Overview |
Entering Words |
Recording Bounce Times |
Web Applet Version |
Kar Files |
Audio CDs (.dtcd files) |
Auto-Run CDs |
New Ball Images |
MP3 Files |
Diversi-Tune can be used to enter your own words, and record your own ball bounce timings for any song. The words and bounce timings are contained in a single text string. To see and edit this text string for any song, hold the Shift and Control keys down and click the Stop button (or press the End key). A white text edit box will fill the screen. Press Esc to go back to the normal screen.
This Diversi-Tune text string is stored as a single midi "event" at the beginning of a .mid or .kar file when you save a midi file after entering words. For .dtcd files, which go with audio CDs, the words text string for each song on the audio CD is saved in a single .dtcd separated by |= characters. The text string is placed automatically in the right place in the .mid, .kar. or .dtcd file when you save the file with "File/Save As" or Control-S.
When you save a midi or kar file, Diversi-Tune suggest a file name which ends with _.mid or _.kar. The underscore character _ is meant to show that a Diversi-Tune words string is embedded in the file. You can save files with any name you want, but keeping the underscore character is recommended to flag the file as a Diversi-Tune file.
To add words to a song, you first need to create or find a .mid or .kar file of the music for that song. The basic procedure is as follows.
1. Load the .mid or .kar file with Diversi-Tune.
2. Do Shift-Control-Stop and enter or edit the words, if needed.
3. Record and/or adjust the bounce times, if needed.
4. Save the _mid or _kar file with embedded words.
Note that if you start with a .kar file, Diversi-Tune automatically converts the .kar format words and timings into a Diversi-Tune text string. You can then edit this text string, and adjust or re-record the bounce timings if you wish.
For audio CDs, you insert the CD in the CD drive, and create a new .dtcd template file for that CD with File/New Audio CD. Then, you select a song on the CD from the Song List, and proceed as with .mid and .kar files.
Note that if you make changes to a song and then try to play another song, close the program, or transpose, you will see a "Warning Song Not Saved" message first. Press control-S and save the song. Or, if you don't want to save the song, just click the Next Song button again, or try to close the program again and it will work this time (your song changes will be lost).
The best way to learn how to enter words is to load one of the songs that I've done and go to the Words edit text box. The file, Movie_Grease.dtcd has a lot of good examples of multiple panels and such. The Children's songs show examples of different colors and ball shapes. Automatically generated words from .kar files are not good examples, since they use [ and ] for all the word bounce positions, which is much harder to do manually.
Click Shift-Control-STOP button, or press the Shift-Control-END key to reach the words edit screen. The F11 and F12 keys then will change the size of the font, if desired.
The basic format for the words is as follows:
Main Options
| (vertical bar character)
Words for Panel 1
{ (left curly bracket)
Bounce Times for Panel 1
} (right curly bracket)
Panel 1 Options
| (starts of 2nd panel, if present)
Words for Panel 2
...etc same as Panel 1
...repeat for all panels
Formatting The Words
The words for each panel start with a vertical bar | and end with a left curly bracket { This means you can't enter these characters directly. The 'escape' character is the caret ^, so enter these characters as ^| or ^{ if you want them to appear on the screen in a song.
You can't use a double quote " anywhere in the words section. Diversi-Tune will automatically replace double quotes with a reverse apostrophe ` when you enter words in the text box.
Diversi-Tune adds a backslash \ character at the end of each line so the resulting string can be read from an html file in the Applet version.
Use the ^ before any special character to show it on the screen in the words. For example, to show an @ you must enter ^@.
Repeating Phrases
You can save some space and typing by marking phrases in your song which are repeated. The at @ sign is used for this purpose.
