Getting runabc to be fully functional has become more complicated in the past year. Besides the abcMIDI and abcm2ps software it now links to numerous other applications which you should install on your system. Here is a list of these external programs.
| abc2svg |
| abcarus |
| abc2xml |
| xml2abc |
| muscore |
| ghostscript |
On Windows PC, you can still run setup_runabc.exe, which will get and install some of the essential packages. Note that even if you are only running the runabc executable, you may wish to download runabc.zip. Besides runabc.tcl, it contains other useful stuff, such as an icon (runabc.ico), *.fmt files for abc*2ps, sample abc files and a description of the latest updates in runhistory.txt. Note that all the files including runabc.tcl are text files which can be viewed with any editor.
On other platforms you will be starting from the source code and getting runabc to run will require more work. At this point, we shall assume that you would like to get runabc.tcl working from source code on Windows PC. (On Linux tcl/tk may already be installed, or you can install it using the package handlers)
Runabc.tcl is merely a big text file which has grown to more than 28,000 lines in the past 15 years. It will require a tcl/tk interpreter which you should now get from magicsplat.com. Version tcl/tk 8.6 is sufficient. I have not tested it on version 9.0; and I understand there are a few incompatibilites. Select the package appropriate for your system and install it. The tcl/tk package without the source code is somewhat over 9 Mbytes on my computer.
Once the tcl/tk interpreter is installed, you can start runabc.tcl by clicking on its icon. (On other systems, you may need to start it by the command 'wish runabc.tcl' in the command window.) Runabc.tcl will immediately create and update a folder called runabc_home where it will store the file runabc.ini. This file saves the user's settings and states. It is also used for storing other temporary files. Runabc will check its status and tell you what external programs that you will need. If the external programs are found, it will check that they are the right version. You can get the executables for these programs (for all operating systems) from The ABC Plus Project. Once these programs are on your system, you need to tell runabc where they are on your system by going to the menu item Options/ABC executables and filling in or updating the information in the entry boxes. (On Windows, you can avoid installing python since you can get abc2mxl.exe and mxl2abc.exe which have python embedded.) The first 5 entry boxes are the most critical.
As of version 2.349, runabc no longer displays PostScript files directly. Instead it converts the PostScript file into a pdf file and calls an internet browser to display the pdf file. Though runabc no longer displays PostScript files directly, it still needs the GhostScript package to convert the PostScript files into other formats (eg. pdf).
You also need the James Allwrights's abcMIDI package consisting of abc2midi, yaps, abc2abc and other programs. James Allwright is no longer supporting this package and I have made numerous fixes as well as added new features. Executables for the package are available for some platforms; otherwise you will need to build them yourself from the source code.
You can also find the latest abcMIDI sources of abcMIDI from my main page http://ifdo.ca/~seymour/runabc/top.html and compile it on your system. Executables for Microsoft Windows can also be found on the same site.
To convert the abc files to postscript files displaying the sheet music, you also need Jeff Moine's abcm2ps package. The executable for the PC is included with abcMIDI executables on my site.
Jeff Moine's abcsvg JavaScript software allows you to both render and play the abc sheet music. A MIDI player is also handy. They usually come with the operating system or sound card. If you wish to install TiMidity package, You will also need free soundFont patches and tell Timidity where they are located on your computer. There is other midi players which already include these soundFont files.
You can find many other software packages and abc notated files from Chris Walshaw's, The abc Homepage.
Return to top level to download runabc.zip.