VIRTUAL PAGE TURNER
UsersGuide
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VIRTUALPIANIST.COM
Virtual Page Turner Users Guide
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this documentunder the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-CoverTexts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNUFree Documentation License".
2008 Michael S. Toth
2830 Old S. Pike Ave.
Allentown, PA 18103
Phone 610-216-4131
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Installation
Starting Virtual Page Turner
Stopping Virtual Page Turner
Quick Start
Options
Viewing Modes
Music Directory
Scroll Amount
Timer Speed
Creating a Piece
Loading a Piece into Virtual Page Turner
Programs
Creating a new Program
Loading an Existing Program File
Annotations
Bookmarks
Keyboard Shortcuts
Using the X-Keys Footswitch
GNU Free Document License
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Introduction
W
elcome and congratulations on obtaining the Virtual Page Turner program. Virtual Page Turner was written by a performer for performance purposes. I think you will find this to be a valuable tool if you do performing and have found the need for a page turner at times. I know I have. I have tried to make this program as easy to use as possible. If there are any improvements you would like to see, please contact virtualpianist.com and we will be happy to do what we can to improve on the program.
Installation
To install the Virtual Page Turner (vpt), you run the installer that comes on the distribution disk. For Windows XP and Windows Vista, the file is called vpt.msi. For Apple OS X, the file is called vpt.dmg.
Installing under Windows
Run setup.exe found on the disk to install Virtual Page Turner. The first panel you will see is the license agreement. The license is the Gnu Public License Version 3. For more information about the GPL, see
Figure 1. License Agreement
Click on the box to accept the terms of the license and then click on Next.
Then you will see the panel to determine where the program will be placed on the start menu.
Figure 2. Start Menu Panel
Click on Install. You should see a command window briefly appear during the font installation and then you will see the install panel for ImageMagick. ImageMagick is an open source program which Virtual Page Turner depends on for converting pdf images to gif files. Once you install ImageMagick, you will then be prompted to install Ghostscript. Ghostscript is another open source program which is used to do pdf conversions and is necessary if you want to work with pdf files in Virtual Page Turner. Once you install both ImageMagick and Ghostscript, you will be done with the Virtual Page Turner installation. On some machines there is an error when installing ImageMagick when it tries to open an html file. You can ignore this error.
Starting Virtual Page Turner
To run Virtual Page Turner, simply double-click on the vpt icon. You should see the initial splash screen and a blank canvas with a frame as shown below:
Figure 3. Initial Virtual Page Turner Window
The Menu Bar
Along the top of the window are the menus, File, Edit, and Help. You will use these menus to load and create pieces, create programs, set options, and add and remove annotations from the piece.
The Canvas
This is where your piece is displayed. When you load a piece or a program, the music will fill this area. By default, Virtual Page Turner takes the maximum size allowable on your screen. You can resize the window if you desire however.
The Status Bar
Messages about the program or piece which is loaded appear here as well as other informational status messages.
Stopping Virtual Page Turner
To terminate the program, select Quit fromtheFile menu.
Quick Start
When you first run Virtual Page Turner, you will see the following panel.
Figure 4. Initial Start Panel
For the music directory, simply pick a directory in which you want to store your pieces. If you have a wide screen laptop or monitor you will be using (17 inches or greater) then “Two Page” mode is appropriate. For smaller screens, two pages presents the music in too small a format so you will want to use “Fit Width” mode. The scroll amount and timer speed can be left alone for now. We won’t be using these parameters for the quick start section.
After selecting the music directory, click on OK and you should see the following startup panel.
Figure 5. Startup Panel
(The image for the Helper Robot is not yet created for the Beta release)
Since you have not previously run Virtual Page Turner, there is no last piece or last collection to select. There is however a piece of music included with the distribution of Virtual Page Turner which you can use as a way of getting familiar with the program until you have scanned your own music into the computer.
Click on Select Piece and navigate to the installation directory for Virtual Page Turner (typically C:\Program Files\Virtual Page Turner) and then navigate to the directory called sample\FurElise under that. (See panel below)
Figure 6. Selecting Sample Piece
Click on OK and you should see the music on your monitor.
