[Rosegarden-devel] Developer interested in helping with RG

[Ron K. <rk...@pr...>]

Hi, I'm new to the list so I figured I'd introduce myself.  My name is 
Ron Kuris and I am a software developer interested in helping a bit with 
RoseGarden.  My main field of expertise is low level database kernel 
development, but I have done quite a few UI projects over the years.  I 
have a reasonable amount of experience with MIDI and music notation.  I 
was lurking but I accidently posted my spam filter response to the list 
so I figured I might as well come out in the open ;-)

So, there are a few things I could be working on.  First, there is the 
endless warning cleanup that needs to be done.  I'm building on RedHat 
(am I the only one?) and I get lots of warnings during the build; these 
should probably all be looked at.  That would help familiarize me with 
the various areas of the code anyway.

Second, my experience with MIDI score editors is limited primarily to 
Windows.  I used a package called NoteWorthy Composer and I liked it 
very much.  It seemed very well rounded.  One thing I loved was the 
speed at which you could enter music using the keyboard.  The mouse is a 
much slower input device for note input.

Here is how it worked.  You had a "cursor" which indicated your current 
insertion point.  It had a horizontal and vertical position in the score 
window.  The arrows would move you up or down a note (including off the 
staff lines for lower or higher notes).  You could alter the duration of 
the note using the plus or minus keys (on the keypad) and ENTER put in a 
note.  Note attributes such as sharp, flat, natural were mapped to 
numeric keys (7 was sharp, 8 flat, and 9 natural) and things like dotted 
duration could be set by pressing period before entering the note. 
 Slurs were handled by pressing semicolon before the note, which made 
this note slur with the next note (I would have preferred it to slur 
with the previous note, btw).  Ties also had their own key.  Rests were 
entered using the space bar.

I would be very interested in doing something like that for RoseGarden, 
even if it meant a different staff entering utility (i.e., option). 
 What I didn't like about the current build was the fact that you had to 
say how many measures you were going to input before you got the staff 
bar up and running (although maybe I didn't see how to extend it 
easily).  I didn't like seeing the rests when you first opened the 
staff.  It was confusing at first.

Another great way of entering notes would be the MIDI keyboard I have. 
 The trouble with NoteWorthy Composwer was that either you could 
maintain the beat and have it calculate the lengths for you (never 
worked for me when the piece had difficult to play parts) or you could 
use the ASCII keyboard to specify changing lengths.  Both techniques 
were awful as it would require me to switch keyboard types every time a 
different length note was encountered.  This encouraged me to stick with 
keyboard note entering (I am not an expert pianist, although I get by). 
 What I would have liked was something like a pedal sequence to change 
the note length.  That might be a good enhancement down the road.

Anyway I'll quit rambling and get back to work.  I need to get a few 
things done before I can spend any time on RoseGarden but I did want to 
share my thoughts anyway.

I'll add more later, but I welcome additional comments.

Ron