A few general questions

**Dissonance** · 06-23-2012, 07:28 PM

Hello! I made a few GUIs to quiz students of music theory. I'm planning to make some more, and I have a few questions.

The quizzes have two main types of problems: 1. multiple choice based on identifying a note on a staff, and 2. writing a note on the staff by clicking on a specific part of it.

My question is about how I should handle the graphics. I could have a folder of images so that when a specific part of the image is clicked, it is replaced by a new image. I could have Java draw the staff so that the notes appear when the image is clicked. Music notation programs use MusicXML to communicated across platforms and between programs. Is it possible to display MusicXML in an applet?

Would someone please give me some advice so that I can start doing some research on how to implement the graphics? Thanks!

**Fubarable** · 06-23-2012, 07:36 PM

Originally Posted by Dissonance

My question is about how I should handle the graphics. I could have a folder of images so that when a specific part of the image is clicked, it is replaced by a new image.

That could work.

I could have Java draw the staff so that the notes appear when the image is clicked.

And that could work as well. My personal preference is for the latter as it makes more sense to leave as a use as a background image, that which is unchanging -- the music staffs, and then draw a sprite (which can also be an image) on top of the background image.

Music notation programs use MusicXML to communicated across platforms and between programs. Is it possible to display MusicXML in an applet?

Absolutely this can be done, but the devil of course is in the details. Easiest would be to find a library that already does this, and that you can legally use. More difficult but doable is to study the format of MusicXML and roll your own simple library to do this.

Would someone please give me some advice so that I can start doing some research on how to implement the graphics? Thanks!

I have to give a caveat that I have not personally created a program such as this, but I can visualize how it can be done, and it seems to me that you're on the right path.

**Dissonance** · 06-23-2012, 07:44 PM

Fubarable, this is very helpful. Thanks!

**Dissonance** · 06-28-2012, 06:26 AM

If anybody else is interested, one of the programs here library - Are there any music notation rendering libraries for Java? - Stack Overflow might be able to render music in an applet.

**pbrockway2** · 06-28-2012, 07:26 AM

Getting nice looking manuscript is - I would guess - a highly nontrivial task. But your requirements (in the OP) are rather more modest: displaying a note and interacting with user input.

I would go with the idea of a component that draws a sprite on a background. (or a vector graphic equivalent).

Remember - as with a lot of gui stuff - the component can be usefully be kept separate from the model. The latter could well use a standard xml format (or cut down but compatible version) to load/save data from files etc.