Features of abcm2ps 7.5.0 (J.F. Moine, February 2013) ===================================================== abcm2ps tries to follow the ABC standard version 2.1 (december 2011): http://abcnotation.com/wiki/abc:standard:v2.1 Here are listed only the differences from the standard. Features not implemented. ======================== Information fields. - The continuation field ('+:') is implemented for w: only. - The charsets iso-8859-5 .. iso-8859-8 are not implemented. Tune body. - The following decorations are not implemented: !dacoda!, !dacapo! - 'U:' fields cannot contain guitar chord nor annotations. - The values assigned by the 'U:' field are always global (they are not restored at end of tune). - Multiple measure overlay (as '&&') is not implemented. Use the '(& .. & .. & .. &) extension instead. Data format. - The HTML sequences are not implemented. - The unicode '\Uxxxxxxxx' 32 bits character is not implemented. Use the UTF-16 surrogates instead. Features that work differently. =============================== File structure. - The T: header field may be omitted when 'X:' is present. - There is no notion of 'file header': any valid ABC field found outside the tunes is considered as global, and applies to the remaining tunes. Information fields. - In a tune body, the lines beginning with a letter in range A-G or a-g and immediately followed by a colon are interpreted as information fields. - When the %%abc-version is different from '2.0', the field 'A:' is 'Area', and not 'Author of lyrics'. It is displayed only when 'infoline' is set. - In 'K:' fields, the list of accidentals may be 'none' (for no accidental). - In 'U:' fields, the character may be '\ ' (back-slash - space) to redefine the character space, or '\t' (back-slash - t) to redefine the character tabulation. The default value of these characters is !beambreak! (see below). Tune body. - The decorations on notes inside chords cannot be standard ones because their offset is relative to the note they are attached to, and not to the chord. They must be explicitly defined by %%deco and %%postscript. - '@' in annotations must be followed by the and offsets of the text from the note position (in points). The and values are separated by a comma, and may be followed by a space (usefull if the text begins with a digit, a dot or the letters 'E' or 'e' - see sample3.abc for an example). - Grace notes may appear before any symbol and may contain chords. Their note lengths are handled. The unit note length is not tied to L: (or M:). Instead, for compatibility, it is: - a quaver for a single note and a semi-quaver for many notes in standard tunes, - a demi-semi-quaver in bagpipe tunes. Grace notes greater than crotchets are drawn as crotchets. - Tuplets values may be greater than 9. - Tuplets may be nested. Clefs. - When 'clef=' is present, the clef name may be one of 'G' (treble clef), 'C' (alto clef) or 'F' (bass clef). The two following definitions are equivalent: K: clef=F K: bass - The suffixes "^8" and "_8" do an octave transposition (while "+8" and "-8" don't do it). Multiple voices. - When the voices are synchronized, a 'P:' field is set in the first voice, without changing the current voice. This fixes the common error: P:A V:1 .. V:2 .. P:B % misplaced P: (in voice 2) V:1 % should be here .. V:2 % and normally repeated here .. ABC Stylesheet specification. - The star ('*' = floating voice) is not treated in '%%score'. - '%%staves' coexists with '%%score'. The differences in '%%staves' are: - measure bars are drawn between staves when there is no '|' between the voice names (this feature is inverted in %%score). - A floating voice may be only the second one in a 3 voices brace. - Some formatting directives are not implemented, and some other ones are defined. See the file 'format.txt' for details. Extensions. ========== File structure. - Lines starting with '\' (back-slash) are ignored (abc2mtex compatibility). Information fields. - The field 'M:' may specify more complex meters with a combination of digits, parenthesis, slashes and blanks. It may also specify ancient meters as 'M:2' or 'M:3', and also 'M:o' (perfect minor), 'M:o.' (perfect major), 'M:c' (imperfect minor) and 'M:c.' (imperfect major). An explicit measure duration may be specified putting its value after an '=' sign (ex: 'M:C|=2/1'). - 'microscale=' in 'K:' or 'V:' fields defines the denominator to use in microtonal accidentals (see 'microtone' pitches below). - The field 'd:' is the same as 's:' (symbol line). - In 'U:' fields, !ignore! defines the character as ignored. This is the default value for the character '`' (back-quote). - In 'U:' fields, !beambreak! defines the character as stopping note beaming. This is the default value for the characters '\ ' (space) and '\t' (tabulation). Tune body. - Microtone pitches are indicated by a number or a fraction after an accidental (and before the note). By default, these pitches are indicated by a fraction of a semitone as "^3/4c" (3/4 of a sharp). When omitted, the numerator defaults to 1 and the denominator to 2 ("^/c" is the same as "^1/2c"). Support exists for 1/2 and 3/2 sharps and flats. For other values, PostScript functions must be defined (%%postscript or %%beginps - see below). The microtone pitches may be indicated by a fraction of tone (! not semitone !) using "microscale=" in K: or V: information fields. In this case, only the numerator is to be set after the accidental as "^3c". For instance, the two declarations - without microscale: ^3/2c - with microscale=4: ^3c give a same result. Note: the numerator and denominator cannot be greater than 255. By default, the name of the PostScript function which draws a microtone accidental is: where: - is "sh" (sharp) or "ft" (flat) (may be also "nt", "dsh" or "dft" !) - is computed from the fraction as: ( - 1 ) * 256 + - 1 and it is called with and . Setting %%micronewps to 1, the function name is: and it is called with . - A note length starting with '0' (zero') indicates a stemless note. - A space ('y') may be followed by a width in points. The default width is 20 pts. - '[]' is the same as '[|]' (invisible bar). - ':' (colon alone) is the same as '.|' (dotted bar). - ']' alone is not a bar. It stops a repeat bracket. - Repeat bars may contain a set of digits, '-' (hyphen), ',' (comma) or '.' (dot), or even a free string. Ex: |: ... [1,3 ... :|2,4-6 ... :|["last time" ... (note that a '[' is needed before the string - this one may be empty). - There may be slurs from notes to grace notes and reverse. - Opening slurs ("(") may be followed by "'" or "," to force their direction (above or below). - The tie character ("-") may be followed by "'" or "," to force the tie direction (above or below). - The following decorations are added: !beamon! do not break beaming (on a measure bar) !beambr1! and !beambr2! let only 1 or 2 beams from the previous note !gmark! grace mark ('~' like sign) !invisible! prevent a symbol to be displayed !rbstop! stop here the current repeat bracket !trem1! .. !trem4! tremolo (on the second of a couple of notes - see sample4.abc for example) !xstem! draw a stem up to the note on the previous staff !/! .. !///! tremolo on one note !beam-accel! and !beam-rall! feathered beam - There may be decorations on grace notes. - Multiple lines of guitar chord / annotation may also be indicated by '\n' or ';' in which case, the lines are of the same type (gchord or annotation). The 3 next notations are equivalent: "_ann1" "_ann2" "G3" "4" G "_ann1;ann2" "G3;4" G "_ann1\nann2" "G3\n4" G (annotation on 2 lines and guitar chord on 2 lines) The two next notations are NOT equivalent: "_ann1" "G" "_ann1;G" (in the 1st line, 'G' is a guitar chord, in the 2nd one, it is the 2nd line of the annotation) A new annotation type may be indicated after a ';' as: "^above;_below" Clefs. - the clef definition should not be in K: or V: information fields. Better use the %%clef pseudo-comment (see format.txt) - 'clef=P' is the same as 'perc'. - When the clef name is 'perc' (or 'P'), accidentals change the note head glyph. By default, sharp notes are drawn as a 'x' and flat notes as a circled 'x'. This behaviour may be changed redefineding the PostScript functions 'pshhd' and 'pfthd', or defining 'pnthd' (natural), 'pdshhd' (double sharp) and 'pdfthd' (double flat). - When no clef is specified, clef changes are automatically inserted when needed ('bass' or 'treble'). - The clef name may be enclosed by double quotes in which case it is the name of a PostScript function which will draw the clef. This function arguments are the x and y offsets. Multiple voices. - 'stem=auto' and 'gstem=auto' in a V: field re-enables the automatic computation of the direction of the stems (default values). - 'gstem=up' or 'gstem=down' in a V: field forces the direction of the stems of the grace notes. - For compatibility with previous abcm2ps version, V: fields may contain: - 'gchord=up' (default) and 'gchord=down' which forces the display of guitar chords above or below the staff, - 'dyn=up', 'dyn=down' or 'dyn=auto' which forces the place of the dynamic marks (above or below the staff - default is 'auto'). - 'lyrics=up', 'lyrics=down' or 'lyrics=auto' which forces the place of the lyrics (above or below the staff - default is 'auto'). (use pseudo comments instead - see format.txt) - 'merge' in a V: field makes the voice to go on the same staff as the previous voice (BarFly compatibility). - The BarFly voice switch in tune ('V:x ', i.e. voice + notes on the same line) may work. - The operator '(&...&...&)' permits voice overlay on many measures. See sample3.abc for an example. Data format. - The guitar chords and annotations may contain '\#', '\b' and '\=' to display accidentals. - Strings may contain characters from '\001' to '\005' to display accidentals. For compatibility, the values '\201' to '\205' are handled the same way. - In quoted string, the '%' does not need to be escaped. Deprecated ABC syntax. - Most of the deprecated ABC syntax is supported. - Some incompatible syntaxes are handled according to the ABC version of the file as the ABC 2.0 continuation mechanism.