ABC Plugin (for displaying sheet music)

• Download the Plugin
• Bugs / Feature Wishes
• Source Repository
• Thank the Author

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

See http://abcnotation.org.uk/ for more information.

• WikiSophia does not use ABC but lilypond
• one attempt to implement ABC is the ABC plugin for PhpWiki Link does not work
• another attempt is an ABC plugin for MoinMoin
• there is also the AbcMusic recipe for PmWiki
• and finally the “big one” got its AbcMusic extension for MediaWiki

• convert from ImageMagick (GPL-compatible license)
  • which should use Ghostscript (GPL or AFPL) – see Andi's tutorial on ImageMagick for details
• abcm2ps (GPL 2)
• abc2midi from abcMIDI (GPL 2, 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)
• Ghostscript's ps2pdf (only needed if you want to have PDF files created instead of PS files)

Download and install the latest version of the plugin (for DokuWiki versions 2006-11-06 - 2009-12-25) using the Plugin Manager using the URL given above. Refer to Plugins on how to install plugins manually.

Download version 2006-02-27a for older DokuWiki versions (2005-07-01 - 2006-03-09)

Please use the Configuration Manager to configure the needed variables! (If you want to change these manually, you can edit ./lib/plugins/abc/conf/default.php instead.)

Since version 2006-12-09 a file icon for midi files was added. 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 my mid.png or any other) and comment out the last lines of style.css.

You can do the same with a possible abc icon …

Please read the README that comes with the zip file!

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.

<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

Since version 2005-11-20 it is possible to let the plugin transpose for you by an extra parameter. This parameter has to be a number between -23 and 23, which is the amount of semitones the tune will be transposed up (if positive) or down (if negative).

Since version 2006-02-21 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.

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. There is an internal debug variable, which can be turned on for more detailed hints what could be wrong (”var $_debug = 1;” near the top of syntax.php).
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.

• I only just began to learn PHP, so please feel free to make improvements!
• 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.
• I have successfully tested on Windows2000 and Linux Debian.
• You can test the plugin at this live wiki: http://abcwiki.selfthinker.org/

• 2008-08-17:
  • made abc media namespace configurable (if your wiki closed, this could fix a security issue)
  • added the option to display the error logs of abcm2ps and abc2midi (only once when the page is saved or previewed)
  • fixed browser caching for changed media files
  • fixed preview of a revision
  • improved error messages
• 2007-06-03:
  • support for (many) UTF-8 characters, which will be automatically converted into their equivalent escape sequence
  • formerly nothing was displayed when the image failed to be generated, now an error is displayed instead
  • two config options were added for the possibility of changing the abcm2ps parameters for the image and ps/pdf generation
• 2006-12-09:
  • support for PDF file creation
  • for the list of abc, midi, PS/PDF files corresponding file icons for different media types are used
  • when doing a ”?purge=1”, the behaviour for not parsing unchanged source again, is avoided
  • a simple (hidden) way to debug was added
  • the style.css was changed (so was a bit of the HTML output)
• 2006-07-23:
  • no more usage of the .trans file
  • if transposition parameters have changed, only the necessary files are parsed again
  • old transposed files will now be deleted
  • upgraded for ability to use the config manager for configuration
  • from now on the abc source is always in the HTML source (for search engine optimization)
  • rough error handling
• 2006-02-27a: bugfix for creation of ps file when no fmt file is used
• 2006-02-27: bugfix for preview and revisions (similar to 670) and reaction to deletion of $conf['dmask']
• 2006-02-21: enhanced transposition functionality
• 2005-11-21: bugfix for handling file names (realpath) of more than 120 characters and changing the file base
• 2005-11-20: new transposition functionality
• 2005-10-23: first functioning version!
• 2005-07-04: first version

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

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

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&media=plugin_abc:";

to

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

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