Brodhead Music Typography

ACCS.EXE

ACCS —the most advanced and comprehensive accidental editor ever created!

The fundamental function of this program is to arrange accidentals before chords. This may seem like a simple feat, but it really isn't...

The goal of any good accidental-stacking method is to produce visually-pleasing arrangements that can be immediately apprehended. The problem is that most stacking algorithms make assumptions about the shapes of accidentals and whether 2 accidentals can fit one on top of the other. With that assumption in place, any such algorithm is actually doomed to fail.

You can't know whether a given configuration of accidentals will work unless you attempt to make the accidentals in question fit the proposed pattern!

ACCS.EXE divides the problem of arranging accidentals into two halves:

(1) Kerning accidentals. ACCS ships with a utility (ACCSKERN.EXE) that reads your symbol library and records the exact shape of all 14 of your accidentals. (Yes, that's right—there are 14 accidentals in all: flat, sharp, natural, double flat, double sharp; the same 5 in parentheses; and 4 quarter-tone accidentals.) ACCSKERN doesn't simply look at the bounding box information of your accidentals; it records the exact outline, and takes into consideration the precise pixel outline of each accidental.
With that information, ACCSKERN is able to determine at what point two accidentals paired at a given interval will touch. When will a flat placed a second below a sharp touch the sharp? At what point will the same flat placed a third below a sharp touch the sharp? And likewise for a fourth below the sharp? And so on...
The program allows you to specify the horizontal and vertical clearance between pairs of accidentals at different intervals—in other words, you specify how close is too close. And this measure of "closeness" can be a blanket setting for all accidentals, or you can specify different "closeness" settings for specific accidentals.
The result is an enormous table—over 3,000 entries, in fact—which you may edit as you see fit. If you don't like the results that ACCSKERN created, even with your directions, you may edit the table any way you wish.
This table is fed into the ACCS.EXE program at program execution, and thus gives the program the precise kerning information about your accidental set that is required for outstanding results.
(2) Arranging accidentals. Rather than attempting to use a one-size-fits-all algorithm, ACCS.EXE examines all of the possible arrangements of the given number of accidentals in a chord in question. If you have a chord with 5 accidentals, what are the possible arrangements?
Most notation books disagree as to how accidentals should be arranged. The one point of agreement is that you should start with the top accidental and work your way down from there.
ACCS's philosophy is that the clearest solution is one in which the arrangement produces a set of interwoven columns and rows. For example, a set of eight accidentals might fit a pattern like this:
#_#_#
_#_#_
#_#_#

Here we have 3 rows: a row of 3 on top, a row of 2 in the middle, and a row of 3 on the bottom.
Here we also have 5 columns: (working from right to left) a column of 2 followed by a column of 1 (yes, 1 accidental can stand for a column), a column of 2, a column of 1, and another column of 2.
But the same accidentals might fit a pattern like this:
#_#
_#_
#_#
_#_
#_#

Here we have 5 rows: (from the top down) 2 - 1 - 2 - 1 - 2
And we have 3 columns: (from right to left) 3 - 2 - 3
If the accidentals in question fit both patterns, which one do we choose? The second pattern takes less horizontal space, and thus it is chosen. (The pattern with the fewest number of columns is generally the best choice.)

For a chord of any number of accidentals, ACCS has at its disposal every possible arrangement of a given number of accidentals. Armed with complete and pixel-accurate kerning information, ACCS can determine which of those arrangements will acommodate the accidentals in question, and then can select the one that consumes the least horizontal space.

ACCS gives the user many controls over this:

The minimum initial offset of an accidental following a note
An absolute initial offset of an accidental following a note
Control over the amount of space between an accidental and a ledger line
Control over how closely one accidental can be tucked beneath another and still be considered a column (thereby allowing more options for ACCS.EXE in choosing arrangements)

ACCS has many advanced capabilities:

ACCS can "see" up and downstemmed notes as forming a single chord
ACCS can "see" any kind of p10 offset of notes that are part of a chord
ACCS can "see" notes offset from a higher or lower staff that form a chord with a non-staff-offset chord on a given staff.
ACCS can place accidentals beyond the .89 decimal barrier imposed by p5!

And then there are these functions:

ARPEGGIOS: ACCS can edit arpeggios attached to chords so that they span the vertical length of the chord and, with p15, are offset beyond the outermost accidental of the chord. The vertical distance above the top note of the chord and the vertical distance below the bottom note of the chord that the arpeggio travels can be customized by the user. And the amount of space between the arpeggio and the outermost accidental of the chord can likewise be prescribed by the user.
L.V. TIES (Code9, p5=188, p5=189): ACCS can move p5=188 l.v. ties so that they are at the bottom level of a chord, and ACCS can move p5=189 l.v. ties so that they are at the top level of the chord. In each case the l.v. tie is offset with p15 to clear any augmentation dots that are present, and the p4 level of the tie is set so that it falls in a staff space rather than being bisected by a staff line.
STRING BRACKETS: In string notation it is often necessary to place a thin bracket to the left of a chord or dyad, indicating that the notes are to be played as a double stop (or triple stop) and thus not divided. ACCS ships with an original drawing (SB.VEC) that the user may add to his/her symbol library. ACCS can be made to "see" a string bracket and edit it so that it (1) stretches the full vertical length of the chord it modifies, (2) offset it with p15 so that it clears the outermost accidental of the chord in question, and (3) ensure that the "hooks" of the bracket fall in the center of staff spaces (i.e. do not overlap with staff lines.)

ACCS is a 32-bit Console Application, which means that it requires Win95 or higher MicroSoft Windows Operating System to execute, but it employs a DOS-like text-based interface (like PAGE, JUST, or SCORLAS.)

Use ACCS before LJ'ing, and you may never need to edit accidentals manually ever again!

Left-click to view, or right-click to download ACCS-SAMPLES.PDF, a PDF showing the results of ACCS of chords ranging from the mundane to the complex!

Download order form for ACCS!

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