Line Formatting Characters
Line formatting characters appear at the beginning of each line, i.e. right after a backslash \. The line formatting characters are:
* Asterisk: No automatic
bounces on this line
! Exclamation Point: Show line
in alternate color
% Center this line
+ Reserved for future expansion (don't use
at beginning of line)
More than one line formatting character may be used. If these
characters appear anywhere except the beginning of a line, they
show normally. (use ^* if you really want an * on the screen at
the beginning of a line)
If you have 2 of the same line formatting characters in a row
starting a line (** or !! or %%), the format effect applies to
all lines below this line. The effect lasts until you enter a
line with a single formatting character (* or ! or %). For
example, this allows you to center all the lines in a song simply
by starting the first line with %%.
Syllable Separators
Unless you start a line with an asterisk * , Diversi-Tune will place bounce points automatically on each syllable. Syllables are separated by any of the following characters:
space
! exclamation point
, comma
. period
\ backslash (end of line)
( left parenthesis
) right parenthesis
- minus sign
= equal sign (invisible)
Normally, you place an equal sign, = , in between each syllable. Diversi-Tune will place a bounce point on the center character of the syllable. To force a different bounce point, use the following characters:
[ left square bracket: Force
bounce point on next character
] right square bracket: Force bounce point in
between characters
If you force a bounce on a syllable, it overrides the automatic bounce position for that syllable. If you start a line with an asterisk, * , then the only way to enter a bounce on that line is with forced bounce characters, [ or ]. I use this frequently to bounce on the title line during the introduction to a song.
To bounce more than one time on the same syllable, enter: ~nnn where "nnn" is a 1 to 3 digit number from 2 to 500. The ~nnn should appear right before the syllable separator. For example: tav~4=ern, or ~12[tav=ern. The first example bounces 4 times on the "a", and the second example bounces 12 times on the "t".
To avoid bouncing on a syllable, enter ~, or ~0 right before the syllable separator. For example: there is~ a~0 tav=ern (doesn't bounce on "is a").
You can also bounce more than one time by using more than one [ or] forced bounce, i.e. t[[[[av=ern is the same as the first example above.
Pre-Defined Macros
The pre-defined macros are used for instrumental breaks in the song, and for "The End". Diversi-Tune includes the following macros:
@< is
%[< [>
@> is %T[he E[nd
@& is %The[ End~
@= is %[- [-
@- is %[- [- [- [-
@_ is %[- [- [- [- [- [- [-
[-
@. is %[[[[-
@: is %[[[[- [[[[-
@; is %[[[[- [[[[- [[[[- [[[[-
@/ is %[[[[- [[[[- [[[[-
[[[[- [[[[- [[[[- [[[[- [[[[-
A new line is started for the macro if it is not the first character on the line. A new line is always inserted at the end of the macro.
Entering Options
The main options apply to all panels, and are entered at the very beginning of the words, before the first | vertical bar. Panel options are entered between the right curly bracket } ending the times for that panel, and the next | vertical bar for the next panel (or the end of the words if it is the last panel).
Each option has the form: variable=value; Options are separated by a semi-colon. The "variable" is a 1-letter character (case insensitive). The "value" can be an integer, integer/hex, or a {string} as described below.
R=n; Initial Rotation: where
n=0,1,2 or 3 / default is 1
r=0; main
panel on top / split line horizontal
S=n; Set split point where n= 10 to
90 percent (default is automatic split depending on panel text
size)
s=20;
T=0; Don't show panel titles when only one panel is visible (see T={..} panel option)
Title={Song Title Here}; The song title you enter is used as the title in the Song List window.
C=n/rrggbb; Set main colors. n is color number, rrggbb is the hex value for
the color (red green blue)
c=20/ffffff Sets
main background color to white.
Z=n; Sets melody mute channel n, where n is from 1 to 16.
Z=n1,n2,n3; Sets multiple melody mute channels, where n1, n2, n3 etc. are from 1 to 16. Use SHIFT+CONTROL+T to view the track names to help determine the correct melody channel. Note that this option mutes the entire midi Channel, not midi tracks. Frequently, midi Channel 4 is the melody channel. Melody mute must be on (in the Control menu) for muting to occur. If you load a .kar or .mid file that doesn't have words while Melody mute is ON, then z=4; is added to the words for you. Save the file as a _.mid or _.kar if this is correct.
