'Viderunt omnes'

Technical Notes

John Gormley

The Interface of Exercise 25.

The original idea for this exercise was to allow the student to match the incipits with the differentiae by dragging the incipit graphic to its standard differentia. However, it was felt that this would require a considerable amount of screen space and be difficult in practice. The solution shown below was most successful. By keeping the incipits in the left column and the standard differentiae in the right column, the student is able to drag a line (called a 'tie') from each incipit to the little box to the left of the corresponding differentia.

This solution maintains a gap between the incipits and their differentiae which also implies that there is melodic material between the two (see Example 1).

The buttons and the feedback box work in the same manner as in previous exercises. Some additional features have been added to the exercise to make it easier for the student. The ties are 'magnetic', which means that the student doesn't have to click directly on a tie but only nearby. The tie will then jump to the mouse. Likewise, the student doesn't have to drop the tie exactly in the middle of the square box to the left of a differentia. If the student lets go nearby a box, the tie will jump into it.

As with the exercise on dragging neume-names, only one tie will connect with a box. Furthermore, a tie will return to its incipit if it isn't put into a box. This prevents the student from dragging the ties off the screen or behind buttons where it would be impossible to retrieve them.

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