ABC Editor Plus HTML LESSON GUIDE
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FIELD GUIDE / 11

HTML Lesson: learn from the score

Export one HTML file, send it to a student and open it directly in a browser. The lesson draws its own score with the editor’s ABC engine and plays the included instrument samples.

In Export, choose HTML Lesson. Save the file, then open it in a browser; the arrangement, sound and teacher annotations travel together.

Choose a practice mode

Playback

Play the whole arrangement, pause, rewind and practise an A/B loop.

Step by step

Press Space or Next to hear one onset position across the voices, then stop.

Computer keyboard

Use QWERTY or AZERTY as a piano. Enter the selected voice’s notes; − and + change octave.

MIDI exercise

Connect a MIDI instrument in a compatible browser. Correct notes advance; wrong notes are counted.

Read, zoom and follow

The lesson embeds the editor’s ABC score renderer and SF2 player, not a pre-rendered score. Notation and shared instrument samples are compressed inside the single HTML file. Two musical lines are shown: the current line and the next one. Score zoom (50–300%) is independent of interface size; Follow keeps the playhead visible. The arrows browse lines with Follow disabled. The audio scheduler runs separately from the display, and only a few lines are kept in memory. The playback status is shown once beside the ? Help button, in both the editor and lesson. Startup and MCP options: score-zoom=150, score-view=focus or full. Score zoom and voice selection are in the right sidebar; ☰ opens it on narrow screens.

The header holds the error count, reset and interface size. Transport times stay beside Stop and Set B; other settings occupy the second row. Instructions, MIDI connection, keyboard map and credits are on the right (☰). Click a piano key, score note or tablature note to audition; QWERTY/AZERTY and MIDI also work outside exercises. Release keys to stop. Clicks never answer an exercise. Keyboard/MIDI exercises still grade answers.

Language, theme and visual effects are on the second toolbar row. All 17 palettes are available; interface size changes the controls separately from score zoom.

Ornament playback

Select ABC as the playback source; raw imported MIDI has no ornament signs. Play ornaments enables the same interpretation in the editor and HTML Lesson. ~ and !roll! play main–upper–main–lower–main, with short cuts. T / !trill! and extended trills alternate with the upper neighbour; mordents and turns use the appropriate neighbours. Key signatures, current accidentals and transposition determine auxiliary pitches. Arpeggios spread chords upwards. Ornaments fit inside the written duration, including tuplets and ties: repeats, A/B loops and score following keep their timing. Exercises require the written notes, not generated auxiliaries. Disable the option to hear the plain melody. Fermatas and bowing marks remain engraved without automatic tempo holds. Interpretation varies by instrument and tradition; write explicit notes for a different realization. Re-export older lessons. Startup: ornaments=true|false; MCP: ornaments.set, enabled=true|false.

Instructions & errors

Space: hear one position, then stop. Exercises: match every note of the selected voice’s chord, octave included; release keys between chords. Wrong notes stay at the same position. − / + change the computer-keyboard octave. A/B define an exclusive-end loop. Rests are skipped in exercises. Audio is embedded; MIDI needs browser permission. URL: ?help=1. Console: help, options, clear, set --mode step. Parameters control the embedded piece, not an external file.

See and hear your instrument

Instrument guide

The 88-key piano shows selected voices: red keys sound during playback; amber keys are the next exercise target. Select several voices in the right panel; the primary voice anchors scrolling. Guitar and bass show suggested string/fret positions, not prescribed finger numbers. Frets rise toward the body at the bottom, with markers at 3, 5, 7, 9, 12 (double), 15, 17, 19, 21 and 24 (double). Twelve strings form six paired courses; lower four pairs sound octaves. Custom tuning uses MIDI pitches from low to high; blank restores the model. Winds have the mouthpiece at the bottom and separate thumb holes. One wind note at a time; unavailable fingerings are reported rather than guessed. Recorder: Baroque soprano C5–D6; whistle D5–C♯7; three-hole profiles include register and partial bell closure. Profiles vary by instrument: verify with your teacher. Display transposition changes diagrams, not sound or exercise answers. MIDI guitars and winds use note-on/off on the selected port and channels; all channels accepts separate-string channels. Audio-to-note exercise grading, breath controllers and pitch bends are not implemented. The microphone tuner measures one string, gives cents and an up/down direction; ±5 cents is in tune. A4 can be set from 430 to 450 Hz. It needs microphone permission, headphones and a clear sustained tone; close it to stop capture. Startup: voices=1,2; piano=true; instrument=guitar6/guitar12/guitar7/guitar8/guitar9/bass4/bass5/bass6/bass7/recorder/whistle/tabor/galoubet/txistu/off; instrument-transpose=0; instrument-tuning=40,45,50,55,59,64; reference-a=440. No microphone is started automatically.