F=n; Where n is between 1 and 9
defined as follows:
1-Helvetica Bold / 2-Helvetica
Plain / 3-Helvetica Italic (Helvetica = SansSerif)
4-TimesRoman Bold / 5-TimesRoman
Plain / 6-TimesRoman Italic (TimesRoman = Serif)
7-Courier Bold / 8-Courier Plain /
9-Courier Italic (Courier = Monospaced)
V=0; Panel is initially hidden
(default is visible)
L=n; Where n>4
Set minimum number of screen lines
(default is 4 lines)
L=8; Show
8 lines on the screen (useful making sure comment lines always
appear)
L=0; Show
all the lines on a single screen (may be too small to read)
T={title text} Title of panel -
appears on bottom line of panel (never erased)
T={(chords)} (chords)
appears on bottom line - centered
T=0; Left justify title (must also
set T={title text} as above)
B={ball image data from Dtim program} New ball image. (default
ball image is 3D "soccer" ball)
C=n/rrggbb; Set panel colors (for
n values, see color numbers table below) rrggbb is in hex
c=0/0;
Set panel background color to black
c=1/ffff00; Set ball color to
yellow (ball becomes dot instead of image).
Panel Colors
0 Panel Background color
1 Ball color (turns ball to colored
dot instead of image)
2 Words normal color (when ball not
bouncing on this line)
3 Words alternate color (when this
line begins with ! )
4 Words bright color (when ball is
bouncing on this line)
5 Title color (if title option is
set)
Note: You can set more than one color at a time by separating the colors with a comma, instead of a semi-colon. You then omit the redundant "c=". For example: C=0/0,2/FF,3/66FF33,4/CC9900; (end list with semi-colon)
Browser Colors: To get cleaner colors on 256 color
screens, use 1 of the following 6 values for each rr, gg, or bb:
00, 33, 66, 99, CC, or
FF (i.e.
C=0/6633CC)
Main Colors
As of this version, there are 51 main colors which specify the colors of buttons, borders, and just about everything Diversi-Tune draws. I haven't tabulated all these colors at this point. Please email me if you're really interested in changing them! Otherwise, the only main color you'll probably want to change is color 20, which is the main background color. For example, to change the main background to white, enter C=20/FFFFFF; in the main options section.
Diversi-Tune is both a Windows Application (Divtune.exe) and a Java Applet. There is no charge for using the Java Applet on your web page.
To install Diversi-Tune on a web page, you need to create a .htm file with the ActiveMovie object and the Diversi-Tune applet as follows:
<object id="am"
classid="clsid:05589FA1-C356-11CE-BF01-00AA0055595A"
width="1" height="1">
<param name="ShowDisplay" value="0">
<param name="ShowControls" value="0">
<param name="EnableContextMenu"
value="0">
<param name="FileName" value="">
</object>
<applet name=dt code="Dtune1.class"
width="100%" height="90%" mayscript>
<param name="songs"
value="
******Your Song List Here********
"></applet>
Look at the source at www.divtune.com/dt.htm for an example.
With the above setup, Diversi-Tune will be embedded in the browser page. If you want Diversi-Tune to automatically open its own window, set the height to 100 (not 100%, just 100), or less. For example:
<applet name=dt code="Dtune1.class" width="100%" height="100" mayscript>
You put your own list of songs in the words parameter (see dt.htm for example). The format for the words parameter is the same as the ".dtso" file format. The ".dtso" file format is as follows:
{Optional Song Category}
Song Name<song URL>
To create a song list for use on the web, first create a new folder. Download the class files and unzip in this folder from:
Now move all your .mid and .kar files to this folder, or a subfolder of this folder.
Now, play all the .mid and .kar files you've moved to the folder with Divtune.exe. That is, from Windows Explorer, select all the files (shift-click or control-click) and press Enter. Then, click the Diversi-Tune Song List button and make sure all the songs are there. Click Select All, and the Shift-Control-Alt-Save List. Save the RELATIVE song list in the main folder. Close Diversi-Tune and double click this ".dtso" file to make sure it has all your songs.
