Note-eater is a potential Forth killer application.
Why?
Because it redefines the way a mouse is used,
in the fashion Chuck Moore redefines the problems before
they are solved.
And because all music notation programs are lousy and cumbersome.
Example sequence:
Note: of course all icons are the same as the musical notation.
Each category has associated the drawings of what you will see on the screen. Only items that are ticked in the top menu will be present in the context dependant drop down menu's.
Single clicking of any item pops up, after waiting, the area sensitive menu that was used to create the item. In particular clicking on a note or rest allows to change the duration. The menu doesn't appear immediately. A short click selects a default action, mostly minimizing. So: once an object is drawn you can click on it to diminish it ( a quaver becomes an eight note) or click long to get the menu, that defaults to a prolongation (a quaver becomes a half note). This is the same notion as undo redo.
A vertical movement to the left of the score beams connects them by curly braces.
A vertical movement amounting to the width of a score beam creates a note-bar, including optional connected score beams.
A small vertical movement in the middle of a score beam creates a rest of default duration. Think of it as creation a note, where by moving you indicate there is no defined tone pitch. The duration can be changed similarly to a quaver note.
Any combination of items can be lassoed by outlining it with the left button.
Double clicking any item is equivalent to lassoing it.
An oblique stroke selects a square area, which is easier than lassoing. If the stroke starts and ends on a note, a pop up appears to choose from area selection or a natural or chromatic scale.
A lassoed item can be copied by the middle button. The earliest and lowest note is the lead note. The lead note appears at the position where the middle button is clicked. Legato-category items can be copied too, in combination with the notes they are attached to.
A lassoed item can be dragged by the right button, in the usual fashion.
The sensitive area to the right of any note or rest can be used to dot the note or rest, i.e. increase the duration by half. A new sensitive area is created.
Small notes are just written, and later on made smaller.
Top menu items can be grayed, and they will not be appear in the pop up menu's. Top menu items can be reordered by drag and drop of the left button, and they will appear in the pop up menu's in that order. A very long menu can be split ( think of all musical tempi) by drawing it to the right and once it has submenu's created in this way menu items can be drawn to submenu's and vice versa. Emptying a submenu, will make it disappear.
A mouse pointer hoovering above a sensitive area long enough results in a help display consisting of the menu, but non-selectable.
In general the right button selects a tool.
Default the tool is undo. Short button press is undo, long button
press is redo.
The animation of undo is a clock with an anti clock wise arrow,
going back from 7 o'clock to a quarter to seven.
Redo goes the other way.
Other tool may be delete. Sort button press is delete (yank) , long button
press is undelete.
Sensitive areas are marked with vague colored pictures of what results
when you click there. E.g. the score
is littered with quavers.
They are either light red, such as quavers, or light green, or the dot behind
a not, or the sharp sign before a note.
Or they are green for objects drawn by a clear vertical or horizontal
mouse movement, such as the vertical measure separation, or the extension bars
above the bars.
The left button does the position dependant drawing, the right does some context sensitive
drawing, i.e. it depends on which tools is chosen.