MidiKlavar Readme
Release: 0.9.3rc1

Table of contents
- Overview
- Feature Coverage
- Installation on Microsoft Windows
- Deinstallation on Microsoft Windows
- Installation and deinstallation on Linux
- Installation from source code.
- Compilation
- Copyright and Licensing
- Acknowledgements

- Overview
MidiKlavar is a MIDI file converter to the Klavarskribo (short "Klavar") music notation.
The version numbering follows the sequence of the (currently abandoned) project "Klavar !", which had a totally different scope.
We stress the fact that our intention is that the version number and the status of the software are related to the 
"features coverage" as listed on the project description on SourceForge and not on the reliability of its functionalities.
In other words, the software is currently in "alpha" state, because it does just a litte of what we want it to do, but it should 
do that pretty well. 

- Feature Coverage
  - Import documents from MusicXML (midixml)
    Currently only simple midixml files (type 1) are imported
  - Export documents to MusicXML files (midixml)
    This has already been implemented, though it is not yet available to end users. It is going to be released together with the
    "Import documents from MIDI (binary)" feature
  - Export documents to MIDI (binary)
    This feature is available. 
  - Import documents from MIDI (binary)
    To be implemented



- Installation on Microsoft Windows
   - Extract the package into a folder of your preference.
   - Locate the MidiKlavarGuide.pdf file in the chosen folder. This is the latest version of the manual (you will need a PDF reader
     like Adobe Acrobat Reader to read it).
     The manual is updated only at the time of official releases.
   - To start the application double click on the file midiklavar.exe

- Deinstallation on Microsoft Windows

  MidiKlavar comes as a self-contained package, thus uninstalling is as easy as deleting the folder where the downloaded package 
  had been extracted.

- Installation and deinstallation on Linux

The application has been developed on OpenSuse Leap.
The package MidiKlavar is going to be build as part of the build service from Opensuse.
The intention is to make it available for the largest number of distributions possible via that service.
Links to packages are going to be posted here as soon as they are available.
Of course, this means that the deinstallation can be performed following the standard procedure of the specific distribution. 

- Installation from source code.
Fascinating as it can be, compiling an open source application from its source code always requires some skills and experience.
MidiKlavar is not the most difficult to handle in this sense.
It can be said that it is a pure "Qt Desktop application" configured by a .pro file to be used by the Qt "qmake".
If you feel that you are familiar with the terms used in the previous sentence then it shouldn't take long to compile the source 
code in the Qt environment available in one of the supported platforms. 
If you are not confident of having the necessary skills, we wouldn't suggest to use MidiKlavar as a starting point because 
there are far better tutorials on the subject.


IMPORTANT: The version in the GIT repository is a snaphot of the current status of development. It may resemble the official release, 
but is not even guaranteed to compile.
Although we put all our effort in making the code in GIT a version for enthusiasts to download and work with, we stress the fact that
it is just a repository of the source code currently in development. 
That is just our working repository, possibly containing experimental code, not suitable for general use. In other words, you are
welcome to clone or download it, but USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Only source code packages related to official releases, either available
here or packaged by the build service, are going to be supported.

- Copyright and Licensing

MidiKlavar is copyright by Marco Mascioli (inspired from KLAVAR !, Copyright Claes Honig, though only a very small part of the old
project is still in the new one)
MidiKlavar is distributed under the GNU Public License. The text licence is contained in the file COPYING, which you should have
received with the package. If not, a good place where to look is http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

- Acknowledgements
Claes Honig (SourceForge ID: cchonig), for the decision to release KLAVAR ! as an open source project.
