When the application starts, the “New tune” window opens: choose the title, composer, page format (A4 portrait or landscape) and tune type (March, Retreat, Strathspey, Reel, Hornpipe, Jig); a document opens with the measures and repeats needed for the chosen tune type. If you choose (Custom...) you can set the time signature and the number of measures.
In the File menu: “New” (Cmd+N) opens the “New tune” window; “Open” (Cmd+O) opens the window where you choose an already saved tune; “Import BWW…” opens a window where you choose a Bagpipe Player file, which can then be edited.
You can keep several tunes open. If one is already open, the new tune opens as a tab in the application's main window. Click the tab with the tune's title to switch to that tune. The X on the tab closes it. If changes have been made, the application asks whether you want to save.
Writing notes
Choose a value, with the dot if you want, from the values measure, then click on the staff: the note is inserted at the pitch of the click.
With a note selected, the up/down arrows move it by one step, left/right move the selection, Shift + left/right nudge its position slightly (fine adjustment, graphic only). Delete (or the eraser) removes it.
On the Embellishments row, on the right, reminders appear when you select a note with the Note tool: “↑ ↓ ← →” reminds you that the arrow keys move it (the arrows appear with a single note selected), and “+ ⇧” that with the Shift key you can continue the selection or adjust the notes' position. Each symbol turns red while you press the matching key. The “+ ⇧” also appears with the Arrow tool when you select a measure: with Shift + click you extend the selection to other measures.
When you select several notes (by dragging a rectangle or with Shift + click) only the notes are highlighted, not the whole measure. To select measures, click a measure or drag a rectangle where there are no notes.
Tie: select two consecutive notes of the same pitch by clicking the first and, holding Shift, clicking the second (or drag a rectangle around the two), then click the Tie icon in the Values tool; click again to remove the tie.
Triplet: write three notes of the same value where two would normally go, select them (click the first and Shift+click the third, or drag), then click the triplet icon: they are joined under a beam with a small 3. With quarter notes, which have no beam, the triplet is marked by a bracket with the 3 below the notes. Click again to ungroup. To write a triplet even in an almost full measure: choose the value, click the triplet icon (it highlights, with no notes selected) and write three notes in a row; the space for the whole triplet is reserved from the first note.
By selecting one or more measures, with Cmd+X, Cmd+C, Cmd+V or the icons in the toolbar, you can cut, copy and paste them onto the selection of an empty or already written measure. If you copied several measures, just select one measure, which will be the first of the measures to paste.
From the Edit menu: “Add measures…”, or from the toolbar icon, after selecting a measure, you can add the chosen number of measures, before or after the selected measure. If no measure is selected the command adds one after the last measure of the tune.
From the Edit menu and the matching toolbar icons, with “Add system”, after selecting any measure inside a system, a window with three choices opens, so you can add a staff with 4 measures; with “Add pickup measure…” a window opens where you choose the value of the pickup measure and whether it should be inserted in all parts of the tune.
The “Page orientation” icon switches the page between portrait and landscape.
Embellishments
The “Embellishments” drop-down menu (below the toolbar) chooses the embellishment: with a note selected it is added to the note; once chosen it stays active for the notes you enter next. If an embellishment is not allowed on that note, the app beeps.
The “Choose values and embellishments” icon in the toolbar opens a window with the keyboard shortcuts, matching the entries of the “Embellishments” menu and the “Values” tool. With it you can choose the value and the embellishment faster using the keyboard.
Shortcut keys are ignored while you are typing a text.
G D E: with an eighth note selected (between Low G and C) it turns it into three eighth notes with the G, D, E gracenotes; with three notes selected (also by dragging a rectangle), it adds the G, D, E gracenotes to the three notes. With no notes selected, after choosing the eighth note and G D E (key Q), each click on the staff (from Low G to C) writes the three eighth notes with the G, D, E gracenotes straight away.
Doubling: after a High G or a High A, on notes from F downwards it becomes a Half Doubling; after a High G a menu next to it lets you choose the HiA Doubling. On High G after a High A it writes a High G Strike (the red X in the menu cancels it).