Now right click the .dtso file, and choose Wordpad. Edit the file to change the order of the songs, if needed. Then, add Song Categories between curly brackets { } if desired. Now, press control-A, then control-C to copy the entire song list to the clipboard. Finally, paste this into the .htm file right after the words parameter value=" line.
Now, run the .htm file with Internet Explorer to make sure it all works. All songs URL's must be relative, not absolute, to work on a web site. When it is working, upload the entire folder (and subfolders, if any) to your web page.
IMPORTANT: To display .kar files from a web page, you must first load and save the .kar file with Divtune.exe. This saves the Diversi-Tune words string into the file. (See Kar Files info below). The web version will only read Diversi-Tune words.
The ".kar" file format is a standard format for saving words into a midi file. In fact, you can simply change the suffix from .kar to .mid and the .mid file will play with any midi player. The words in a .kar file are saved in individual midi events in a track in the file.
When Divtune.exe loads a midi file, it first looks to see if the file contains a Diversi-Tune words string at the beginning. If so, it uses this string as the words.
If no Diversi-Tune words string is found, Divtune.exe (but not the Applet version) looks to see if there are any ".kar" words in the file. If so, Divtune.exe converts these words into a Diversi-Tune words string using the current Word Wrap value, if any. This word wrap setting becomes a permanent part of the Diversi-Tune words string during this conversion.
You can then Shift-Control-Stop to edit these words converted from a .kar file. Then, save the file (usually as a _.kar file). The file now has 2 sets of words, both .kar format and Diversi-Tune format. You can now further edit the Diversi-Tune words if you wish (correct bounce time errors, change colors, delete or add text, etc).
The kar file converter is only present in Divtune.exe and not in the Web Applet version. So, to play a kar file with the web version, you must first run it with Divtune.exe and save it as a _.kar file.
To make this conversion easier if you have a large group of .kar files, create a new subfolder on your C: drive called "dtkar", that is c:\dtkar If this folder is present, then whenever you run a .kar file, it will be automatically be saved with Diversi-Tune words as a _.kar file in the \dtkar folder. You just use Windows to select all the kar files you want and press Enter to add them to the Divtune.exe song list in memory. Then click Next Song, or press Page Down to go through all the kar files (no need to play them all the way through - Turn Auto Start Off to speed the process), and they will be saved into \dtkar. The _.kar files in \dtkar will work with the Web Applet version.
A .dtcd file contains the words and bounce times for a specific audio CD. Divtune.exe shows the words and ball, while the sound comes directly from the CD audio output of your CD-ROM drive.
You can create your own .dtcd file to go with one of your audio CDs as follows:
Insert the Audio CD in the CD-ROM drive.
Start Divtune.exe directly or choose File/Clear Song List
Click Stop, and choose File/New Audio CD
A text box appears with the initial instructions selected. Delete these by starting to type the Artist Name.
Type the Artist Name on the first line and press Enter. i.e. Madonna
Type the Album Name on the 2nd line and press Enter. i.e. Immaculate Collection
Type the name of each track on the CD on a new line. Optionally, you can click the bar at the bottom without typing all the tracks (just enter "Track 1" for the first track), and the track number will be used as the name. i.e. "Track 2".
Click the bar at the bottom when you have all the information entered. The box will show you what you entered. Press <space> to make changes, or click the bar again if all is correct.
Now the "Save As" dialog box appears. Choose the directory to save, and change the suggested file name, if desired (not recommended).
You're now ready to add words and record bounce times for individual songs, just like with mid of kar files. Note that the song will already have a default set of "words" which is the track name with the ball moving across the name for the duration of the song.
.dtcd files are plain text files. Right click on the file name and choose Wordpad to view the text. The format is as follows:
title={Artist Name-Album Name
\Track #1 Name
<Track #2 Name
<Rest of track names
}
Times (msec) for each track separated by commas ending with a
semi-colon;
|= Diversi-Tune words for track #1
|= Diversi-Tune words for track #2 etc.
