Installation

Basic dependency

Requirement for version 0.2.x has been bumped up significantly:

  • ImageMagick ≥ 6.3.6-2 (due to usage of -alpha and -flatten options)
  • Wordpress ≥ 2.2
  • PHP 5.x
  • GhostScript (should be usually pre-installed on Linux; but on Windows you have to download it from official cite; ImageMagick needs it to convert PostScript to PNG image. Using prepackaged Windows installer should be fine, ImageMagick can use it once it is installed.)

For those who want to use this plugin but can’t meet the demanding requirement (especially ImageMagick and PHP5), please download version 0.1.3 here. It only requires ImageMagick 6, WordPress 2.0.3 and PHP 4.4.x. If your hosting machine is using PHP4, it’s better to keep that version rather than upgrade.

External program dependency

Depending on the notation used, various other programs (except for Guido notation) may need to be installed on the web server:

  • Lilypond notation: Lilypond ≥ 2.8.1
  • Mup notation: Mup (unregistered version will print a BIG watermark on the sheet music)
  • ABC notation: Since 0.2.x, abcm2ps is strictly required. Any other ABC notation compatible programs have not been tested at all; some might work, but you have to modify source code and get it work.
  • PMW notation: PMW version 4.12. (I have tested older version, and that completely sucks) Note that no Windows binary is available, nor prepackaged Linux binary in any distribution I know of.

Configuration

Important note 1: Site admin must disable ‘WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically’ checkbox under ‘Option → Writing’ page. Otherwise this option will mangle certain Lilypond and Mup constructs, and cause render error. To be specific, the aforementioned option will forcefully insert space in between double angle brackets ‘<<’ and ‘>>’, and there is no way to circumvent it (yet).

Important note 2: Authors should also disable visual editor (TinyMCE), and use HTML instead, since visual editor would mangle some kind of syntax (especially for Lilypond and Mup) and destroy the fragments.

Here are some of the important settings to take care of:

Image cache directory The folder containing all cached copies of rendered images
Image cache URL The same folder, but using web accessible URL
Show music source in new browser window/tab If enabled, image will be clickable and source will be shown
Invert image colours Becoming white on black, instead of black on white
Use transparent background Add transparency to PNG image (Won’t work with IE6 or below)

The interaction of last 2 settings can be decided in the following matrix:

No Invert Invert
No Transparency Black note
White background		 White note
Black background
With Transparency Black note
Transparent background		 White note
Transparent background

Usage

In posts, pages and comments, enclose each kind of music fragments with corresponding tags:

Notation Start tag End tag
ABC [abc] [/abc]
GUIDO [guido] [/guido]
Lilypond [lilypond] [/lilypond]
Mup [mup] [/mup]

About how to use and learn the notations, please refer to documentation about each format in demo pages.