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+
+
+New Mup Features
+
+
+New Mup Features
+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.
+
+
+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 directionon 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.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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 higher than
+a normal treble clef.
+
-
+Phrase marks can now have
+an optional line type modifier of dotted or dashed.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+New Features in Mup Version 4.2
+
+
+
+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.)
+
+
+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.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+