Cipher Music (SIL) Keyboard Help

The Cipher music notation is used throughout Indonesia and China for all kinds of music. The font is not intended for general orthographic use, although it is usable for song lyrics in simple Roman writing systems. This solution is primarily intended for fairly straightforward songbooks for singers, not for complex instrumental music. It can handle harmony lines fine, but not a lot of intricacies or subtleties (e.g. no staccato).

The default for this keyboard is to type Indonesian cipher (kepatihan) where overlines are used. If you wish to use Chinese cipher (jianpu) that is also possible with this keyboard. Use one or the other of these options. Do not turn jianpu on with Keyman configuration and off with the RALT hotkeys.

1. Using Keyman Configuration: On Windows, go to Keyman Configuration, select the keyboard, click on Keyboard options and choose Chinese cipher. You may need to exit Keyman configuration before the default behavior changes. This method will change your default to jianpu and everytime you switch to this keyboard it will remain using the jianpu style until you change it back to kepatihan style using Keyman configuration.
2. Using RALT hotkeys: It is also possible to switch from kepatihan to jianpu using the RALT HYPHEN sequence (RALT+-). Switch back to kepatihan using the RALT EQUAL sequence (RALT+=). This method will change to jianpu during just this session of using the keyboard. After you stop using the keyboard it will return to kepatihan.

This keyboard and the Doulos SIL Cipher font (which will be installed with this keyboard) work best with applications using the Graphite rendering technology, such as LibreOffice.

English

These are instructions for typing cipher-style music (where numbers represent notes) using a unicode font and a software keyboard for typing the characters covered by that font.

Apart from the special symbols below, the font also includes ordinary text characters inherited unchanged from Doulos SIL, in order to support typing text and punctuation--this single font can be used for both music and lyrics. Using one font for both is recommended for ease of use, and also because changing the font size should then preserve horizontal alignment.

Because the keyboard needs to allow both music and lyrics to be typed, it does not "hijack" any of the standard text keys' characters by completely replacing them with other characters. Alas, this means that typing most musical symbols takes multiple keystrokes, but on the plus side, lyrics can be touch-typed at full speed without switching keyboards or fonts.

By default, rows of text typed using this font will be quite high, in order to ensure that there will be enough room for all diacritics. If you don't want this, you can use Format, Paragraph to set the line-spacing to a fixed height.

The font targets Indonesian cipher (kepatihan), but a mode for Chinese cipher (jianpu) is also provided via the "slur" font feature. The purpose and scope of this project, and downloads, are provided here:

https://software.sil.org/doulos-sil-cipher/

Indonesian

Dokumen ini menjelaskan langkah-langkah untuk mengetik musik kepatihan (cipher) dengan memakai sebuah font unicode dan software untuk mengetik semua huruf yang tersedia dalam font tersebut.

Terpisah dari simbol-simbol khusus di bawah ini, dalam ukuran huruf ini juga termasuk huruf-huruf biasa yang tidak berubah dari Doulos SIL, untuk membantu pengetikan teks dan pengetikan tanda baca -- font tunggal ini dapat digunakan baik untuk musik maupun lirik. Menggunakan satu font untuk keduanya direkomendasikan karena mudah digunakan, dan juga karena mengubah ukuran font seharusnya menjaga kesejajaran horizontal.

Karena keyboard harus bisa mengetik musik dan lirik, keyboard ini tidak "membajak" huruf teks standar manapun dengan menggantikan seluruhnya dengan huruf lain. Jadi, ini berarti mengetik simbol-simbol music umumnya perlu berulang-ulang menekan, namun sisi positifnya, lirik dapat diketik dengan cepat tanpa mengganti keyboard atau font.

Biasanya, baris teks yang diketik dengan font ini agak tinggi, supaya semua tanda muat dengan baik. Kalau tingginya perlu dikurangi, silakan pakai Format, Paragraph untuk menyetel tingginya secara langsung. (Dalam dokumen ini, style fixedheight disetel sekitar 0.20 inci.)

