Readme for the flabc source distribution
========================================

flabc
-----

flabc is an editor for abc text files that is based on the
cross platform C++ GUI toolkit FLTK. For converting abc
files to postscript and midi it relies on the additional 
external software abctab2ps and abc2midi.


Requirements
------------

In order to compile flabc from the sources, you need an ANSI C++ 
compiler with STL support. Moreover you need at least FLTK 1.1.7 
from www.fltk.org. Depending on your FLTK version there might be 
some bug fixes to FLTK recommended before you compile flabc. 
These patches are provided in the subdirectory "fltk-patches"; see
the file README therein for instructions how to apply these patches.
For MacOS X you should use the svn version of FLTK because in
FLTK 1.1.7 international characters and dead keys do not work on
MacOS X.

Compilation of flabce has been tested with the following compilers:

  gcc (as shipped with Xcode) on MacOS X
  gcc on Linux
  MingW32 on Windows


Installation
------------

To install flabc from the source code package,
do the following:

  - unpack the TGZ-archive eg. with "tar xzf"
  - change to the subdirectory "src"
  - to compile the source code, type "make"
  - to build the OSX app bundle type "make osxapp"
    this bundle can be copied anywhere

On Linux, if you have the ESP Package Manager (freely available
from http://www.easysw.com/epm/), you can alternatively create
an RPM (DEB) package with "make rpm" ("make deb") and then install
the created package with "rpm -i ..." ("dpkg -i ...").


Some Hints for Usage and Configuration
--------------------------------------

The main menu is accessible with the "Alt" key on Linux/Win32 and
with the Apple (aka "Command") key on OSX. Hence the keyboard
shortcut for listening to a tune is "Apple + A, L" on OSX and
"Alt + A, L" on Linux.

On OSX you can drag & drop files on flabc. Alternatively you 
can open an abc file 'bla.abc' from the caommnd line with 
"open -a flabc 'bla.abc'" when you have moced the application
bundle to some standard application directory (eg. $HOME/Applications).

When previewing or listening does not work check whether something
is wrong with the settings under "Options/System Environment".
On OSX the folder Contents/Resources/bin in the application bundle
is added to the search path by flabc automatically. It contains
a helper script "open-xapp" for calling X11 applcations from Fink
like gv or ghostview.


Copyright and Where to Get It
-----------------------------

Copyright (c) 2006 by Christoph Dalitz

flabc is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as given 
in the file LICENSE.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
file LICENSE for more details.

