User Guide
Each page on the website has a header at the top.
You can always go to the home page of the website by clicking on the lute icon at the left of the header.
“Files” lets you look at the directory structure of the old website, so if you don’t want to use the new features, you can proceed as before.
“Posts” takes you to a “blog” like the one at the old site that announces new material.
“Login/Signup” enables you to log onto the site, which provides additional privileges. More about that later.
The main function is, of course, “Search”.
The result of a search is a list of “settings” that match.
The website uses the concept of a “setting” rather than that of a piece. A setting is a musical rendition that exists at one and only location: specifically, it comes from one source, one document, and one page reference.
One can search by some combination of Title, Composer, Music type (like “pavane”, or “lute song”), Difficulty, Instrument used, Document. Note that if you specify an instrument with a certain number of courses, the search will find pieces with the same or fewer courses but not a greater number of courses.
Search parameters are AND’ed, rather than OR’ed. That means if you select composer = John Dowland and then select music type, you will only be able to select from music types that Dowland actually wrote. So no bourées. Conversely, if you first select music type = bourée, Dowland will not be available as a composer to select from. This saves you time in composing your search.
Clicking on “+” makes more search parameters available, including Key, Source, Date range, Editor, Encoder, Arranger, Intabulator, Contributor.
Clicking on an item in the setting list takes you into a Setting Detail page with information about that setting. Sometimes there are links to recordings or information about concordances.
This page also provides links to the various sub-sections of that setting (if any) and to one or more instrumental parts the setting contains. Clicking on a part displays a PDF of that part. It also shows a midi player that lets you hear what that part sounds like. You will also see an “Acquire” button by which you can download the fronimo or PDF file of that part.
Additionally, if there is a matching facsimile page on my site (true in the majority of cases), you will see a “Compare” button, which provides a side-by side display of the PDF and the source facsimile. You can zoom in or out, page forwards or back on either side.
Features for logged in users
If you are logged in, you can enjoy certain other features:
- When you register, you can specify a list of instruments to which you have access. On a search, you will see a button “Use my instruments”. Then the result of the search will only include pieces you can actually play.
- Using the “Acquire” button mentioned above, you will see an option “Add to cart”. Instead of downloading items separately, you can add them to a “download cart” for later download. This “cart” will appear on the right side of the top navbar. This can save time if you want to download a number of items.
- If you are logged in, you will also see a “comment icon” on each page. Clicking on that will open an email from you to me with a link to the page referenced so I can easily review your comments.