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-   -   Free MidiNotate Player first beta release (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/showthread.php?t=2260)

Mark Walsen (markwa) 03-24-2005 01:13 AM

Good news for MidiNotate users
 
Good news for MidiNotate users!

There will be a free MidiNotate Player. This will allow anyone to see, print, and play your NoteSoft .not files, exactly as you prepared them in MidiNotate Musician, Composer, or Composer Pro. It will show all of the symbols you added to the score, such as accents, dynamic marks, and slurs. If you prepare the .not file with multiple parts, all of the parts will be viewable and printable by MidiNotate Player. You will be permitted to host the MidiNotate Player at your web site. Or, you can direct visitors to Notation Software's web site to download the MidiNotate Player.

The MidiNotate Player also converts MIDI files to sheet music that can be viewed on the screen, played, and printed. This is the same key feature that is offered in all of the MidiNotate products; yet it is free. There is no restriction in the quality of the transcription, the transcription options, the size of the MIDI file, the number pages printed, etc., and there is no trial period. The MidiNotate Player is simply free.

MidiNotate Player does not include most of the editing features in MidiNotate Musician and Composer. But it has no restrictions in its capabilities of viewing, displaying, and printing both NoteSoft .not files and MIDI .mid files (as well as Karaoke .kar files). The idea here, of course, is to give folk a taste of MidiNotate, with the hope that some of them will decide to purchase one of the MidiNotate products.

You can download the first beta release of the MidiNotate Player product at the following web page:

IMPORTANT: Before installing MidiNotate Player, make a backup copy of the file \Program Files\MidiNotate\MidiDev.cfg The MidiNotate Player program might disrupt the MIDI Device Configuration used by MidiNotate Musician, Composer, or Composer Pro, causing a failure of these other MidiNotate programs upon opening a file. If that happens, you should restore the MidiDev.cfg file that you have backed up.

www.notation.com/MidiNotatePlayer.htm

Unlike the final release of MidiNotate Player, beta releases of MidiNotate Player cannot be redistributed. The main reason for this restriction is simply that I do not want a not fully tested pre-release version of MidiNotate Player to start spreading across the Internet.

The help file (MNPlayer.chm) for MidiNotate Player has not been prepared yet. The icon will be installed, but will link to a non-existant file.

I'm working on trimming down the size of the MidiNotatePlayerSetup.exe file, which is current 4.0Mb. By the time I add the help file, but also further trim down the size of the executable, I suspect that the final size will be about 4.0Mb. That's bigger than I would like, but MidiNotate Player does a lot of work transcribing MIDI files, and also displaying the full variety of music symbols that you can edit with MidiNotate Composer.

Please let me know what you think of MidiNotate Player. Let me know if you think some of MidiNotate Musician's features should be added to or removed from MidiNotate Player.

Clyde, are you out there? You should like this announcement, as you have been asking for this free player/viewer.

Cheers
-- Mark



David Jacklin (dj) 03-24-2005 11:43 AM

Downloading, now.
 
Downloading, now.


Sherry Crann (sherry) 03-24-2005 09:09 PM

Howdy Mark, I'm current
 
Howdy Mark,

I'm currently checking out the Player - nice!

I made a new folder in my Program Files folder to install it into, to hopefully avoid any potential conflicts with Composer, since I'm in the midst of Easter music and music lessons, so I can't afford any interruptions at the moment http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

A couple of observations:

1. I like the icon - good representation!

2. When you open it up, and if you indeed click on the "tutorial" button, nothing happens, except that the dialog box disappears. I'm presuming that this is because the Tutorial is part of the Help docs that you have yet to incorporate.

3. There is no "hover hint" for the "browse for midi files" button (the notes + globe button).

4. When I allowed a file to play through to the end (I checked on a few files), the Play button remained depressed, although it functioned normally as far as actual playing back if I clicked it again. All other permutations of functionality for play/rewind/fast forward seemed to work fine.

5. I think I found a few remnants from Musician that need to be pruned. I had changed the key signature for one of the files I tested, then changed it back using the Edit/Undo command. When I went to close this file, a dialog box opened and asked if I wanted to save the file (there is no such option in the File menu list), so just for kicks, I clicked Yes, then gave it (the file) a new name. When I then went back and re-opened this file, it gave me only one track(staff), which was not labelled as it had been originally (I didn't mess with that when I tested the original file). I then went to "Score/Select part" to see if I could bring back the two tracks (I was using the Minuet.mid file originally, and had 'saved' it as minuet player.not, according to the dialog box). When I selected "Score/Select part", it gave me an error message. The message was: "This NoteSoft.not file was not prepared with any specially formatted parts. You can instead use the Show Tracks command in the Track menu to select specific tracks to view or print." As far as I can see, there are no options for Tracks (it's not a menu item) in the Player.

