Power Tab Developers Support Google Group

Reading/Writing and Editing PTB's

jbossing...@gmail.com (JamesB) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:32:29 UT

Hello,
I am a third year Computer Science student, currently working on my
dissertation. My project is working on a way to record tabs straight
from a standard guitar. I have done a lot of the work on this section
of the project, and am now faced with a dilemma. Ideally I would love
to save the recorded files in the powertab format, and also allow

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

alexander.ro...@gmail.com (Alexander Rojas) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:10:45 UT

I agree completely with Robert,

Starting a new Powertab would take us a lot of time, in the time we as
developers would spend in doing something that loosely resembles
powertab we would add tons of new functionalities to tuxguitar. More
over, if you consider that you cannot cope with the policies of that

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

beadgui...@yahoo.com (Robert Dietz) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:25:52 UT

Well,
I've been following these discussions for some time.. Here's my 10 cents... The Powertab application will likely not move forward. I have since moved to using TuxGuitar. It is an open source application which works under several different OS environments and will read Powertab files. If you were to consider writing an player for use on the web, this is where I would put my time... I'm actually thinking of it...

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

allpowert...@gmail.com (allpowertabs@gmail.com) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:13:01 UT

I agree. Writing a parser in a scripting language is not fun
especially because the lack low level operators. The php power tab
parser had to define custom classes to do this. It took 1 month to
write a basic parser, and about 7 months to completely translate
Brad's classes.

It was great to port the parser to php for web based parsing, but you

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

canaanabolaa...@gmail.com (Golbez) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:05:14 UT

So let's assume I have zero understanding of programming language. If
I were to read through this Ruby tutorial, would it be possible for me
to provide anything to the project? Or do I need to know a second
language to decode the parser to be able to write it to Ruby? I'm
pretty good at picking up on stuff.

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

smudge.farr...@googlemail.com (Cacofonix) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:56:23 UT

Hi Guys,

After a long thought, I originally sent my opinions on this directly
to Ronald. It has been decided to post it publicly for discussion.

BTW, congratulations to Ronald for his success in working out a MPA
accepted agreement.

==== Summary ====
You (Ronald) desire a set of Powertab Tools and talk about a viewer/

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

powertabs....@gmail.com (Ronald [PTA]) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:44:56 UT

Ouch. Maybe that is what happens when you start writing an editor
before doing the ground work. 3-voice would definitely be one of the
most useful additions for the Power Tab Editor.

On Jun 29, 10:13 pm, "allpowert...@gmail.com" <allpowert...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

allpowert...@gmail.com (allpowertabs@gmail.com) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:13:42 UT

It doesn't support high and low melody's.

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

powertabs....@gmail.com (Ronald [PTA]) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:04:56 UT

Yup, MusicXML is a fine thing, it was already considered in
[link] before the parser was released
open-source. Brad also favors MusicXML over own tab-specific XML
languages (there were some discussions several years ago). The ptb<-
of course, it can be integrated right away in the C++ parser, e.g.

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

yann.gilq...@gmail.com (Yann Gilquin) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:52:43 UT

That's something very interesting ! But what your post highlighted is
the musicXML format existence (I didn't heard about it).
IMHO what I think would be a very very useful initiative could be to
design some ptb to musicXML translater based on ptb parser in order to
keep data in some open format. I think it shouldn't be to much

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

powertabs....@gmail.com (Ronald [PTA]) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:55:37 UT

Good point! Especially since they finally released a stable 1.0.
TuxGuitar definitely has a different goal, because writing a full-
fledged editor is just a long-term goal of rubypowertab. But
nonetheless, there are certainly many interesting things included
there (especially the gp 3/4/5 stuff).

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

thomas.newman...@gmail.com (istomisgood) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:13:11 UT

I just wanted to draw your attention to tuxGuitar on sourceforge. They
have a ptb parser and tuxGuitar also has plugins for gp3/4/5 and
lilypond, musicXML and others. One possibility for this initiative
would be to jump on board with their efforts.

Either way I will be watching with interest.

exporting data

kl.allt...@gmail.com (pcburner) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:03:46 UT

I would like to know if there is a way to export the data that has
been created to microsoft access for the purpose of web publishing. I
would like to create an online accessible database of the tablature
that I have and create a web space that will allow me to share my tabs
with friends. This would make it easier rather than having to enter in

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

powertabs....@gmail.com (Ronald [PTA]) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:36:46 UT

Hi Yann,

I definitely agree, that maintaining the core in C(++) would make
sense. I am also not a real Ruby expert or fanatic. However, the
beauty of the language admittedly is phenomenal. Besides this
fundamental fact, I had two main motivations regarding the choice: The
C++ code of the parser (beautiful code btw.) was released a long time

Re: Ruby Power Tab Open-Source Project

yann.gilq...@gmail.com (Yann Gilquin) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 09:53:39 UT

Hi Ronald,
could I ask you the reasons of your choice of Ruby language ?
Anyway your initiative is very interesting and the ultimate goal of
designing an open-source ptb viewer/player is a VERY good idea as Brad
has never open the door to the community. The meaning of my question
is linked to that goal, indeed don't you think main tools should be