abc notation blog » Announcements

abcnotation.com goes mobile

Chris — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:55:54 +0000

I’m very pleased to announce that the mobile version of abcnotation.com has just been launched.

Optimised for smart-phones and other hand-held devices you can find it at abcnotation.com/mobile.

It’s been on its way for quite a while now, but with a gig-free month I finally found time to put some finishing touches in over the weekend. And only just in time by the looks, since mobile traffic on the site has doubled in the last six months (although it’s still only 5% of the total).

Anyway, there are still a few improvements to come, including better resolution for the “dots”, browse by title pages and auto-detection of screen size, but they are all in the pipeline. However, if you have any feedback – positive or negative – please do let me know.

Chris

Happy new year

Chris — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:09:56 +0000

It’s that time of year again so I thought I’d give a quick round-up of what’s been going on here in abc land over the past year:

Firstly, and mostly importantly, I am delighted … absolutely delighted … to announce that we have a new abc standard (the document describing the semi-formal rules of abc). This is the first fully finished standard since 1997! I appreciate that many users of abc won’t be too bothered about exactly how it’s defined and the arcane details of some of the lesser known syntax, but abc has been in danger of splitting into different dialects in the long years since the last version. So the excellent news is that most of the major abc software providers have been involved and we have (mostly) agreed on ways of dealing with differing usage. The new standard also gives a very firm footing for additional features and so that abc can carry on as the human-readable music notation system of choice for years to come.
You could argue that a measure of how popular abc is, would be the amount of software written for it and I noticed, when reviewing the updates articles on this blog (in October, June, April and February) that a lot of software has been added to the list over the past year. In fact I counted them up and there are 24 new entries! Not all of them are new software, some of them are just new to me, but nonetheless that seems like a remarkable amount of work by the developers, providing (mostly free) programs that can read or interpret abc!
While I’m talking about software I should also mention that abc2win is now completely free (previously there was a small charge if you wanted to print out the dots). Sadly, the reason is that development has now finished on the program (as Jim Vint has retired from working on it). However, this program was one of the key reasons for abc’s initial success and I just want to record and celebrate that fact here.
The number of tunes in the tune search continues to grow and nearly 50,000 more have been added since January 2011, including some really important collections, bringing the total in the latest edition to 322,000!
The list of composers who have given consent for their tunes to appear on the site continues to grow too – including most recently Bill Elsliger and Jonathan Shorland. Please enjoy their music.
Finally there have been quite a lot of minor changes to the site – both behind the scenes and in front – including a much nicer page design (in my opinion) with a clearer search form, tune comments, user-friendly downloads, better diacritic handling, faster page speeds, …

Anyway, a belated happy new year to abc users everywhere, and also to those who just visit this site looking for sheet music!

Chris

June updates

Chris — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:43:00 +0000

A quick round up of updates to abcnotation.com since last time:

Several programs have been added to the software page (not all of them new – some have been around a while but I only just found out about them), including MidiZyx2abc, ABCEditor, BIABTools and RandomABC (this last generates random tunes for helping to practice sight reading).
A new edition of the tune search with a further 5,000 tunes, including several additional collections – for those interested in historical source material there are nearly 300 newly transcribed tunes from William Clarke (an East Anglian musician from the early-mid 19th century) courtesy of Mary Humphreys and others.
And finally for those interested in the nitty-gritty of abc, there’s a new draft abc standard, version 2.1 with a lot of discussion about it on the abcusers mail list – do contribute to the debate if you want to help steer the future direction of abc.

Apart from that I’ve been working on a bespoke midi player for the website … with added speed controls – the most popular choice in the “what next” poll. It’s not quite ready for release into the wild yet, but it’s nearly there – watch this space.

Chris

April updates

Chris — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:23:00 +0000

A quick round up of the changes to the site since the last update in February:

There are a number of new additions to the software page including help for converting abc to/from MusicXML and a related (and new) abc editor program called EasyABC.
Two more composers have agreed that their tunes can be displayed at abcnotation.com and have been added to the consent list.
I’ve enhanced the tune search so that it includes zipped collections (i.e. collections where the abc files are stored in zip files); as a result there are some new inclusions such as Antonio (Nil)’s huge collection and the Corneymusers collection.
There are also a number of new collections added to the list including the Take 6 Transcription Programme at folkopedia – although not a large collection of abcs, this is notable as the EFDSS online archive of historically important collections.
Finally, I’ve implemented a system for adding comments to tune pages. Although it’s only me that can do it at the moment (manually), eventually I’m intending to automate this so that anyone can add comments. However, that’s some way in the future.

Enjoy (and keep filling in the “What next” poll)!