Options
The options for Virtual Page Turner are stored in a text file located in the same directory in which it was installed. The file is called vptoptions.txt and does not typically need to be edited by hand. This file is created by Virtual Page Turner when you set and change options. To change the program options, select Options… from the File menu.
Figure 7. Options Panel
Below is a list of the options available in Virtual Page Turner.
Viewing Modes
There are two viewing modes in Virtual Page Turner; Two Page and Fit Width. The viewing mode is an option you set by selecting Options… from the File menu. When the viewing mode is Two Page, two pages of music will appear on the canvas at once. In this viewing mode, when you turn a page, the page on the right hand side moves to the left and the following page appears on the right. This is useful when you want to continue to see the music you are playing while preparing for the next page of music. When the viewing mode is Fit Width, only one page of music is shown on the screen and the width of the page is the same as the width of the canvas. This is useful for smaller monitors and smaller laptops which cannot display two pages at once and still have the music readable.
Figure 8. Two Different Viewing Modes
Music Directory
This is the music directory that Virtual Page Turner goes to when you are loading or saving a piece of music. You can set this to any convenient place on your computer where you like to keep your music.
Scroll Amount
When the viewing mode is Fit Width, often a whole page will not appear on the screen (see Figure 2 above). So when you turn a page, you typically don’t want the top of the next page to appear at the top of the screen. Instead, the screen scrolls up a certain amount dictated by this value. The value is the number of pixels (dots on the screen) it will move. You should set this value to one which is comfortable for you to use. Too large a value and you will lose music that you are currently looking at. Too small a value and you will have to scroll too often.
Timer Speed
It is possible to have Virtual Page Turner automatically turn pages using a built-in timer. This is useful especially when in Fit Width viewing mode. The combination of the Scroll Amount and the Timer Speed can be set so the music travels up the screen at the same pace as the performance. The timer is turned on and off by pressing the ‘t’ key on the keyboard. This is a toggle switch so pressing it once turns on the timer, pressing it again will turn off the timer. The value of the timer speed is in seconds. Fractions of a second can be specified (0.001 for 1 millisecond).
While the timer is running, you can change the speed by pressing the ‘s’ and the ‘q’ keys on the keyboard. ‘s’ will slow down the speed by 10% and ‘q’ will make it quicker by 10%. If you use this mode of operation often, you may find it useful to program your foot switch accordingly. One possibility is to make the left button ‘s’, the middle button ‘t’, and the right button ‘q’. This way you can adjust the speed and stop and start the timer as you please while you are playing.
Creating a Piece
Creating a piece of music for Virtual Page Turner is done by selecting CreatePiece… from the File menu. A piece in Virtual Page Turner is a directory of files. Each of the files in this directory is a page of your piece of music. Typically you will scan your music from a scanner. It is also possible however to use an existing PDF file as a source rather than the scanner. This choice is presented to you by the panel which appears after selecting Create Piece…which is shown below in Figure 4.
Figure 9. Selecting the Source for a New Piece
Creating a Piece from the Scanner
If you are using a scanner to scan your music to create a piece, select Scanner from the New Piece panel and click on OK. Virtual Page Turner will then ask you to select the scanner from a list using the panel shown below in Figure 5.
Figure 10. Selecting the Scanner
If you have more than one scanner available (or more then one TWAIN source) you will see multiple choices. Select the one you want to use and then click Select.
Virtual Page Turner will then ask you to select a directory in which to put the pages for your piece. You can either create a new directory, or select a pre-existing directory for the destination. The name of the directory will be the name of your piece.
Figure 11. Selecting a Directory to Store Pages
Select the directory and click on OK.
At this point, Virtual Page Turner will interface with the scanner and scan your first page. Depending on the type of scanner you use, the interface will vary. Usually a panel will appear allowing you to adjust the scanning margins similar to the panel shown below.
Figure 12. Scanner Interface Panel
After adjusting the margins to your music and accepting the scan, Virtual Page Turner will store the page in the directory you previously chose. The first page will be named Page01.gif. (By default, Virtual Page Turner stores images in GIF file format)
Then Virtual Page Turner will ask you if there are more pages to scan. If there are you indicate so and continue until you are finished scanning your music.
