Import of Capella 2.X files

• Mar 8, 2012 - 08:07
Type
Functional
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Status
won't fix
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project
MuseScore

offspring of #14064: [1.2 pre-release] Opening capella files causes crash
MuseScore claims the attach files to not be in Capella format ("Load failed: bad file signature: no capella file?") and refused to open them. Capella opens them just fine.
They do not start with "CAP" though.

Problems exists with branch (r5430) and trunk (r5431)

Attachment Size
broken_capella_files.zip 3.27 KB

Comments

• Mar 8, 2012 - 10:43

This is a never ending problem. That's why I agree with Thomas, we should consolidate on MusicXML import.
In any case, it's more a feature request (supporting more recent (?) capella format) than a bug report.

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• Mar 8, 2012 - 11:12

Well, the problem is that XML is not an option, if all you got is just a (bunch of) Capella file(s). And not all version of Capella can export XML, as far as I understand.
At least in Germany there are quite a few Capella users, convincing them to turn to MuseScore would be far easier if it would import all their Capella files.
I have some 400 Capella files I'd need to import... none of which imports with out major loss of information! I'm not prepared though to buy Capella, just to possibly be able to export these as XML, to then import them into MuseScore. And the folsk I got the Capella files from are on an older release, without XML export...

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• Mar 8, 2012 - 13:52
Title [1.2 prerelease] [trunk] Can't open certain Capella files ⇒ Import of Capella 2.X files

Currently MuseScore tries to support Capella 3.X (from 2000) and does not support the 2.X format of Capella files.
The files attached to the issue are Capella 2.1 files according to the small specification posted in this thread.

As a way of archiving this file format, I attach here a copy of this spec.

Attachment Size
c2format.txt 15.44 KB

Reply

• Mar 8, 2012 - 15:01

I have to agree with Thomas and lasconic. While you might be looking at 400 files you need to convert for whatever reason, realistically, shouldn't most capella users should be able to export to MusicXML themselves? And if capella is as popular as you say (I had never heard of it before switching to MuseScore and seeing it on the list of import formats), shouldn't it be an easy matter to find someone with a more recent copy to do the export for you?

I have to imagine there would be far more Finale and Sibelius users than capella users also making the switch, though, and hence also concerned with importing their scores. Time spent improving capella import for the benefit for the few for whom the current import facilities are insufficient is time that could have been spent improving MusicXML for the benefit of not only the majority of capella users, but also users of Finale, Sibelius, and other notation programs. Even if it were decided that it was worth spending time working on import of proprietary formats from other programs, I would think Sibelius and Finale would be highest priority.

Of course, that's not to say it isn't worth getting the import of capella 2.x files working if it isn't terribly involved. Or, perhaps this would be the sort of project that would make a nice summer project for some aspiring programmer - again, if there are enough capella users to be concerned about, presumably one of them would have the necessary skills and might be interested?

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• Mar 8, 2012 - 18:21

This is a bit wierd, I believed those files to be newer than all the others, apparently not so.
But that may give relief, as I guess I can get the person who gave them to me to store them again in the newer 3.x format
(I'm pretty sure his version is not new enough to support XML though).

As to popularity of Capella vs. Sibelius and Finale: I personally know a good handfull Capella users, but not a single one using Finale or Sibelius. I only learned via the MuseScore forums about the existencence of these.
This may just my limited view, or a pure german thing (Capella being a german product) though, worldwide it might be a small minority, I don't know.

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• Apr 21, 2013 - 09:46

Just had a quick look at the spec. Capella 2 file format is (as is to be expected) rather similar to Capella 3, but a liitle bit less complicated. Unfortunately, there are enough differences to prevent us from slightly adapting to existing Capella importer to also accept Capella 2. A Capella 2 importer could share a significant amount of code with the existing Capella importer, but would also require a significant amount of new code.

Even though I sometimes enjoy working on a different subject, I agree that our priority should be to focus on getting MusicXML working well.

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• Apr 21, 2013 - 12:57

I'm not sure how to interprete http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capella_(Software), it claims the cap2 format being used in Capella 2.x, 2000 (3.0) and 2002 (4.0), and cap3 Format starting in Capelle 2004 (5.0), together with the introduction of capXML.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capella_(notation_program) though reads differrently and supports the claim that cap3 format started with Capella 2000 (3.0). I'm confused...

The error message when encountering a 2.x version file should be improved.

Maybe from: "Load failed: bad file signature: no capella file?" to "Load failed: bad file signature: no Capella file or not from version 2000 (3.0) or later?"

Submitted that as a pull request, https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/307

Not sure whether that message needs a linebreak to render properly.

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• May 7, 2013 - 07:59

There is an issue left with this: when using MuseScore in batche. or command line mode, I think it should not show that alert box (and requesting a user action), but rather just show that message on stderr.

In capella.cpp, line 2349, it should check the globel noGui and decide whether to QMessageBox() or qDebug() (?)

Same issue BTW for GuitarPro import in importgtp.cpp at line 2673

See importmidi.cpp, line 921 and exportmp3.cpp, line 620 for how it should be.

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• May 16, 2013 - 14:40

My workaround for this is now to print them with the free Capella Reader into a PDF printer (e.g. PDF24), them convert that into MusicXML using PDFtoMusic pro

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• Sep 19, 2016 - 10:16
Status (old) active ⇒ won't fix

Let's close this as not being worth the effort to write lots of code just to be able to import Cpaella files that are older than 16 years

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