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plugin:abc

ABC Plugin (for displaying sheet music)

Compatible with DokuWiki

Lemming, Anteater, Rincewind, Angua, Adora Belle, Weatherwax, Binky, Ponder Stibbons, Hrun

plugin Displays sheet music (input ABC, output PNG, MIDI and PDF)

Last updated on
2021-01-05
Provides
Syntax
Repository
Source
Conflicts with
abc2

This extension has not been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues.

Similar to abc2

Tagged with export, markup_language, media, music

There is a successor to this plugin which is much easier to install, the ABC2 Plugin.

What is ABC?

ABC is a musical notation language and “designed to notate tunes in plain text format.”

See http://abcnotation.com/ for more information.

Implementations in other Wikis

Implementing in DokuWiki

Requirements

  • convert, one of the tools from ImageMagick (GPL-compatible license)
  • Ghostscript (GPL or AFPL)
    • needed by convert for handling eps files, see Andi's tutorial on ImageMagick for details
    • ps2pdf from the same package (optional, only needed if you want to have PDF files created instead of PS files)
  • abcm2ps (GPL 2)
  • abc2midi from abcMIDI (GPL 2, optional, only needed if you want to have midi files created)
    • abc2abc from the same package (optional, only needed if you want to be able to transpose automatically)

Download and Install

Search and install the plugin using the Extension Manager. Refer to Plugins on how to install plugins manually.

Configuration

Please use the Configuration Manager to configure the needed variables!

config variabledescription importance
abc2ps path where to find abcm2ps essential
im_convert path where to find convert from ImageMagick (from the main DokuWiki config!) essential
displayType how to display the output (image only; image linked to midi; image with list of abc, midi, PS/PDF) recommended
abc2midi path where to find abc2midi (optional if you keep to the default displayType, needed with all other displayTypes)recommended
ps2pdf path where to find ps2pdf (optional, only needed for displayType 2 (image with list of abc, midi, PS/PDF) and if you want pdf files to be created instead of ps files)(optional, new in version 2006-12-09)
abc2abc path where to find abc2abc (only needed when ability to transposition is wanted, leave blank for disallowing transposition)(optional)
fmt path where to find an abcm2ps format file (e.g. “foo.fmt”) to format the PS/PDF file (leave blank for not using any)(optional)
mediaNS namespace for media files; before version 2008-08-17 they were stored in a subfolder of the media directory 'plugin_abc', now this is configurable (leave blank for root and the acl mechanism to work on these files as well); please use only one valid namespace name (optional, new in version 2008-08-17)
abcok turn abc rendering on or off; when turned off, only the source is displayed (optional)
displaySource turn additional displaying of the abc source on or off (optional)
displayErrorlogturn displaying of error logs (of abc2ps and abc2midi) on or off (they are only displayed once when page is saved or previewed) (optional, new in version 2008-08-17)
params4img parameters for generating the image (optional, new in version 2007-06-03, only for experts!)
params4ps parameters for generating the ps/pdf file (optional, new in version 2007-06-03, only for experts!)

style.css and file icons

If you want to allow midi files to be uploaded by the media manager and want them to be automatically recognized by DokuWiki, you should take the steps described here (using the mid.png file icon in the root folder of the plugin or any other) and comment out the last lines of style.css.

You can do the same with a possible abc icon …

Probable alteration of ./inc/search.php

The plugin stores all needed media files automatically in the DokuWiki media directory in a subnamespace (configurable through mediaNS, default: “plugin_abc”). If you do not want them to be displayed and made accessible through the media popup, you can alter ./inc/search.php. In the first function search() right after this

  if(preg_match('/^[\._]/',$file)) continue; //skip hidden files and upper dirs

just add the following line:

  if (substr($file,0,10)=='plugin_abc') continue; //skip plugin_abc dir

or substitute “plugin_abc” with your configured “mediaNS” accordingly.

Usage in DokuWiki

<abc>
X:42
T:Test
M:4/4
K:C
"C" C2 D2 E2 G2 |"C" c8 |]
w:This is just a test
</abc>

This code will lead to one of three possible outputs (set by $conf['abcDisplayType']):

  • output 1: image of the sheet music, linked to the corresponding midi file
  • output 2: image with a list of links to the corresponding abc, MIDI and PS (or PDF) file
  • output 0: image only

Transposition

It is possible to let the plugin transpose for you by extra parameters (separated by spaces; only 7 different values allowed). These parameters have to be numbers between -23 and 23, which is the amount of semitones that the tune will be transposed up (if positive) or down (if negative). E.g.

