Organ Information Files
Hi all,
Since the end of January, I have been increasingly "editing" and "updating" the Organ Information documentation in the samplesets installed on my computer.
ORGAN INFO files
You know of course what the "Organ Information" is -- you access this documentation of your "loaded" sampleset by accessing the drop-down menu "Organ ---->>>.Show organ information ...". When you do this, the document pops up.
Most of the time it's a PDF-type document (made from a MS-Word document using your computer's inbuilt "Print File" command - only if you have a PDF file generator program installed). These documents are often also created as a "mini-website with one or three or four pages" including the "real organ" specification and a collection of photographs.
Because I have plenty of background experience in making and maintaining "good-looking" websites, and also PDF file documentation (from my days as a public servant and my independent educator and consultant), I was keen to see this project to a complete conclusion.
OLD and OUTDATED Info
Most of the Organ Information documents, especially with older samplesets, are rather "shocking" and "really badly made" or "completely outdated", entirely lacking relevant information, now "fully dead" internet links, or lacking background details of the "real organ" and church, and the village, town or region where this organ is located.
Because I've also become a "keen collector" of older samplesets, even those no longer publicly available, there was a LOT of work to do, but I'm really happy with the results: I have now updated no less than FORTY-FIVE Organ Information sheets on my computer. When they were HTML-based "mini-websites" I have maintained this format; when they were PDF files, I've approached the job in the same way: I've edited, updated and extended the information with all photographs and background information that can be found on the internet, from the samplemakers' websites or from other historical sources about the organs and churches of the organ samplesets.
In all cases I've tried to maintain the Intent, the Looks and the Layout of the original document supplied by the samplemaker. For example, in the case of two georgeous little Suffolk organs (Groton, Little Waldingfield) from Lavender Audio (David Butcher, who expressed interest in updating his samplesets with my updated documentation) I have FULLY maintained the gorgeous looks and layout of the HTML pages, while fully updating the information -- not in the least the "outdated" HTML language version and coding. (I have found that most HTML pages were absolutely RIDDLED with coding errors!)
ACCESSIING the INFO files
It's easy to access and replace the Organ Information files in your Hauptwerk (v4) installation:
1. Go to the HauptwerkSamplesetsAndComponents folder, find the Organ Definition Files in the OrganDefinition folder, and you can find the name and location of the INFO files.
2. Look for the start-tag and end-tag in "angle brackets" [ "" ] named "OrganInfo_InfoFilename". Between the tags you'll find the folder name and file name of the document(s). Make a note of the unique Organ #ID.
3. Now go to the file folder "OrganInstallationPackages" to find the file folder and its contents. Here you can replace old infomation with updated information or file(s).
You can change the name of file types to your heart's content, as long as you also edit the file names under (2) above.
SHARING MY WORK
While it is NOT MY PLACE to "publish" this information (I have absolutely no rights to do so!) I'm happy to share my work with you. If there is interest I'll put all 45 files in a RAR file (NOTE: this is NOT a Hauptwerk file!!!) for you to unpack on your computer and look at the documentation.
You will need to know how to unpack a RAR file, and you need to have sufficient file management skills on your computer(s).
If you're interested, send me an email message - to jackhsmit (at) wn-dot-com-dot-au (remove spaces etc.)
regards
Jack