Chris

February updates

Chris — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 18:00:28 +0000

Just a quick round up of some of the changes to the site that I’ve been working on over the last couple of weeks:

User friendly download names – if you visit a tune page and right-click on one of the download links (where it says “Download: abc | midi | png“, underneath the tune title), the file that you download will now be named after the tune (rather than just being called “file.abc” or “file.png” as previously, or even “0000.abc” before that).
There’s a whole bunch of new software been added to the software page including, amongst others, some macros for using abc in Open Office and Microsoft Word documents, an Android app for abc (runs on Google phones and other mobile devices) and a script for adding harmonica tablature to abc scores.
Finally, I’ve done a lot of work on regularising and sorting out the handling of accents and diacritics (and just a couple of weeks ago I didn’t even know what that word meant). You may not notice any differences to the site, but it has fixed a number of broken links and odd characters.

Enjoy!

Chris

And now for something a little different

Chris — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:08:41 +0000

The latest abc software development is … wait for it … an electronic greetings card service.

Yes, you can now send an e-card with a nice folky themed picture and an abc tune attached – all courtesy of Barnaby Walters over . . . → Read More: And now for something a little different

A year of massive growth

Chris — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:15:53 +0000

… at least, in terms of the number tunes available in the tune search.

Aside from the attention grabbing headline, it’s customary at this time of the year to take a look back at what developments have happened over the year, so I thought I might as well join in. Here are a few of the 2010 highlights for abcnotation.com:

Perhaps the biggest change from a visitor’s point of view is that the number of tunes indexed in the tune search has gone from 55,000 to 275,000 – a five-fold increase in just a year.
The scope of the tunes has increased too, with copyright tunes listed and duplicates eliminated from search results. Plus a number of composers have now given consent for their tunes to appear on the site.
The tune search also allows you to search a particular collection and tune pages also have recommendations (visitors who viewed this tune also looked at …).
Both the blog and the main website have had a makeover, in particular to allow for easier navigation, and direct advertising on the site is now possible.

And finally … although I hadn’t announced it until now … as of late December, the website has a brand new wiki area.

This has been set up initially to host the new abc standard version 2.0 – the semi-formal description of the rules of abc – with the aim of giving abc software developers a clearer baseline to work from. However, there’s no reason it couldn’t be used for other things, such as abc tutorials, or examples pages, or even an a-z of abc usage – please contact me if you’d like to start something off.

Happy new year!

Chris

Twice as big

Chris — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 09:53:23 +0000

I’ve just released a new edition of the tune search and I’m pleased to announce that it’s massively increased in size now with over 275,000 tunes indexed and available for searching!

About half of those are duplicates and another 15% are copyright, but that still leaves over 120,000 non-duplicate, non-copyright abc tunes to discover. It took a bit of work to squeeze them all on to the server but the backend system is now much leaner and hopefully faster.

On that note I’ve also put some effort into making the pages load a bit faster. The site still isn’t nearly as responsive as I’d like, but it’s definitely better than it was and I’ve got some more ideas to try.

Finally, other minor updates include:

another composer, Paul Gitlitz, has given consent for his tunes to appear here – thanks Paul
any software that has been added to the software page in the last 3 months is given a label automatically
some more software links – see the software page and look for the label
a link to Steve Merrony’s quick reference chart

Chris

Normal service has now been resumed

Chris — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:14:23 +0000

Those of you who follow this blog or keep up to date via facebook may have noticed a resounding silence from these parts over the past couple of months.

In fact, we moved house in September and that, coupled with a very hectic start of term at University, has zapped all my blog writing energy.

Not that I haven’t been busy on the site in the meantime – the number of tunes has increased by nearly 25% since the end of August and I’ve now worked out how to handle duplicate copies of tunes, and even duplicates whole tune collections, so that they don’t get in the way too much.

I’m also pleased report that another couple of tune composers have agreed to allow their tunes appear on the site – you can find them listed, together with links to their tunes, on the copyright page.

And the software listings have grown steadily too in the last couple of months – in particular for mobiles such as the iPhone and now Android based devices.

Anyway, thanks for sticking around and/or remaining a facebook fan. Normal service has now been resumed – expect updates every couple of weeks from here on in.

Chris

Advertising

Chris — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:10:42 +0000

The abc website has carried Google “adsense” adverts for a while now – they help to pay for the web hosting, amongst other things. However, they are not always very relevant to the site.

So now – as a bit of an experiment – I’ve decided to allow direct advertising. If you have a music shop or service, or perhaps a festival or a band you’d like to advertise to users of this website, please take a look at the new service.

I’ve also set up a directory of site sponsors, which is also a good way of promoting your band or business to the large number of musicians and music-lovers who visit this site. And to get it up and running I’m offering a limited number of sponsor pages completely free for one month – with no commitment whatsoever – to anybody who wants one.

Anyway, please do get in contact if you’re remotely interested.

Chris