<abc 7 -3>
X:42
T:Test
M:4/4
K:C
"C" C2 D2 E2 G2 |"C" c8 |]
w:This is just a test
</abc>

will show the tune in the original key, as well as automatically transposed up to G major and down to A major.

Debugging

If the plugin does not seem to work …

  1. Make sure the involved programmes work properly (by testing e.g. “/path/to/abcm2ps test.abc -O test.ps” in the shell).
  2. Enable the 'allowdebug' config option. That will turn on more detailed hints about what could be wrong.
  3. Add a purge parameter to the URL (“?purge=1” or “&purge=1”) when testing - to force a recaching of the page and to recreate all abc plugin related files.

Important notes

  • Any kind of error handling or other measures to provide security may not have been cared for satisfyingly. So any usage at your own risk.
  • You can test the plugin on http://abcwiki.selfthinker.org/

Version history

Feedback

Rendering

Please include http://code.google.com/p/abcjs/ for rendering.

There is now a new ABC Plugin which includes abcjs and other similar JS libraries. The implementation is too different from this plugin, that's why I created a new one, see ABC2 Plugin. — ach 2021-01-11 19:21

Output tabs

Hey!! Congratulations for your plugin!!! It would be great if you could extend it to be able to output tabs besides music sheets. Is it possible? – Jorge 2007-02-13 14:50

Thanks. Yes, outputting tabs is possible by using abctab2ps instead of abcm2ps. And the plugin has to be tweaked a little, as well (most probably, maybe not!? I haven't tested). But I have no time to do it in the too near future. — Anika Henke 2007-04-01 12:22

I found out that tabs can be done with jaabc2ps, as well. With the new release (2007-06-03) of the abc plugin, you could change the params4img config option to “-s 1 -T1CeBGDA,E, -o” or something similar. I don't know, if it will work right away, you might still be needing to tweak the plugin a bit more. But now it should be easier. — Anika Henke 2007-06-04 23:40

Troubles getting plugin to run

Hey Anika, I'm having an issue getting the plugin to run on my hosting service. They've given me access to all the binaries (abc2*, ps2pdf and convert) and I've setup the config file. Only issue I can think of is permissions. My page that uses the plugin is here. Got any tips for resolving this? Thanks. — Chris Freyer 2007-12-07 00:50

Hallo! 1. The im_convert config option is not part of the plugin config, but of the main DokuWiki config. So it should be set there. 2. The message “(im_convert) is not executable” indicates that there is no path set in $conf['im_convert']. Otherwise it would read “/path/to/convert (im_convert) is not executable”. — Anika Henke 2007-12-07 16:43

ACL issues

Hi Anika,
Here is reporting an ACL issue for the abc plugin on DokuWiki-2008-05-05 release version.
My wiki is set to be a closed wiki (@ALL default None), and set @ALL read to :stanley namespace and stanley page.
However, the abc tag on stanley:song page cannot show up PNG image file. You may see the URL - http://www.ichiayi.com/wiki/stanley/song
any idea? — Jonathan Tsai 2008/05/17 14:55

Hallo! Sorry, all abc media files are stored in the namespace “plugin_abc”. I did not want the “normal” media folders to be too cluttered. But unfortunately, this also means “normal” ACL rules will not apply. (In future releases I will make this namespace configurable!) You can either
- add an ACL rule
plugin_abc:*      @ALL    1

- or change the following lines in ./lib/plugins/abc/syntax.php (in order to not store all files in “plugin_abc”, but in their correct corresponding namespace):

//line 177:
$abcdir = $savedir.'/media/plugin_abc';
//line 354:
$abcMediaUrl=DOKU_BASE."lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=cache&amp;media=plugin_abc:";

to

//line 177:
$abcdir = $savedir.'/media';
//line 354:
$abcMediaUrl=DOKU_BASE."lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=cache&amp;media=";


Anika Henke 2008/05/18 11:54

Thanks Anika,

After comparing the adding an ACL rule method and the other method to modify './lib/plugins/abc/syntax.php' code , I would like to choose the last one to solve the issue. Because it can let all abc files following my ACL rules setting. Thank you again for your kindly and rapidly reply.

