Know The Notes for Windows 98 Second Edition Beta Version 1.0.140 June 2009 Readme.Txt updated 9/June/2009 Note: This installation is intended ONLY for Windows 98 Second Edition. Other installations are available for Windows XP SP2 and Vista SP1. PLEASE DO NOT INSTALL THIS APPLICATION ON ANY OTHER TYPE OF WINDOWS! DISCLAIMER! PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING TO ANYONE WHO INTENDS TO TRY OUT THE BETA VERSION: YOU MUST BE AWARE THAT I CAN ASSUME NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANYTHING THAT MAY GO WRONG WITH OR CAUSE HARM TO YOUR COMPUTER(S). You must assume that any Beta software may contain bugs. While Know The Notes should work without any problems, I cannot be present when persons unknown install it and/or make use of it and therefore I cannot second-guess all potential scenarios. I will run all files past my virus checker (AVG Free) before incorporating them in the Setup file. WHAT IS KNOW THE NOTES? Know The Notes is a program to practise keyboard orientation at a piano or organ. You play a MIDI file, then watch the onscreen virtual keyboard 'play' the notes while you attempt to play along. You can slow down the tempo, filter out a range of notes, specify an extract of just a few bars with a start note and an end note, and set playback to loop several times. The help file, which you can download separately, explains how to use the application. HOW TO INSTALL THE APPLICATION? Step By Step 1. Download Setup_KTN140_98SE.EXE to your PC. 2. Run the Setup program and read the Readme file when it appears. 3. When the prompt appears to optionally create a Backup folder, please DO make use of this feature. This will ensure than any replaced files will first be copied and the copies (the originals) placed in the Backup folder. However, also see Important Note below. RUNNING THE APPLICATION 1. Run the program by clicking directly on KnowTheNotes.Exe or on its shortcut if you have created one. 2. Click on File/Open Sample.Mid, then click on the Playback button. On the Playback screen click OK or press Enter. 3. Use Help/Contents or press F1 to open the Help file and read it for more detailed information. FILE LIST The following files will be extracted to your Windows 98 SE PC when the Setup program is run: Extracted to C:\Program Files\KnowTheNotes (unless you have renamed the target folder during Setup): KnowTheNotes.Chm Date: 22/Feb.2009 15:49 KnowTheNotes.Exe Version: 1.0.140 KnowTheNotes.Ini Readme.Txt Sample.Mid Extracted to C:\Windows\System (but see Important Note below): MSVBVM60.DLL Version: 6.00.8176 COMDLG32.OCX Version: 6.00.8169 MSCOMCTL.OCX Version: 6.00.8177 MSFLXGRD.OCX Version: 6.00.8169 RICHTX32.OCX Version: 6.00.8169 SCROLLERII.OCX Version: 2.02 SSUBTMR6.DLL Version: 1.01.0003 VBALNCSM6.DLL Version: 2.00.0002 VBHLP32.DLL Version: 2.02.101 IMPORTANT NOTE! The files extracted to C:\Windows\System will NEVER replace any existing files. If your system folder already has the same or a later version of any file in the above list, it will be left alone. Only files that DO NOT ALREADY EXIST will be placed in C:\Windows\System. CHANGES SINCE VERSION 1.0.136 (8/June/2009) - Improved error message if read-only media is detected while updating the .ini (configuration) file. Note that you can still use the application from read-only media, although the .ini file won't be updated between sessions. See elsewhere in this document for more information on read-only media. CHANGES SINCE VERSION 1.0.109 (February 2009) - Skinning method optimised. This explains why the new version is a lot smaller. Also, some of the buttons look slightly different, but access (hot) keys have been added. Thus, you can press Alt+P to access the Playback key, or Alt+T to 'click' the Change Tempo button. Look for the underscore in the button captions. - Major bug fixed: A Yellow Screen error occurred if Know The Notes was started when another application already had control of the MIDI device. - Major bug fixed: A Yellow Screen error occurred if File/Open Sample.Mid was attempted while playback was in progress. - The hex display form is now resizable so that it can be dragged wider or narrower to align the data and text columns nicely when a different font size is set in Windows Display Settings. The default is assumed to be Small Fonts (96 dpi). The new form size will be remembered between sessions. - The Readme.Rtf file has been dropped. It was too much hassle to keep it in sync with Readme.Txt (this file). TROUBLESHOOTING If the program does not work, please check the following: 1. Does your PC have at least one MIDI output device (see centre area of main form)? This is an essential requirement. 2. Has another music-based program (CD player, DVD movie viewer, sequencer etc) currently got exclusive control of your MIDI output device? If so, exit from the other program and try again. 3. Make sure your speaker output is not on mute! This is a ** Beta ** version! As such, the program may well have software bugs. If the program crashes with an error message, please report it, along with a brief description of what action(s) were being performed when the error occurred. There should be a log file in the application folder that describes any errors that occur. This log file can be deleted from time to time if it gets very large. It will be automatically re-created as an empty file the next time the program starts. Alternatively, if you no longer need logging, edit the KnowTheNotes.Ini file and remove the line in the [Main] section that reads: LogFolder=. Without this line, the application will know to disable logging completely. NB: Windows is a Registered Trademark of Microsoft Corporation Special thanks goes to Arthur Edstrom, who allowed me to base the way the keyboard is drawn on sections first published in Visual Basic Multimedia Adventure Set, 1994. Also, thanks to the following persons and/or organisations, in no particular order: The author of Make My Manifest without whose efforts this program would not have been released for XP et seq. SoftCircuits for their freeware VB-Helper DLL that contains several useful procedures. Thanks to the author of clsWaitableTimer. I tried several timers, but this one seemed to tick all my boxes. Randy Birch for the "PhotoShop-Style ProgressBar" which I modified slightly. Rod Stephens for the MRU (most recently used) code. Steve McMahon for his NeoCaption component that helps provide the fancy graphic look. Neo Components for their Scrollerii control that allows the keyboard to be scrolled nicely. Numerous other programs gave me the idea for Know The Notes. Probably the one that stands out the most is from a French author, Apophis, for his (maybe a her) "Piano Virtuel MIDI". Thanks to all. Website: http://www.littletyke.myzen.co.uk/ktn/index.html Feedback: http://tykeshed.webng.com/index.html (See topic: Feedback on Know The Notes) If the feedback website is unobtainable, please email me at kylix_is @yahoo dot co dot uk