More Durations and Better Beaming
I finally got most of the duration and beaming support worked out last weekend, and I gotta say that the generated scores by VexFlow (and VexTab) are starting to look pretty good.
In VexTab notation, you can now set the duration of the subsequent notes using the colon (:) character. By default, note durations are set to eighth notes.
Here's an example of a line that generates a half-note followed by two quarter-notes.
Basic Duration Support
Valid duration values (currently) are: w, h, q, 8, 16, and 32. Support for dots and tuplets/triplets is not yet implemented.
Durations can be specified inside slides, bends, and other types of ties by prefixing the fret with the duration value enclosed within colon characters.
Durations within Ties
Also, I spent time working on some of the tricker beam configurations, where notes with varying durations are beamed.
Crazy Beaming
In VexTab, you can create beams by enclosing your notes within brackets (separated by spaces).
Beaming in VexTab
Anyhow, I've pushed out the latest revision, with support for standard notation, durations, and beaming to the TabDiv website. Feel free to toy with it and report any issues you come across.
Here's a screenshot of a bluesy guitar lick written in VexTab.
A Blues Lick in VexTab
That's all for this week, folks! There are a lot more interesting things coming up. Check out the VexTab tutorial to play around in the sandboxes, and stay in touch.
10 comments (imported from blogger)
keep up the good work.
@Tails: sounds like a fair deal :-)
Nicely done. In my opinion the dots of the notes are a little bit to big, aren't they? Looks a little bit to overload.
I also kept on working on my html5 notation renderer and finally I support an own language too. Check out the blog post: http://project.coderline.net/news/alphatab-one-step-closer-to-release-0-2/
and the live demos: http://dev.alphatab.net/
I'd be glad to hear some feedback of you.
@Danielku15: Keep up the good work!
For instance, in your topmost image above, the 5 and 7 are directly below the left-hand edges of their note heads, and the 6 seems to be directly below the
sharp sign
and not aligned with the note itself at all. Wouldn't it look considerably better to have the numbers centred below the notes?
(I admit I'm not sure how that works with a chord complex enough to need note heads on both sides of its stem; probably the answer is to follow the same rule as you would if you had to align a single note on another stave below the complex chord.)
That's a good point, and I've been experimenting with different ways to strike a balance here.
The problem with the "number right below note" approach is that when there are some notes with accidentals (or other modifiers), the spacing between the lined up tablature looks off (i.e., some too close together, some too far apart).
Right now what I do is allocate a certain amount of space for each "vertical context" and simply center the notes within the allocated space.
This usually works out well, and has the advantage of not looking too mechanical.
All this said, I need to think of a good approach to strike a balance between lining up the notes vertically, and evening out the horizontal spacing.
Thanks for the comment. :-)