Jonathan Tsai 2008/05/18 23:23

Working with jcabc2ps

Hmmm, tried to get the plugin working with jcabc2ps but that directly writes to stdout and I haven't got a clue how to fix this and either change the plugin to do something like jcabc2ps filename.abc > filename.ps or alter jcabc2ps to directly dump to .ps. (The reason I'd like to use jcabc2ps is the more clever way of altering bass notes and such… http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/doc/ABCtut_Clefs.html Anything anyone could fix? (I might try to fiddle around with it a bit myself, but I have very little knowledge of PHP…) — Harmen 2009/03/31 17:14

Setting ps2pdf on Windows

I'm not too sure what to put when setting ps2pdf. I've tried putting c:\xxx\xxx\ghostscript\gs8.71\lib\ps2pdf14 and I get the error message that it's not an executable. There's no .exe files that I can see in the ghostscript folder. Midi & ps conversion works fine. Dokuwiki on local install. Any help appreciated. — ty 2011/08/29 10:13

Understanding Transposition

I understood that I have to put the following in the plugin beginning to obtain a transposition:

<abc 7 -3>

Do I need to do something else to obtain a transposition? I copied your example in my page but it seems to not work. What did I missed? Florin

You only need to make sure abc2abc (from the abc2midi package) is installed and working. The path to it then needs to be set in the abc2abc config option. — Anika Henke 2014/03/23 13:43

Error messages

I recive the folowing errors: abc2ps In tune

Error : 'staffwidth' too big

File C:/xampp/htdocs/dki/data/media/plugin_abc/kunde/2_zocharti_loch.abc
Output written on C:/xampp/htdocs/dki/data/media/plugin_abc/kunde/2_zocharti_loch001.eps (26954 bytes)
abc2ps

File C:/xampp/htdocs/dki/data/media/plugin_abc/kunde/2_zocharti_loch.abc
Output written on C:/xampp/htdocs/dki/data/media/plugin_abc/kunde/2_zocharti_loch.ps (1 page, 1 title, 27063 bytes) — Florin

That is just a feedback from abcm2ps which you can ignore or even turn off with the displayErrorlog config option. The messages will only be displayed the first time you save a page with ABC in it, after that they will disappear. — Anika Henke 2013/07/11 01:39

Error : 'staffwidth' too big-it is a normal message? — Florin
Yes, I get that message all the time. That is nothing to worry about. — Anika Henke 2013/07/12 00:35

So, please tell me where exactly should I post this debugging code var $_debug = 1?

There is only one syntax.php in the plugin and there is only one “var $_debug”.

https://github.com/selfthinker/dokuwiki_plugin_abc/blob/master/syntax.php#L18.

For test I made myself via notepad an ABC File with this content:

test.abc:
<abc 5>
X:42
T:Test
M:4/4
K:C
“C” C2 D2 E2 G2 |“C” c8 |]
w:This is just a test.
</abc>

ABC files shouldn't have <abc></abc> in them. That's only meant for DokuWiki to know that the content can be rendered by the ABC plugin.
Good to know.
1.This is my first manual testing steps:

Win server 2003. Run, cmd:
C:\Utile\abcm2ps>C:\Utile\abcm2ps\abcm2ps.exe test.abc -s 1 -w 600 -E -O test. 2>&1
abcm2ps-6.6.22 (November 28, 2012)
-In tune:
Error: 'staffwidth' too big
Output written on test001.eps
2.C:\Utile\ImageMagick-6.8.6-Q8\convert.exe C:\Utile\abcm2ps\test001.eps -flatten test.png
convert: Postscript delegate failed `rrr.eps': No such file or directory @ error/ps.c/ReadPSImage/837.
convert: no images defined `rrr.png' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3106.
You are probably missing the Ghostscript delegate library. Install it from here: http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php Anika Henke
It works! My advice is to open the imdisplay.exe inside ImageMagick folder and try to open manually test001.eps. If you see the image the converter is working. (to me it did not work before installing GhostScript application!)

Pay attention too to the apache error.log. It seems that for some reasons the path to im_converter (set in Configuration Manager DW) to not be recognized because of the space between C:\Program(space)files\path. For me it worked installing it outside the Program Files folder (I have Windows 2003 and I installed it in the C:\Util\. Florin

Multiple abc section on the same page

Hi Anika and thanks for this plugin.

I recently installed it on a 2014-09-29d “Hrun” and it works great.

Just one question, is there is a way to have multiple <abc> section on the same page?

When I'm doing it, I'm getting multiple image of the last section instead of 2 distinct section.

Thanks - Thomas.

Yes, having multiple abc section on the same page is no problem. The problem you're having sounds like it's because your sections have the same titles and IDs/reference number (X:). The media files which get created all follow a pattern for the file name which first has the ID and then the title. So, when both are the same, the previous files get overwritten. Just make sure you use different reference numbers. — Anika Henke 2017-01-23 00:19
Great. This is working as you mentioned. Thanks again Anika!
This does not happen with the new ABC2 Plugin. — ach 2021-01-11 19:21
plugin/abc.txt · Last modified: 2023-10-30 22:41 by Klap-in

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