Compositions tell Abel what to do with methods that it knows about, or what sequence of call changes to call.

Before you can ring one of Abel's methods, you need to choose both the method and the composition to ring. The simplest composition is the plain course, which will always be set up when you create a new Method Collection File.

You add compositions by selecting the Edit menu item, and then clicking on Add Composition.

You can edit an existing composition by selecting Edit and then clicking on Edit Composition.

You can delete an existing composition by selecting Edit and then clicking on Delete Composition.

Abel has four ways of defining compositions:

• Lead End compositions for methods, where you define every lead of the composition as either a plain lead or as one of the calls defined for that method
• Call Position compositions for methods, where you define compositions in terms of standard calling positions such as Wrong and Home
• Call Change compositions, where you define a sequence of changes that Abel will call
• Random compositions. These will make calls in random positions and are useful for practising methods or call changes where you don't want to know what is coming next. Random compositions are not guaranteed to be true.

You cannot mix the various styles of notation in a single composition. All styles will allow you to define spliced compositions.

Method compositions in Abel can be either Generic or Specific. Generic compositions don't specify the method and can therefore be used for any method in the current method collection. You should be careful when you select a Generic composition, as it may not work properly to all methods in the method collection. Specific compositions contain explicit references to the method or methods to which they apply. Abel will only ever ring the specified methods in a Specific composition. You can have up to 100 methods in a Specific composition.

Click on one of the options below to find out more about compositions.

  Adding method compositions
  Adding call change compositions
  Editing compositions
  Deleting compositions
  Lead end compositions
  Call position compositions
  Random compositions