When you play a .dtcd file, Diversi-Tune compares the track times in the .dtcd file with the actual track times on the CD you inserted. If the times don't match exactly, you will see this message: "Is The Correct Audio CD Inserted?" Diversi-Tune still plays the CD, but if it's the wrong CD, the words won't match the music.
You may get this message even though you have the correct CD, and all the words match for all the songs. This means that your CD doesn't exactly match the CD used to create the ".dtcd" file. This almost always happens if you're using a CD-R copy of the CD, for example, but different pressing runs of the correct CD may have slightly different times.
If you're sure you have the correct CD but the times don't match, first play the CD and be absolutely sure that it plays correctly with words in sync. Then, make a back up of the original .dtcd file (control-drag it to the same folder). Then press Alt-Control-S and save the .dtcd file. The file will be modified with the new CD times of the CD that last played correctly.
You can create a CD that will automatically run Diversi-Tune when it is inserted. To do so, include the following files in the root directory of the CD:
Divtune.exe
autorun.inf
The autorun.inf file is a simple text file with just the following data:
[autorun]
OPEN=Divtune.exe
ICON=Divtune.exe,0
This CD will run Divtune.exe automatically when inserted. Divtune.exe will look for a file ending with ".dtso" or ".dtc". It will automatically start the first (alphabetically) ".dtso" or ".dtc" file in the directory with Divtune.exe. However, if there is a file called "divtune.dtso" or "divtune.dtc", Diversi-Tune will always start this file.
You can make a simple Data CD containing Diversi-Tune songs ending in ".mp3", ".mid" or ".kar". Include a song list file (.dtso) which contains all the files on the CD, so that Diversi-Tune will play this song list automatically when the CD is inserted. Data CD's, of course, only play in a computer and not in an Audio CD player. To make a CD that also plays in a computer or CD player, see below.
You can add the Diversi-Tune program with a CD words file to your Audio CD's. When you insert this Audio CD in the computer drive, it should automatically start Diversi-Tune and play the CD with words displayed on the screen.
An Audio CD Extra is a cd that has audio and computer data on it. You can play this type of CD in any CD player, but if you put the CD in a computer, the computer CD drive can also read the data on the CD. CD Extra is a standard format where the data portion contains special files, and is in the "ISO" format, which only allows 3 letter file name extensions. The format requires DOS (8+3) filenames. To get around this restriction, Diversi-Tune recognizes files that end with ".dtc" as ".dtcd" files.
To make a CD Extra, you'll need a CD burner program that can burn multiple sessions on a CD. I use the Easy CD Creator Deluxe .
First, you need to make a plain audio CD of your songs. Then create a Diversi-Tune ".dtcd" file and bounce all the songs. Now, make a copy of this ".dtcd" file and rename it to "divtune.dtc", or any 8 letter DOS filename ending with ".DTC". To make sure it works, move the files, "Divtune.exe", and the new ".dtc"file to a folder. Then double click Divtune.exe in that folder. It should start and run the ".dtc" file, which will play your Audio CD.
Now you're ready to burn the CD. In the data section of the CD, include the files:
Divtune.exe
divtune.dtc (or your *.dtc file)
autorun.inf
The autorun.inf file is a simple text file with just the following data:
[autorun]
OPEN=divtune.exe
ICON=divtune.exe,0
If you're making your CD from .wav files, I think Easy CD Creator has a bug that creates a pop at the beginning of each track. This seems to happen if you create a disk image first, and then burn the cd from the disk image. Avoid using disk images if you notice these pops.
After you burn the CD Extra, the track times in the audio portion may not match the times in the divtune.dtc file (You'll see the warning, correct cd? message). If this happens correct the Audio CD times as described above (press Alt-Ctrl-S while playing the divtune.dtc file).
Note that when Diversi-Tune starts from a CD, it does not install itself in the Windows Registry. The user's computer will not be affected.
Licensing: There is no fee for non commercial use. If you're selling your CD with Divtune.exe included, the fee is 1 cent per CD manufactured. Contact Bill Basham for more information.