Figure 13. Continue Scanning Panel
Once you indicate you are finished by selecting No on the Continue Scanning panel, your pages will be saved in the directory you previously chose and you can load the piece into Virtual Page Turner.
Creating a New Piece from a PDF File
If you have a PDF file of your music, which is sometimes the preferred format from some on-line sheet music vendors, you can create a piece for Virtual Page Turner from that PDF file. On Windows, Virtual Page Turner can directly read PDF Files but on Apple and Linux you need to convert the PDF file to another format. You can think of a PDF file as another source similar to the scanner.
Selecting PDF File in the New Piece panel will cause Virtual Page Turner to ask you to select the PDF file using the panel shown below.
Figure 14. Choosing the PDF File to Convert
Select the PDF file you want to convert and click on Open. Virtual Page Turner will then ask you to select a directory to store the converted file.
Figure 15. Choosing a Directory for PDF Conversion
Once you choose this directory (or make a new one), Virtual Page Turner will convert the PDF file and store the pages in that directory.
The process is completed when you see the following panel.
Figure 16. PDF File Converted Panel
If you want to load the piece into Virtual Page Turner, select Yes. Otherwise select No.
Reading a PDF File Directly in Windows
Typically a PDF file will contain many pages of music. In the Windows version of Virtual Page Turner, a special PDF reader is used. The thing to remember about this method of using PDF files is that due to the format, enhancements and annotations are not possible. If you want to add annotations, you will need to convert the PDF file to another format like GIF as described earlier in the previous section. In the Apple version of Virtual Page Turner, you will need to convert the file as there is no built-in PDF viewer available.
Loading a Piece into Virtual Page Turner
To load a piece you have created into Virtual Page Turner, select Load Piece… from the File menu.
You will see a panel which asks you to select the directory for that piece.
Figure 17. Selecting a Piece to Load
Navigate to the directory of your piece and click OK. Your music will then be displayed in the canvas area.
Programs
Programs are collections of pieces. A program is a text file which consists of a list of directories. Each directory is a piece and the order of the pieces in the program is the same as the order of the directories in the file. Using programs, it is possible to move from one piece to the next without specifically loading each piece. (To move to the next piece, you press the ‘F’ key (shift-f) and to move back one piece you press the ‘B’ key (shift-b)).
You can manually create program files, but it is also possible and usually easier to use Virtual Page Turner to create a program file for you. To do this you select Create/Edit Program… in the File menu. To load a program file, select Load Program… in the File menu.
Creating a new Program
Select Create/Edit Program… in the File menu and you will see the program edit panel shown below.
Figure 18. Create/Edit Program Panel
Adding Pieces to your Program
To add a piece to your program select the Add Piece button. After navigating to the directory which is the piece you want to add, click OK and the directory will be added to the list area in the Create/Edit Program panel. Adding more pieces to the program is done by just repeating that step as many times as necessary.
Removing Pieces from your Program
To remove a piece from your program, select the directory in the list area of the Create/Edit Program panel and click on Remove Piece. The piece will be removed from the list.
Changing the Order of the Program
If you have added pieces in an order that is different from the one you want, select a directory in the list area of the Create/Edit Program panel and then click on Move Up or Move Down buttons depending on where you want that piece to be in the program.
Saving your Program
Once you have the program you want, you can save it by selecting OK in the Create/Edit Program panel. You will be asked to choose a file name for the program. It should be a file ending with the .txt suffix. You can choose an existing file if you want or create a new file name. If you choose an existing file, you will be asked to confirm if you want to overwrite the file.
After you are done creating a program, Virtual Page Turner will ask you if you want to load the program. Select Yes if you do, and No if you don’t.
Loading an Existing Program File
If you have already created a program file, you can simply load it by selecting Load Program File… from the File menu.
Enhancing the Image
Sometimes the quality of the scanned image you get is not easy to read. This happens when scanning a copy, or if there was some other problem with the scan. To help deal with this I have also added a feature called “Enhance Mode”. This is not a substitute for an image editing tool such as Photoshop or Gimp, but it might come in handy when some simple transformations are needed.