Bugs & problems

I encourage everybody to report bugs or problems that you encounter back to me so that these can be omitted in a next release. Also, I am open for suggestions for enhancement of both the program and the manual.

Piet van Oostrum suggested that this same program should also be able to translate type 0 MIDI files. I have adjusted the source code such that type 0 files now do not induce an error exit. I tested a few of such files without succes. Nevertheless, I decided to allow processing of such files for those of you who wish to experiment. When a type 0 file is encountered a warning is displayed on the screen that the result may be unpredictable. I would be pleased if anybody would share his experience with translating type 0 MIDI files with me.

Bugs may appear in two different forms: run-time errors and infinite loops. The first one generates an error-exit: the open files are closed and the program terminates. The second type of bug can be recognized by the fact that the displaying of processed measures stops. Just hit the 'q' and the program terminates. Error messages and warnings are listed in the appendix.

If you find any problems I suggest to run the program in debug mode, section [*], -d option preferably in FILE mode. Then, send the MIDI file and a small note explaining the problem to me. I'll try to collect the problems and avoid them in a next version. Please send compressed (ARC, ZOO, LZH, ZIP), uuencoded files to:

kuykens@amc.uva.nl

or send by mail to:

Hans Kuykens
Spaarndammerplts. 7b
1013 XP Amsterdam
The Netherlands
 

The following problems are known to me:

  1. Notes which have a MIDI value larger or smaller than the notes accepted by MusicTEX  are coded as question marks (?). This causes TEX to stop processing. One way to solve this problem is to octivate the measure. Automatic octivation is not (yet) implemented in MusicTEX .

  2. Flat and sharp signs may disappear under a preceding note in score lines with very close spacing. This is a MusicTEX problem.

  3. Notes in a chord are not shifted in any way.

  4. Closing of double sounding notes may corrupt the beaming business.

  5. The program fails to run on the Atari TT.