[CM] ETF or MusicXML output for CM?

[Rick Taube]

>
> I was thinking it would be nice if the "events" function had a method 
> for "*.etf" or "*.xml" files. Or else there could be a way to convert 
> from .cmn files, since CMN has already dealt with the complex task of 
> interpreting the rhythm and spelling of MIDI sequences.

something like this has been on my todo list for a very long time and 
and it is something that i may have to tackle to complete my next 
piece.  A student here (David Psenicka) already has code that generates 
lisp -> xml for the FInale plugin, so its simply a matter of me (or 
someone....) implementing his routines in terms of an event-stream 
class in cm, for which he has already granted permission.  its actually 
not that much work but it is, of course, work...

There are two main reason that I haven't tackled  this already (besides 
never having enough time to do even half of what i need to do). First, 
the xml->Finale bridge is not really free, I believe that it is sold by 
a company (Recordi or something like that). At one point they did have 
a free "Lite" verson but I'm not sure how useful that is or if it even 
exists anymore, or if it runs on anything other than windows xp.  
Anyway it would take someone's time to investigate this before 
implementing anything.

The second reason I have not made the xml->Finale bridge is that I 
hated using Finale and have had several bad experiences with their help 
line that makes me resist wanting to use their software at all.  I 
realize that this is sheer grumpyness on my part but its one of the 
reasons none the less...

The bad news is -- as far as I can tell --  Sibelius seems to have no 
interest in implementing an xml bridge, so I don't know how one could 
write a file that their application could import. It might be 
impossible other than to write the Enigma file, the contents of which 
is very ugly.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, my info is several years old at 
this point.

Its absolutley amazing to me that even 25 years later Leland Smith's 
Score program is still the most flexible notation softare around. And 
it has been possible to to generate score input files for his program 
since day 1.