In lead end compositions, you must specify what Abel is to do at every possible calling position. Normally, this just means lead ends, but if you have specified half-lead calls or are calling methods such as Stedman or some doubles variations, there will be additional calling positions to take into account.

A plain lead or calling position is shown by the letter 'p'.

A bob is shown by the letter 'b' or a '-'.

A single is shown by the letter 's'.

If you have defined extra call types (see methods for more detail), these are represented by 'x' or 'y' respectively.

Case is not significant, so you can use either 's' or 'S' for a single.

White space (spaces, tabs, newlines) are ignored. These can be very useful to help make compositions more legible!

Comments are allowed. A comment is introduced by a ‘#' and runs to the end of the line. These also can be very useful for making compositions legible – for example, by labelling the calling positions at the top of the composition.

Multipliers are allowed, which let you repeat a section of a composition. A multiplier consists of a single digit in the range 2 to 9, followed by a bracket, followed by the calls to be repeated and then a closing bracket. Any of the bracket characters are allowed – ( ), [ ] or { }, and you can include repeated sections inside other repeated sections. So 5(p) means 5 plain leads. Or you could write out two courses of Plain Bob Major as 2[ - 5(p) - ], which says "call a bob, ring 5 plain leads then call another bob; repeat the whole thing".

When Abel gets to the end of a lead end composition, it starts again at the beginning automatically, unless rounds have come up and you have "stop at rounds" set. Thus the Plain Bob example could also have been written as simply "- 5(p) -", since it will automatically repeat at the end. Plain courses are simply represented by "p", as this keeps on ringing plain leads.

If you want to make the composition specific to one particular method, include that method's identifier at the start of the composition by double clicking on the method name. If you are entering a touch of spliced, double click each method with your cursor at the point in the composition you want to change method.

If you insert a method change immediately after another method, and don't specify a call in between, Abel assumes you mean a plain lead.

See Examples for some examples of lead-end compositions.

See also:

  Adding compositions
  Editing compositions
  Deleting compositions
  Call position compositions
  Random compositions