One string at a time. Playback pauses during tuning. Reference sound suspends measurement; use headphones. Audio stays on this device.

Sharing and sound

Audio: the standalone lesson embeds the SF2 playback engine and shared samples for the instruments used, including their key and velocity zones, loops and envelopes. Notes are synthesized during playback, rather than exported as separate WAV files. No sound-bank download is needed. The 128 MiB limit applies to shared sample data, not song duration. Audition uses the selected instrument and stops after at most 2.5 seconds.

Read, zoom and follow · Score zoom and voice selection are in the right sidebar; ☰ opens it on narrow screens.
Recorder · Baroque C · Piano
Tablature · Guitar
Percussion
FIELD GUIDE / 12

Launch with the right options

Add options after ? in the file URL, or in its # fragment. Help opens a PowerShell-style lesson console: help, options, clear and set configure this piece, without running operating-system commands.

Help → ?help=1

lesson.html?help=1&lang=en
lesson.html?mode=step&voice=1&score-zoom=150&score-view=focus&lang=en
lesson.html?mode=midi&instrument=whistle&reference-a=440

help
options
clear
set --mode step --score-zoom 150 --score-view focus
set --mode keyboard --layout azerty --octave 4
ParameterValuesInstructions & errors
score-zoom50:300Score zoom
score-viewfocus fullScore view
notationauto score tabNotation
voicesvoice IDs, comma separatedFollow / practice voice
pianotrue | falsePiano
instrumentoff guitar6 guitar12 guitar7 guitar8 guitar9 bass4 bass5 bass6 bass7 recorder whistle tabor galoubet txistuInstrument
instrument-transpose-24:24Display transposition (semitones)
instrument-tuningMIDI pitches, low to highOpen strings (MIDI, low → high)
reference-a430:450Play reference
ornamentstrue | falsePlay ornaments
themevintage ivory porcelain graphite navy forest copper wine ice mint lavender sienna monochrome amber ocean plum sandTheme
effectsnone soft retroVisual effects
zoom60:140Interface size
helptrue | falseInstrument guide
consoletrue | falseConsole
langen fr it de es pt nl da fi sv nb is el tr ru zh ja ko ar heLanguage
modeplay step keyboard midiMode
voiceV: IDFollow / practice voice
layoutqwerty azertyKeyboard
octave0:8Octave
start0:86400Start (seconds)
loop-start0:86400Start (seconds)
loop-end0:86400End (seconds)
looptrue | falseLoop
volume0:100Volume
autoplaytrue | falseAutomatic playback
followtrue | falseFollow
midi-channel0:16Channel
midi-inputport nameInput
MCP
abc_lesson: operation="configure"
params={"score-zoom":150,"score-view":"focus","voice":"1"}
abc_read: resource="state"
abc_capabilities
Launch with the right options
ABC Editor Plus · Playback · ? Help

Windows desktop edition

Windows 64-bit: use Setup for a per-user installation, or Portable without installation. Keep the portable executable in a writable folder. Its ABC-Editor-Plus-Data folder stores preferences, exports and MCP settings beside the executable; move both together. The installed edition stores its data in the Windows user profile. Uninstalling preserves that data.

File → Open imports supported music, audio and sound-bank files through the editor’s existing checks. Export from the editor as usual, then choose a destination in the Windows save dialog. Help → Application data opens the settings folder. Save project backups before closing. The HTML Lesson export remains an independent browser file.

MCP starts with the application and stops when it closes. No separate Node.js installation is required. Keep the desktop editor open; choose Help → Create MCP client configuration, then import the generated mcp-config.json entry into your client. The mcp-stdio.cjs argument connects that client to this desktop instance. It does not start a second editor. The browser companion and desktop companion remain separate.

Allow MIDI or microphone access only when needed. Ordinary editing and playback use the bundled resources locally; online links and optional transcription services require a connection. Detached windows share the editor’s session. The application remembers its window size. F11 switches full screen; the existing export window exits full screen automatically.

The desktop menus currently use English; the editor and this desktop help offer all 20 languages. No automatic updater is included. These executables are not digitally signed. Hardware MIDI, microphone input and audio latency depend on your devices and should be checked on the target computer.