Font ini dikembangkan untuk cipher Indonesia ("kepatihan") dan juga untuk cipher Cina ("jianpu"). Tujuan dan batasan proyek ini, dan file-file untuk download tersedia di sini:

https://software.sil.org/doulos-sil-cipher/

Desktop Keyboard Layout

Keyboard Instructions

English

Each of the number keys from 1 to 8, plus five punctuation keys are each set up as a "rota", which means that pressing the key multiple times cycles through the symbols for that key. For example, the rota for the 3 key is: 3 3̇ 3̣ 3̸ 3̸̇ 3̸̣, which means that pressing 3 once outputs "3", pressing it twice produces "3̇", and so forth. (Technically, the diacritics are separate unicode characters; so, for example, 3̸̇ is actually three characters prepackaged in the proper sequence.)

Here are the rotas for Indonesian Kepatihan:

The other keys modified by this keyboard are:

{ : 𝅷 ( begin slur, use Right ALT (RALT) { to type a { )

} : 𝅸 ( end slur, use RALT } to type a } )

RALT + 1 : 𝄀 ( single barline )

RALT + 2 - 6 : 𝄁 𝄃 𝄂 𝄆 𝄇

Here are the rotas for Chinese jianpu:

The other keys modified by this keyboard are:

{ : 𝅷 ( begin slur, use RALT { to type a { )

} : 𝅸 ( end slur, use RALT } to type a } )

RALT + . : 5̳̣ ( Chinese: manually add an underdot under an underline )

RALT + , : 5̳̇ ( Chinese: manually add an overdot after an underline )

RALT + . : 5· ( Chinese: middle dot )

RALT + 1 : 𝄀 ( single barline )

RALT + 2-6 : 𝄁 𝄃 𝄂 𝄆 𝄇

SHIFT + _ : 𝄁 ߜ (figure dash)

Other instructions

Q QQ, q qq, X XX, x xx, Z ZZ, z zz : Ꞌ Q, ꞌ q, Ó X, ó x, Á Z, á z ( rotas in alternate keyboard )

For combinations, you must type the base + combining marks in the following order (and don't place both begin and end slur on a single base character):

Indonesian order:
begin slur, base character, overlay (/ or \), underdot, overdot, overline(s), fermata, end slur

Chinese order:
begin slur, base character, overlay (/ or \), underline(s), underdot, overdot, fermata, end slur

Warning: When we switched to fully curved slurs, the cursor often stopped showing up while editing the music inside of an existing slur. This happens when any of the numbers inside are decorated with an overline, overdot or slash. Workarounds: (A) to edit inside an existing slur, first temporarily delete the right or left edge of the slur. Put it back when you're done. Or, (B) count the number of times you press the arrow key when entering the slur. The cursor won't display, though, so this is more difficult. Or, (C) use the "Editable" macro button while editing, then "Default" etc. for printing.

Sample sequences of characters/keystrokes (cf: KepatihanPro Font Keystroke Samples.pdf) :

Indonesian

Setiap tombol bilangan angka dari 1 sampai 8 diatur sebagai suatu "rota" (daftar yang bergilir), yang berarti menekan tombol berkali-kali akan muncul siklus berbagai simbol yang berhubungan dengan tombol tersebut. Misalnya, rota untuk tombol bilangan 3 : 3 3̇ 3̣ 3̸ 3̸̇ 3̸̣ , berarti bahwa menekan 3 satu kali menghasilkan "3", tekan cepat dua kali menghasilkan "3̇", dan begitu seterusnya. (Secara teknis tanda pengenal adalah angka/huruf terpisah yang digabung; jadi, misalnya, 3̸̇ sebenarnya tiga tanda yang sudah dipaket sebelumnya dalam rangkaian yang tepat.) Di bawah ada rota-rota untuk setiap tombol (tanda/angka) yang memiliki rota: