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+
+ New Mup Features
+
+ 1. New Mup Features
+
+ 1.1 New Features in Mup Version 5.3
+
+ Version 5.3 is primarily focused on ease of use
+ enhancements. The largest item is the additional of a
+ companion program, called Mupmate, that provides an
+ interface for editing, displaying, and playing Mup files
+ with the kinds of menus and windows that many people are
+ used to. The Help menu will take you right to the Mup User's
+ Guide, which has also had improvements made. If you are a
+ user who prefers the command line interface that Mup has
+ always had, don't worry; we like to use that too, and have
+ no intention of dropping support for it.
+
+ Windows users now only need to download a single file and
+ execute it to install everything (although you still need to
+ get and install GSview and Ghostscript separately, if you
+ want to use that for viewing the PostScript files). Other
+ users can also just download a single file that contains
+ both program and documentation.
+
+ Other new features in 5.3 include:
+
+ - Error and warning messages have been enhanced to show
+ you the text of the line of input where the problem was
+ found.
+
+ - There is a new pagesize parameter that lets you specify
+ paper size by common names like letter or a4, as an
+ alternate to specifying pageheight and pagewidth in
+ inches or cm.
+
+ - There is a new vcombine parameter, that lets you enter
+ notes on separate voices, yet have them printed on a
+ common stem when possible. Typical uses are:
+
+ - To have separate MIDI tracks for different voices,
+ yet have the voices printed on common stems.
+
+ - For a style of printing where a single stem is
+ used for the two voices on a staff except when the
+ voices share a common note, when two opposing
+ stems are printed.
+
+ - The scorepad parameter now accepts an optional maximum
+ value, in addition to the minimum value.
+
+ 1.2 New Features in Mup Version 5.2
+
+ - There is now a generalized 'if' clause' that is much
+ more flexible and powerful than the simple ifdef and
+ ifndef. These provide capabilities somewhat similar to
+ the preprocessors for the C and C++ languages.
+
+ - Complicated time signatures are now supported. This
+ includes a numerator with two or more numbers added
+ together, like 3+4 / 4, or two or more fractions added
+ together, like 3/4 + 3/8. Alternating time signatures,
+ such as when a piece continuously switches between 3/4
+ and 6/8, are also supported.
+
+ - The beamstyle and timeunit parameter values associated
+ with a time signature are now remembered, so that if
+ you later change back to the same time signature, you
+ don't have to also set the beamstyle and timeunit at
+ the same time; the value used previously for that time
+ signature will be restored automatically. (Note that
+ if you have existing Mup files that rely on the old
+ behavior, they may need small modifications, but that
+ should be rare.)
+
+ - It is now possible to force stem direction on voices 1
+ and 2 even when the other voice is not space.
+
+ - Improvements have been made to how the angle for beams
+ is calculated. The "best" angle for a beam is
+ sometimes somewhat subjective, but in general, these
+ changes will result in more cases where beams are
+ horizontal or less sloped,
+
+ - There are also additional ways you can control beams:
+ A new slope interchord attribute lets you force a
+ specific slope. The new stemshorten parameter lets you
+ determine how much a chord's stem is allowed to be
+ shortened when it is beamed. And the existing len
+ chord attribute can now be set for just one end of a
+ beamed set of chords as an alternative to setting it at
+ both ends.
+
+ - The HTML version of the Mup User's Guide now includes
+ 'next page' and 'previous page' links on each page.
+
+ 1.3 New Features in Mup Version 5.1
+
+ - You may specify a time value that is the summation of
+ several time values. This can be used to obtain
+ beaming, lyrics, or tuplets with durations that cannot
+ be represented with a single time value, like a half
+ note plus an eighth note. It also gives an alternate
+ way to specify chord ties.
+
+ - Cross-staff stems are now supported.
+
+ - You can now explicitly specify a direction of "up" on
+ rolls to get an upward arrow drawn at the top of the
+ roll. (Before, only a downward roll would get an
+ arrow.)
+
+ - Mup will now allow you to beam across spaces as well as
+ rests.
+
+ - There is a new restsymmult parameter. Setting it to y
+ will cause Mup to use an alternate style for multirests
+ of eight measures or less, which uses rest symbols.
+
+ - There is a new string sequence that will be replaced by
+ the page number of the last page. This may useful to
+ be able to automatically get output like "Page 2 of 4
+ pages."
+
+ - There is a new option for printing of tuplet numbers,
+ where the number is always printed, but the bracket is
+ never printed.
+
+ - If you want to have the same lyrics above some staffs
+ and below others, it is now possible to specify that on
+ a single input line, rather than requiring two.
+
+ - Improvements have been made to how voice 3 is placed,
+ which will often eliminate the need to manually specify
+ a horizontal offset.
+
+ 1.4 New Features in Mup Version 5.0
+
+ - Mup now supports the shaped notes often used in "Sacred
+ Harp" music, also sometimes called "fasola" notation.
+ New note head characters are available for the most
+ common system of 4 shapes, as well as a system with 7
+ shapes. As part of this feature, there is a new
+ headshape context and a new noteheads parameter that
+ lets you define what shapes will be used for notes.
+
+ - Note head shapes can also be specified on specific
+ chords or a specific note within a chord. This makes
+ it possible to do things like have both normal and X-
+ shaped notes on the same stem.
+
+ - There are new "slash" note heads, often used to
+ indicate repeated chords, and a new "blankhead" note
+ head, that can be used if you just want a stem without
+ any note head.
+
+ - There is a new stemlen parameter that lets you set the
+ default stem length. A common use for this would be to
+ set this parameter to 0.0, to not have any stems at all
+ (sometimes used for chant).
+
+ - It is now possible to change the clef, defoct, and
+ release parameters in the middle of a measure.
+
+ - You can now include raw PostScript in the input to the
+ copied to the output. This could be used, for example,
+ to include a picture or logo with your music.
+
+ - In addition to the old way of specifying key signature,
+ by stating the number of sharps or flats, it is now
+ possible to specify the key by name, as in "a major" or
+ "c# minor."
+
+ - There is a new swingunit parameter. Some styles of
+ music are often written with straight eighth notes or
+ dotted-eighth-sixteeen notations, but where the players
+ "know" that the composer really wants the music played
+ with the first note in each pair twice as long as the
+ second, as if it were a quarter-eighth triplet. This
+ parameter will make Mup's MIDI output automatically
+ follow that kind of performance convention.
+
+ - It is possible to set the rehearsal letter or number to
+ a specific value, to override the automatic
+ incrementing. This might be especially useful when
+ there are multiple songs or movements in a single Mup
+ file.
+
+ 1.5 New Features in Mup Version 4.6
+
+ - There are new top, bottom, top2, and bottom2 contexts
+ that let you define a second layer of headers and
+ footers. These new contexts can be changed multiple
+ times in a file, so you can use different headings and
+ footing for different songs or movements within a file.
+
+ - There is a new "block" context, that lets you place
+ blocks of text in your musical scores.
+
+ - There is a new paragraph command for printing long
+ sections of text that you would like to have
+ automatically wrapped around unto as many lines as
+ needed. The right margin can be justified or ragged.
+
+ - For Linux, in addition to being available in tar.gz
+ format, Mup files are now available in rpm package
+ format, for very quick-and-easy installation. The MS-
+ DOS/Windows Mup files are now available as self-
+ extracting zip files, so you don't need to have an
+ unzip program to unpack them.
+
+ - The visible parameter now accepts a value of
+ "whereused." With this value, when a staff has no
+ notes on an entire score, that staff is not printed.
+ This might be used, for example, to save paper on an
+ orchestral score by only printing staffs for
+ instruments when they are actually playing.
+
+ - There are new parameters measnumfont,
+ measnumfontfamily, and measnumsize, to control the
+ appearance of automatic measure numbers.
+
+ - It is now possible to unset parameters in voice or
+ staff context, to make them revert to their values in
+ the next more general context where they are set (staff
+ or score).
+
+ - When a repeatstart gets moved to the beginning of a
+ score, sometimes you'd like the bar line at the end of
+ the previous score to be a double bar rather than
+ single bar. It is now possible to specify that.
+
+ - There is a new -F option that is like the -f option,
+ except it derives the name of the output file based on
+ the name of the input file, rather than you needing to
+ specify an output file name.
+
+ - The Mup input file name is given in the PostScript
+ output file, so that PostScript viewer programs like gv
+ can use it in their window title.
+
+ - There is now a majordomo mailing list available for
+ registered Mup users. This is a forum for talking with
+ other Mup users, to discuss questions and tips on using
+ Mup.
+
+ 1.6 New Features in Mup Version 4.5
+
+ - There is a new -x option that lets you extract a
+ portion of a song. This can be especially useful for
+ MIDI, where you might want to listen to just a few
+ measures in the middle or end of a piece. But it also
+ works in printing mode, so you can print just an
+ excerpt of a piece.
+
+ - It is now possible to specify "subbeams," both with
+ custom beaming and via the beamstyle parameter. This
+ can be used when there are a lot of very short notes,
+ and you want to subdivide the beam groupings.
+
+ - The drawing of phrase marks, ties, and slurs has been
+ re-implemented to produce more aesthetically pleasing
+ curves.
+
+ - There is a new special character, called \(space),
+ which is printed like a normal space on output, but
+ which is not treated like a space when Mup is looking
+ for word or syllable boundaries. The most common use
+ for this would probably be on chant lyrics, where you
+ want several words to be sung to the same note. It
+ might also be useful in cases where Mup would normally
+ split a long string at a word boundary to avoid running
+ off the edge of a page, but for some reason you want to
+ prevent that splitting.
+
+ - It is possible to print a text string centered above a
+ line. This is likely to be the most useful for
+ printing "gliss." by a wavy line for a glissando, but
+ it can be used on any kind of line.
+
+ - There are some new user-donated files, including a
+ Windows installer, and Mup syntax files for nedit and
+ vim.
+
+ 1.7 New Features in Mup Version 4.4
+
+ - Many of the changes in this release were to make Mup
+ conform more closely with established guidelines or
+ rules for musical notation. This mainly involved small
+ adjustments to cosmetic details, like how accidentals
+ and dots are placed. For mid-score clef changes, the
+ clef is now placed before the barline, as it should be,
+ rather than after. There is also an improved algorithm
+ for determining where to end the underscores on lyrics.
+
+ - The use of labels, both labels associated with
+ individual staffs and labels associated with staffs
+ grouped by braces or brackets, has been made more
+ flexible. It used to be that the "label" was only used
+ on the very first score, with "label2" used on all
+ subsequent scores. Thus resetting label after the
+ beginning really had no effect. Now, however, whenever
+ a new label is specified, that label will be used for
+ the next score, going back to label2 for subsequent
+ scores. As an example, this might be useful if staff 1
+ was used for just soprano at the beginning of the song,
+ so you wanted label="Soprano" and label2="S" for that
+ portion, but later soprano and alto share the staff, so
+ you would like label="Soprano/alto" to clearly point
+ out the change, but then revert to just "SA" on
+ subsequent staffs, to conserve space.
+
+ - You can specify a bulge direction for note ties, note
+ slurs, chord ties, and chord slurs, if you wish to
+ override Mup's choice of direction.
+
+ - You can now use \s(PV) or \s(previous) in a text string
+ to return to the previous size.
+
+ - The 8treble clef is now supported. This is like the
+ treble8 clef, except the 8 is printed above the G clef
+ rather than below it, to show notes that sound an
+ octave <I>higher</I> than a normal treble clef.
+
+ - Phrase marks can now have an optional line type
+ modifier of dotted or dashed.
+
+ 1.8 New Features in Mup Version 4.3
+
+ - There is a new rehstyle parameter that controls whether
+ rehearsal marks are boxed, circled, or plain.
+
+ - It is no longer necessary to specify verse numbers for
+ lyrics (unless you want to skip a verse). If not
+ specified, each succeeding set of lyrics for a given
+ staff and place defaults to having a verse number one
+ more than the previous verse.
+
+ - There is a new way to force the position of individual
+ lyrics syllables that is particularly useful for
+ ensuring that verse numbers or the beginnings of poetic
+ lines align consistently on all verses.
+
+ - There are new -E and -C options that let you see how
+ macros expand, which can help you in debugging very
+ complex macros.
+
+ - There is a new staffpad parameter, and the value of the
+ scorepad parameter can now be negative. Using negative
+ values for these can let you jam staffs or scores
+ closer together in cases where Mup is spacing them
+ wider apart than is really necessary.
+
+ - It is now possible to have more than one voice on
+ tablature staffs just like on non-tablature.
+
+ - It is now possible to temporarily override margins on a
+ particular score. This can let you indent one score
+ differently than the others, or end a piece with a
+ shorter-than-normal score.
+
+ - There is now an "alt pedstar" value for the pedstyle
+ parameter This is like the "pedstar" value except that
+ when there is a pedal "bounce," only a "Ped" is
+ printed, rather than a "* Ped."
+
+ - There is a new user-donated program called Winmup which
+ provides a Windows front-end for the MS-DOS version of
+ Mup. The Visual Basic source code for Winmup is also
+ available.
+
+ - Several miscellaneous changes were made to improve the
+ quality of printed output and to improve portability.
+ Current Mup users may find the layout of some songs may
+ change somewhat when they upgrade.
+
+ 1.9 New Features in Mup Version 4.2
+
+ - A third voice per staff is now supported.
+
+ - It is now possible to adjust the horizontal placement
+ of notes.
+
+ - It is now possible to beam across rests.
+
+ - The optional automatic measure numbers at the
+ beginnings of scores are now printed in a larger size.
+
+ - The chord-at-a-time input style has been made more
+ versatile. Previously, if a voice was mentioned in a
+ pattern, that voice could not be used for voice-at-a-
+ time input style in that measure, even if the pattern
+ was never actually used. Now the restriction only
+ applies if the pattern is actually used.
+
+ - Strings can be printed enclosed in a circle or elipse.
+
+ - There is a new beamslope parameter that controls the
+ maximum tilt for beams.
+
+ - There is a new pad parameter that provides an
+ additional way to control how close together note
+ groups are placed horizontally.
+
+ - There is a new MIDI "port" keyword. This can let you
+ assign different tracks to different ports on multi-
+ port MIDI devices, allowing for more than 16 channels.
+
+ - The minimum values for the scoresep and staffsep
+ parameters can now be set as low as 6, rather than the
+ previous minimum of 9.
+
+ 1.10 New Features in Mup Version 4.1
+
+ - Guitar grids can now be printed, either where they are
+ used in the music, or summarized at the end of a song.
+ There is also a library of pre-defined grids that you
+ can "include" in your music.
+
+ - Non-ASCII characters from the Latin-1 alphabet can now
+ be typed directly into strings in Mup input, rather
+ than needing to be specified by name. Shortcut names
+ have also been added for guillemots.
+
+ - The maximum number of staffs has been raised to 40.
+
+ - The stafflines and staffscale parameters can now be
+ changed at any bar line rather than only at the
+ beginning of a song. Changing either of them forces a
+ new score.
+
+ - The staffsep parameter can now be set on a per-staff
+ basis, rather than just for the score as a whole.
+
+ - There are new parameters that allow you to control the
+ order that items above, below, and between staffs are
+ stacked.
+
+ - It is now possible to turn off the automatic numbering
+ of measure repeats and the printing of multirest
+ numbers.
+
+ - It is now possible to specify the vertical placement of
+ a rest character, if you want to override Mup's
+ automatic placement.
+
+ - It is now possible to concatenate strings. This is
+ likely to be most useful in macros, but can be used
+ anywhere strings are used.
+
+ - There is a new firstpage parameter, which is similar to
+ the -p command line option, for setting the first page
+ number.
+
+ - There is a new restcombine parameter, which is similar
+ to the -c command line option, for automatically
+ combining a sequences of rest measures into multirests.
+
+ - Music symbols that occur inside ital or boldital
+ strings will automatically be made italics to match the
+ string.
+
+ - It is possible to vertically center lyrics. This is
+ useful when there is a refrain with identical words for
+ all verses, and you only want it printed once.
+
+ - It is now allowed to have a brace to the left of
+ brackets, to group a subset of staffs. (Previously,
+ only brackets were allowed to be nested that way.)
+
+ 1.11 New Features in Mup Version 4.0
+
+ - There is now an alternate input style, in which you can
+ enter music a chord at a time rather than a voice at a
+ time. For certain kinds of music, this may be more
+ natural, and allow you to enter music more quickly.
+ The previous input style has also been made more
+ flexible, such that it is now possible to specify that
+ one line of input will go to voice 1 on one staff or
+ set of staffs and voice 2 on another staff or set of
+ staffs. These enhancements make it easier to do things
+ like input a vocal score and automatically get a piano
+ reduction.
+
+ - It is now possible to transform a parameter passed to a
+ macro into a string. If you are a C programmer, you
+ will find this works somewhat like the # operator of
+ ANSI C preprocessor macros. If you're not a C
+ programmer, suffice it to say that this allows Mup
+ macros to be used to do things they couldn't do before.
+
+ - There is a new special bar type, called restart, that
+ lets you end the current set of staffs and begin a new
+ set of staffs on the same line, as is sometimes done
+ for a short coda.
+
+ - The symbols for accidentals (like # and &) are now
+ translated to their corresponding musical symbols
+ everywhere in chords, rather than only if they
+ immediately follow the letters A through G. You can,
+ however, turn off this automatic translation for
+ individual cases where you want them to be treated
+ literally.
+
+ - Quadruple whole rests are supported.
+
+ - It is possible to force a measure rest to be shown with
+ a rest symbol other than the whole rest symbol that is
+ usually used.
+
+ - There is a new addtranspose parameter. This enables you
+ to use the transpose parameter to change the
+ transposition on specific staffs for transposing
+ instruments, then use addtranpose to transpose the
+ entire score into a new key.
+
+ - There is a new warn parameter which allows you to
+ control whether warning messages are printed or not.
+
+ - There is a new ontheline parameter. This allows you to
+ control whether notes on 1-line staffs are printed
+ above, below, or on the line.
+
+ - The dist, chorddist, and crescdist parameters can be
+ overridden on individual items. A dist override can
+ also be specified on rehearsal marks. Each dist
+ override can also include a modifier to force items to
+ a specific place, even if they then overwrite other
+ items that Mup would normally avoid.
+
+ - There is a new -M option which is like the -m option,
+ except the name of the MIDI file is derived from the
+ Mup input file name, rather than requiring you to
+ supply a name.
+
+ - If a given input file name does not exist, Mup will try
+ appending .mup to the name and attempt to open that
+ file.
+
+ - It is now possible to specify an uncollapseable space.
+ This may be useful when drawing "slash" marks and at
+ other times.
+
+ - There is a new user-donated program called midi2mup,
+ which is a Perl script that can convert a MIDI file to
+ Mup input.
+
+ - The uguide gives examples of how to places verses as
+ text blocks below the scores.
+
+ 1.12 Coming Attractions
+
+ We're always interested in hearing about what features you
+ would like to see in the next version of Mup. What features
+ we add will depend on your input, so please send us a note
+ at support@arkkra.com.
~mdw / mup / blobdiff