many bug fixes
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.9 – April 2003: many notation improvements, improved bank editor, audio enhancements and refinements, translations
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.8.5 – December 2002: bank editor, MIDI filters, panic button
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.8 – October 2002: printing, LADSPA plugins, improved Matrix View
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.2.0 – August 2002: WAV file support, sweep selections, contrapuntal staves
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.1.6 – June 2002: configuration dialog, LilyPond support, quantize dialog
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.1.5 – May 2002: KDE 3, ALSA support, JACK audio support
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.1.4 – March 2002: more undo, segment editing, audio playback
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.1.3 – January 2002: piano-roll/matrix view, &MIDI; recording
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.1.2 – November 2001: notation undo, transport dialog, position pointer
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.1.1 – October 2001: scalable notation
</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>
0.1 – June 2001: first public release of Rosegarden-4
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</chapter>
&documentation.index;
</book>
