A Thank You to the dev-team and an annoucement

Hi.

First of all, I want to say thanks to all the people
involved
in Orca development.  While there will always be problems to
fix
and things to improve, I really have to say I am impressed
with the progress Orca made from 2.20 to 2.22.  The story
below emphasis
this nicely IMO and underlines how great you've been doing.

This is an announcement of a project I am working on since
two months now.
I am a hobby musician with a love for baroque music. 
Lately, my
need to be able to read music myself has grown so much that
I finally looked
at the options available.  I quickly figured out that there
are optical
music recognition programs around that can do a pretty good
job.
This gives me a lot of flexibility, since I can just scan a
random
score my teacher throws at me.  OMR software typically saves
results in MusicXML format.  From here, you need another
program to convert
to braille music notation to be able to read and print the
score.
Since the software for converting to braille music notation
is pretty
expensive, I decided to try and write my own.

http://delysid.org/f
reedots.html

FreeDots can convert MusicXML files to braille music
notation.
It also features (since recently, and this is why I post
this here)
a GUI for interactively working with the resulting braille
music notation.
This GUI is context sensitive, i.e, if you move the editing
cursor
around, the braille symbol underneath it is played back, and
some
information about it is displayed in the statusbar.  You can
also
edit notes in the score this way.  Currently, only changing
the
octave of a note up and down is implemented, but much more
is planned.

This will finally allow us to make better use of OMR
software.
With FreeDots, in the future, you will be able to just move
the editing cursor
to a symbol that is wrong, and invoke some editing commands
to fix it yourself.

This is all done in GTK with Orca as a screen reader.  While
I am myself 100% blind, it has proven very easy to get the
initial GUI going.  I think this is a very strong sign for
how good GNOME Accessibility is working these days.
If a blind person can hack up a GUI and actually use it for
something in pretty much a few hours, you guys must have
been doing something
right lately 

FreeDots uses Unicode for outputting braille.  This turned
out to
be a very good decision, since when I added the GUI to the
project, I
did not have to do anything to get braille displayed
correctly,
it all just worked magically.  The fonts for unicode braille
were
already installed apparently, and BrlAPI already handles
Unicode braille
if it comes from a client (orca in this case).

For those of you that can see, here is a screenshot of an
early version of
the GUI: htt
p://delysid.org/images/freedots_screenshot.png
The current release (0.1beta5) adds a few more things not
seen on
this screenshot, so if you are interested I recommend you
better
download the current version and check it out .

Honestly, I always thought GNOME Accessibility is for me
basically just
a way to get Firefox (and therefore web applications)
working.  But this
scepticism has changed now.  I am actually using GNOME to
develop a user
interface for something I need to do.  While I could have
done this
on the console as well, it seems much more efficient to
reuse the great
work already done for building user interfaces.  In fact,
all I need is a gtk.TextView widget, reimplementing
all of it in a separate console application would have
consumed
far too much time for no real gain at all.

While FreeDots is already very useful to myself, there are
many things
not implemented yet.
Braille music notation is a pretty complicated standard and
there are
many special rules that have not been implemented yet.
MusicXML is a pretty complete standard for representing
musical
scores.  Things like ntuples, ties, invisible rests and so
on are
not yet implemented in FreeDots.  The GUI will also need a
lot
of work to allow editing all the apsects of a braille music
symbol.
So if you are a potential user, please check it out, but do
not
expect too much yet.  The project is pretty much in
concept-stage at the moment.
And if you might be able to help on the contributing side,
please do so!
There is too much to do for just the spare time of a single
person.

All in all, a final thank you to the GNOME Accessibility
crew, you've
really managed to achieve a useable system with GNOME 2.22!

