Selecting Methods and Compositions

Selecting methods and compositions

Abel stores methods and compositions in method collection files, which let you group methods together as you choose. Abel is released with several method collections ready made for you: open them by clicking on the Open button , or the file menu, then Open. You can add your own methods and compositions to any of these collection files - see Methods and Compositions for details. You can also create new method collections files by clicking on the New button .

Unless you just want to ring rounds, you need to select the composition you want Abel to ring with you - even it it's just Plain Courses. You may also need to select a method, unless you're ringing call changes. You must select the composition before the bells start ringing - you can't change composition after you've gone into rounds, though you can change method, for example if you want to ring spliced.

The current composition is shown in the box labeled Composition, towards the top left of the screen. If you click the drop-down beside the box, or press Ctrl+T (for Touch), a list of all the compositions in the current method collection will appear, so that you can select a different one. You can select a composition by clicking it, by typing the first few letters of its name, or by using the keyboard up/down keys to move the selection in the list (then press Return).

Abel can ring three types of compositions:

Generic Method Compositions. These compositions do not specify any particular method, and can be used with any of the methods in the current method collection. The most common example is "Plain Courses". When you've selected a Generic composition, the complete list of methods in the current method collection is shown in the list on the left of the screen, and you can select any of these methods to ring it. To select a method, double click it, or click it and press the Return key, or, for the first 8 methods in the list, press keys 1..8. You can also use Ctrl+M, then use the keyboard up/down keys or type the first few letters of the method name to move around the method list, then press return: thus you do not have to use the mouse.
Specific Method Compositions. These compositions specify the method (or methods, for spliced compositions) to use. When you've selected a Specific composition, the methods list shows only the method(s) that the composition will use. Though you can yourself select methods within this list, using any of the means described above, you'd more commonly leave it to the composition to do this.
Call Change Compositions. These cause Abel to ring call changes. If you select a call change composition, the methods list is empty, even if there are methods defined in the current method collection.

If the method you want to ring is not already shown on the left-hand side of the screen, select Plain Courses (or any other generic method compisition) from the Composition drop down. If you still can't see the method you want, you can either add it yourself or you can open a different method collection.

If you want to see all the rows for the composition you have selected, click on the Show Blue Line button on the toolbar . This will show the current touch in the blue line window. You can print this if you like (click on the print icon or press CTRL+P), or use print preview to see the printable page on screen. You can also save these rows as a text file, if you want to use them in another program. Click the File menu, then Save rows as... and choose a filename.