Diversi-Tune lets you enter a ball image for each panel using the B={...ball data..} option described above. If you just want to have a different color ball that is a dot, enter C=1/rrggbb; where rrggbb is the hex color of the ball.
Take a look at the Children's Songs section at www.divtune.com/dt.htm and you'll notice a lot of the songs have a custom ball image. You can use any one of these images by copying the B={..ball data..} part from my song into your song in the Panel Options section.
To create your own ball images, first right click on these two links and choose "Save Target As" to save both files into your Diversi-Tune directory.
www.divtune.com/dtim.htm
www.divtune.com/Dtim.class
First, find an image file in ".gif" or possibly ".jpg" format which you want to use for your ball image. Ball images are scaled to be about 40 percent of the line height of the text as it appears on the screen (this allows some room for bouncing). This is approximately the max height of a small letter in that font, i.e. the size of the letter "o".
Because the height of the ball is the limiting factor, it's best to avoid images which are higher than they are wide. The size of the image data is very dependent on the size of the ball image, as well as the complexity of the image. You don't gain anything by using an image that is larger than it can ever appear on the screen. Typically, you should scale your image down to about 40 pixels in height or less, to minimize the size of the image text created. There are limits to how much text java can currently handle, so it's best to keep your image data under 1 or 2 K or so.
Although it's not necessary, I keep all my ball images in a subfolder named "b". The dtim.htm file should be in the main folder. Move your ball image to the "b" subfolder. Now run the dtim.htm applet.
For a .gif image enter the ball image file name as: b/name
If it's a jpg, you have to enter b/name.jpg
If all goes well, the image will load and show on the screen. You will also see the converted image. The colors may be slightly changed to fit the 6 Web color values described above. Also, the pixel in the upper left corner is used for the "Transparent" pixel. That is, the background of the ball image should be invisible.
Sometimes, the upper left corner of the image may not contain the color you want to be transparent. If that is the case, you can enter the transparent pixel value with the file name as follows:
b/name,rrggbb where rrggbb are hex values.
If you don't want a transparent pixel, enter b/name,*
Once the image looks correct, click on it and a text box will appear. Copy the data out of this text box, and then into the Diversi-Tune text box in the panel options section. You should now see your ball appear in Diversi-Tune.
Note: if you change the .gif image while the Dtim applet is running, the browser may not actually load the new image unless you quit and restart the browser (or clear the cache).
Diversi-Tune, starting with Version 2, now supports MP3 files. You can enter words and record bounce times for MP3 files just like you do with Audio CD's and midi files. The words are saved into the MP3 file when you press Control+S to save the file.
Diversi-Tune plays MP3 files using the Windows MCI mp3 driver (mciqtz.drv). This driver only plays mp3 version 1 files, not the newer version 2 or 2.5 files. 96Kbps and higher files are Version 1, so this shouldn't be a problem if you stick to the normal bit rates. Avoid using VBR (Variable bit rate) files. VBR files play ok from the beginning, but don't seek correctly with FF and Rewind.
I've found that it's easier to record bounce timings for audio CD's by first making mp3 files of the songs on the CD. Then, you record the words and times with the mp3 file, and save the words from the mp3 into a dtwd file. Finally, create a .dtcd file from the Audio CD and load the words from the dtwd file.
When you save an mp3 file with Diversi-Tune words ( _.mp3 file), the words are saved at the end of the mp3 file. If there is an ID3 tag at the end of the file, Diversi-Tune words appear before that, and if there is a "Lyrics" tag, the Diversi-Tune words go before that also. Hopefully, these tags are left intact for other mp3 players. The words appear between two tags like this: @www.divtune.com@ [Diversi-Tune Words Here] @www.divtune.com@ [Lyrics/ID3 tags here]
I need your help to improve the program and documentation! Please let me know if you don't understand something. My belief is that there are no stupid questions (only poor documentation), so don't be shy. Please send your comments and suggestions to:
Bill Basham: bill@divtune.com