Simple Strike, Strike and Double Strike: only on the second of two equal notes. On D a menu next to it chooses the grace note (C or Low G).
Birl: only on Low A, with a menu to choose a 3-, 4- or 5-note Birl (after a High A it is always the 4-note one, with no menu).
Darado: only on B, after a Low G or a C.
Grip and Taorluath use B instead of D when the previous note is a D.
Free gracenote: the button with the grace note at the end of the values measure; it is activated with no notes selected, its pitch is that of the clicked point and it applies to the note that follows.
Repeats and endings
The “Barlines” tool contains the “Open repeat” and “End repeat…” signs. By selecting a measure you can open or close a repeat. Depending on your choice, a window with settings opens.
Playback follows repeats and 1st/2nd time endings.
Raising a repeat bracket: at the top-left corner of each bracket there is a small circle (on screen only, not printed). Click it and use the up/down arrows, or drag it with the mouse: the horizontal line goes up while the vertical ticks stay on the staff. Clicking elsewhere deselects it.
Deleting an end repeat: select the measure with the end repeat sign (or a measure of one of its endings), open “End repeat…” and press “Remove repeat”: the end repeat sign and all its endings, for both the 1st and the 2nd time, are removed.
Deleting a start repeat: select the start repeat measure and click the sign in the ToolBar.
Shared bracket: if the text of a second-time bracket is “N of P” (for example “2 of 2”), its measures are played normally where they are written and, on pass N of the repeat of part P, they replace the last measures of that part (as many as the bracket has).
Variant in the measure (1st / 2nd time): use it when, in the last measure of a part, one or more final notes change between the first and the second time. Select the note (or the first of several notes) where the variant starts, open End repeat… and choose Variant in the measure (1st / 2nd time). From the selected note to the end of the measure, the notes become the 1st-time version. The 2nd-time version appears next to it as a copy, to be edited note by note. Each version must fill the measure; the brackets 1. and 2. appear above the two versions, closed by vertical ticks. Playback plays the common notes and the version for the current time. Remove repeat on the measure removes the variant and keeps the 1st-time version. BWW import recognises variants within a measure and the shared endings 2 of 2 and 2 of 4.
Selecting and arranging measures
The “Arrow” tool selects measures (Shift+click to extend, or drag a rectangle).
Notes are automatically distributed across the whole width of the measure, with spacing proportional to their value.
The “Notation size” icon, or the matching command in the Tools menu, sets the size of the tune's notation, from 100% to 50% (default 75%).
The “Staff spacing” and “Top margin” icons, or the matching commands in the Tools menu, adjust the page spacing.
Texts
Title, tune type and composer are edited by clicking the respective texts on the page. The footer texts (left and right) are always available at the bottom of every page: click to write; if you leave them empty they are not printed.
The “Aa” menu chooses the font, style and size of the selected text.
The “T” tool adds free texts: click the page to write, drag the handle to move the text.
Listening (Playback)
The “Playback” icon, or the matching command in the Tools menu, opens the window with the controls (back, stop, play and pause). The space measure starts and stops playback.
You can adjust the tempo, the metronome (with different sounds) and the tune and metronome volumes. The sound is that of a chanter with three drones; the drones can be turned off; the pitch is fixed at 470 Hz.
Count-in measures: the menu (0-4) puts click-only measures before the tune; with a value greater than 0 the metronome turns on. The click on the first beat of each measure is louder. If a note is selected, Playback starts from that note.
Intro rolls: with the checkbox on (the Drones checkbox must be active) it simulates the intro rolls of pipe bands. After the intro rolls the metronome continues only if it is on. Intro rolls resets the “Count-in measures”, and choosing count-in measures turns it off.
Printing and export
File “Print…” (Cmd+P) or the matching toolbar icon prints the tune; the “Export PDF” icon, or the matching command in the “File” menu, saves the tune as a PDF.
The “Open” (folder with up arrow) and “Save” (down arrow, red if there are changes, green if the tune is saved) icons are in the toolbar.
Toolbars
The palettes can be opened as floating windows, either with the button next to the group or with the commands in the “View” menu.