I'm including the minuet player.not file here just for your amusement http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

<center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons...hment_icon.gifPlayer saved minuet file
Minuet player.not (25.4 k)</td></tr></table></center>

I have no qualms whatsoever about any of the options that are in the player, nor the ones that are not - I think you've made good decisions about what should go into a free player. And I think that overall, this is going to be a good move to give MidiNotate products some broad exposure. I'm planning to put a link for the download, along with a link to the forum on my SoundClick site as soon as you give the go-ahead, so folks can watch the notes as they listen to the music. Maybe they'll get as hooked as I am http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

ttfn,
Sherry

Mark Walsen (markwa) 03-24-2005 09:58 PM

Sherry, Thanks for your rep
 
Sherry,

Thanks for your report on MidiNotate Player. I have confirmed the problems with:
(2) no tutorial-- it's simply not yet implemented
(3) missing button hover hints
(4) play button doesn't turn off at end of song

I'll need to re-think whether MidiNotate Player should save files. It is important that MidiNotate Player let the user add key signatures and clef changes to imported MIDI files. If that is important, then it should also be important that the user can save these simple changes. Therefore, MidiNotate Player probably needs a File Save (save as .NOT file) command, as well as the back-door method of saving the file you discovered (and which I was not aware of), which is that MidiNotate Player will ask you whether to save the edit file upon exiting.

I'll investigate the second part of your #5 item after I add File Save back into MidiNotate Player.

Thanks for your valuable feedback on MidiNotate Player.

Cheers
-- Mark

Mark Walsen (markwa) 03-24-2005 11:11 PM

Hello Sherry and All, A new
 
Hello Sherry and All,

A new release of MidiNotate Player is available at:
www.notation.com/MidiNotatePlayer.htm

IMPORTANT: Before installing MidiNotate Player, make a backup copy of the file \Program Files\MidiNotate\MidiDev.cfg The MidiNotate Player program might disrupt the MIDI Device Configuration used by MidiNotate Musician, Composer, or Composer Pro, causing a failure of these other MidiNotate programs upon opening a file. If that happens, you should restore the MidiDev.cfg file that you have backed up.

This version 1.0.9.4 of MidiNotate Player:
* adds File Save As NoteSoft (.not) file
* fixes bug that the play button did not turn off at end of song
* adds the missing tooltips (mouse hover tips) for the
Browse Internet, Add Clef, and Add Key Signature buttons.

Thanks for spotting these problems, Sherry.

Cheers
-- Mark

David Jacklin (dj) 03-26-2005 03:37 PM

Hi, Mark: I like the Midino
 
Hi, Mark:

I like the Midinotate Player a lot. It's simple and fast and should be popular.

A question: is the Player limited to displaying only 8 staves? When I load some of the orchestration files from The Holly Tree into Player, I can only get 8 staves on screen, even with "Hide Empty Staves" switched off.

Also, I don't think that Player is importing the page setup information from the .not file, or, at least, the page size information. My orchestration files for The Holly Tree are set up for 8.5 X 14 (legal) page size, but when they are loaded into Player, the page size comes up as 8.5 X 11.

Otherwise, I've not run into any quirks.


Mark Walsen (markwa) 03-26-2005 05:38 PM

Hi David, I like the MidiNo
 
Hi David,

I like the MidiNotate Player also. After having worked for so long raising its big siblings, it's fun to have a sweet little newborn in the family. And this one will stay sweet and small.

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

A question: is the Player limited to displaying only 8 staves? When I load some of the orchestration files from The Holly Tree into Player, I can only get 8 staves on screen, even with "Hide Empty Staves" switched off.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>That's a bug that has random behavior. Different tracks will be missing at different times. That bug is fixed for the next1.0.9.5 release of Player.

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

Also, I don't think that Player is importing the page setup information from the .not file, or, at least, the page size information. My orchestration files for The Holly Tree are set up for 8.5 X 14 (legal) page size, but when they are loaded into Player, the page size comes up as 8.5 X 11.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>I have confirmed and now fixed that bug. That bug also revealed a related bug that has been present in Composer and Musician: If you open a .NOT file and use the Page Setup dialog box, then unless you have first switched to Page View, the Page Setup dialog box misreports the paper size and probably some other information also. You can work around that problem now by switching to Page View before using Page Setup.

Thanks for reporting these problems with Player. I really appreciate it.

Cheers
-- Mark









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