Tulip

What is this?

Tulip is a software for guitar tablatures typesetting. This can run on Linux, FreeBSD and Windows.

This software works based on a DSL designed taking into consideration my own preferences and necessities on this subject.

You can follow reading the user's manual in order to know more about.

Until now you will be able to generate tablature outputs based on ASCII, Postscript, Encapsulated Postscript, PDF, Markdown, SVG, HTML/ASCII, HTML/SVG, JPEG, PNG and MOBI (Kindle). You can check an output sample in Postscript here.

How can I clone this repo?

Use the ordinary git-clone command:

emmettbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src# git clone https://github.com/rafael-santiago/tulip tulip

This repository has some submodules so after clonning it is important to initialize them in the following way:

emmettbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src# cd tulip
emmettbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip# git submodule update --init

All done!

How can I build this software?

This software uses Hefesto as its build system, so after following the steps to put Hefesto to work on your system you should move to the src sub-directory and invoke Hefesto from there. Something like this:

emmmetbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip# cd src
emmettbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip/src# hefesto
(...)
emmettbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip/src# ls ../bin
tulip*
emmettbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip/src# echo EUREKA
EUREKA
*** system TIP: You should read the documentation before returning naked and ashamed from the outdoors.
emmettbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip/src# _

Yes, the Tulip's binary should be inside ../bin sub-directory and you should visit the sub-directory doc before starting.

Okay, but I am not so habituated with software building...

Maybe people without experience in software development but still wanting to use this software can arrive here. If you do not have an environment well-prepared for building the software (e.g.: git and GCC well-installed) you can use the pre-builts located under the subdirectory prebuilts. In this case, you will get only the executable file, the exportation of its executable is up to you. The Table 1 brings the MD5 hashes of these packages after downloading the file which fits to your environment is a good practice to check if your copy has the same related hash according to the Table 1.

Table 1: Pre-builts MD5 hashes.

File	Platform	MD5 hash
prebuilt/tulip-bin-linux.zip	linux	9f73590c02fa9ad92764661b1e9145ec
prebuilt/tulip-bin-freebsd.zip	freebsd	dead7f1f0e1daa24de804cdc1497d9bc
prebuilt/tulip-bin-windows.zip	windows	f0f65b068ce726081e9ed95109e0f7b6

All executables listed in the Table 1 are 32-bit based.

After downloading the correspondent file you need to unzip it into a specific directory. Maybe you should create a new directory for doing it. However, Linux and FreeBSD users should unzip it to the local/bin directory (or equivalent) and for them no additional actions are necessary.

Now, for Windows users: once the executable unzipped into some place on your computer filesystem, you need to "export" this executable, in order to be able to call this program from everywhere. Under Windows it should be done adding to the PATH environment variable the directory path where the tulip.exe is laying on. Tip: if you do not know how to do it, try to search for "how to set the PATH variable in Windows". Once it done, if you re-open a command prompt the tulip.exe probably will be accessible.

Can I install this software using its own build scripts?

Yes, you can. For doing it you should call hefesto passing the option --install (being under src sub-directory, of course).

Actually the following commands are what you should execute. Being you inside the root project's directory:

emmetbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip# cd src
emmetbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip/src# hefesto --install
(just follow the simple steps answering the questions or canceling them to abort the process)
(...)

For uninstalling, you should do almost the same. You should pass the --uninstall option instead of the previous one.

Using syntax highlighting

I am a mcedit user. Due to it a syntax highlighting configuration file for this editor can be found under the sub-path etc/tulip.syntax.

Adding tulip's syntax highlighting to the mcedit

Copy the file etc/tulip.syntax to the mcedit's syntax directory (It depends on your editor installation details):

emmetbrown@DELOREAN:~/internet/github.com/src/tulip# cp etc/tulip.syntax /usr/share/mc/syntax/

After doing it you should tell to mcedit about your intentions of highlighting tulip's code. It should be done adding a pattern into the mcedit's Syntax file (It depends on your editor installation details). My Linux distro brings it under the path /etc/mc/Syntax. Follows what should be added to this editor's configuration file:

file ..\*\\.(tlp)$ Tulip\sscript
include tulip.syntax

Now everything using extension .tlp will be highlighted:

Done!

Adding tulip's syntax highlighting to the notepad++

For doing it we need to access the menu option Language | Define your language... and click on Export... button. Now choose the file etc/TLP.xml under this repo's root. After doing it all files having .tlp extension will be colorized as follows:

Done!