-- 
CYa,
  ⡍⠁⠗⠊⠕ | Debian Developer <URL:http://debian.org/>
  .''`. | 
 : :' : | FreeDots: <URL:http://delysid.o
rg/freedots.html>
 `. `'
   `-      <URL:http://delysid.org/> 
<URL:http://www.staf
f.tugraz.at/mlang/>
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 for more information on Orca

Mario,
Wonderful news -- and thank you for your work as well.
I am going to forward your message to other music-related
lists where it 
may be of more use. <grin>
Regards,
Vic

Mario Lang wrote:
> Hi.
>
> First of all, I want to say thanks to all the people
involved
> in Orca development.  While there will always be
problems to fix
> and things to improve, I really have to say I am
impressed
> with the progress Orca made from 2.20 to 2.22.  The
story below emphasis
> this nicely IMO and underlines how great you've been
doing.
>
> This is an announcement of a project I am working on
since two months now.
> I am a hobby musician with a love for baroque music. 
Lately, my
> need to be able to read music myself has grown so much
that I finally looked
> at the options available.  I quickly figured out that
there are optical
> music recognition programs around that can do a pretty
good job.
> This gives me a lot of flexibility, since I can just
scan a random
> score my teacher throws at me.  OMR software typically
saves
> results in MusicXML format.  From here, you need
another program to convert
> to braille music notation to be able to read and print
the score.
> Since the software for converting to braille music
notation is pretty
> expensive, I decided to try and write my own.
>
> http://delysid.org/f
reedots.html
>
> FreeDots can convert MusicXML files to braille music
notation.
> It also features (since recently, and this is why I
post this here)
> a GUI for interactively working with the resulting
braille music notation.
> This GUI is context sensitive, i.e, if you move the
editing cursor
> around, the braille symbol underneath it is played
back, and some
> information about it is displayed in the statusbar. 
You can also
> edit notes in the score this way.  Currently, only
changing the
> octave of a note up and down is implemented, but much
more is planned.
>
> This will finally allow us to make better use of OMR
software.
> With FreeDots, in the future, you will be able to just
move the editing cursor
> to a symbol that is wrong, and invoke some editing
commands to fix it yourself.
>
> This is all done in GTK with Orca as a screen reader. 
While
> I am myself 100% blind, it has proven very easy to get
the
> initial GUI going.  I think this is a very strong sign
for
> how good GNOME Accessibility is working these days.
> If a blind person can hack up a GUI and actually use it
for
> something in pretty much a few hours, you guys must
have been doing something
> right lately 
>
> FreeDots uses Unicode for outputting braille.  This
turned out to
> be a very good decision, since when I added the GUI to
the project, I
> did not have to do anything to get braille displayed
correctly,
> it all just worked magically.  The fonts for unicode
braille were
> already installed apparently, and BrlAPI already
handles Unicode braille
> if it comes from a client (orca in this case).
>
> For those of you that can see, here is a screenshot of
an early version of
> the GUI: htt
p://delysid.org/images/freedots_screenshot.png
> The current release (0.1beta5) adds a few more things
not seen on
> this screenshot, so if you are interested I recommend
you better
> download the current version and check it out .
>
> Honestly, I always thought GNOME Accessibility is for
me basically just
> a way to get Firefox (and therefore web applications)
working.  But this
> scepticism has changed now.  I am actually using GNOME
to develop a user
> interface for something I need to do.  While I could
have done this
> on the console as well, it seems much more efficient to
reuse the great
> work already done for building user interfaces.  In
fact,
> all I need is a gtk.TextView widget, reimplementing
> all of it in a separate console application would have
consumed
> far too much time for no real gain at all.
>
> While FreeDots is already very useful to myself, there
are many things
> not implemented yet.
> Braille music notation is a pretty complicated standard
and there are
> many special rules that have not been implemented yet.
> MusicXML is a pretty complete standard for representing
musical
> scores.  Things like ntuples, ties, invisible rests and
so on are
> not yet implemented in FreeDots.  The GUI will also
need a lot
> of work to allow editing all the apsects of a braille
music symbol.
> So if you are a potential user, please check it out,
but do not
> expect too much yet.  The project is pretty much in
concept-stage at the moment.
> And if you might be able to help on the contributing
side, please do so!
> There is too much to do for just the spare time of a
single person.
>
> All in all, a final thank you to the GNOME
Accessibility crew, you've
> really managed to achieve a useable system with GNOME
2.22!
>
>   

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Orca-listgnome.org
http
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Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca
 for more information on Orca