Lime Lighter Technical Support and Tips

Preparing Files for the Lime Lighter

In general, preparing files for the Lime Lighter is a lot like preparing files for GOODFEEL. You may not know anything about GOODFEEL but the reason we are using it as a starting point is because we have a lot of resources for preparing files for GOODFEEL. We recommend using these resources to help you make a Lime file that looks as close as possible to the music you are starting with then you should modify your Lime document to help the Lime Lighter user.

Differences between Preparing Files for GOODFEEL and the Lime Lighter

• With the Lime Lighter you can not use NIFF to transfer music from SharpEye to Lime; you must use MusicXML.
• When preparing files for GOODFEEL we mention that it doesn't matter what the music looks like but we really care what the music looks like for the Lime Lighter. There are a few things that can be done to make the music easier to read.

Transferring Music from SharpEye to the Lime Lighter

To transfer your music from SharpEye to the Lime Lighter you must use MusicXML. In SharpEye, select File | MusicXML | Save As... and pay attention to where you are saving your file because you will need to find it in Lime. In Lime, use File | Import | MusicXML... and just take the defaults in the dialogs that are displayed.

Helping Your Lime Lighter Reader

Here is a list of suggestions (in the order in which they should be performed) to make your music documents more readable:

1. In general, keep everything as close as possible to the staff. Text and dynamics can generally be easily moved with Alt-drag and hairpins can be made skinnier.
2. Break up multiple measure rests because it is hard to keep track of which measure you are on when they are together.
3. Try to know what zoom level your music reader needs.
4. The Lime Lighter will split up measures that are too wide to fit on the screen but this should be used only as a last resort. You should try to move the notes together to make them fit on one screen. First, try making the note density or measures per system higher using the Systems dialog (Page | Systems...). After that, try control-dragging notes and rests so that measures are more uniform in size. You can test your new layout to see if any measures are broken up by stepping through the piece with the pedal or with the keyboard equivalents (see below). Note that after using the Systems dialog, the piece may be harder to proofread because the layout will be different.
5. Consider separating the systems so that symbols from systems above or below the current system will be off the screen. You can use the Systems dialog (see above) and Staff Drag (see below) for this.
6. If you are using a grand staff you can use Staff Drag to drag the bottom staff closer to the top staff so that there is a smaller field of view. See the Lime manual for help with using Staff Drag. This should be done last because using the Systems dialog will reset all the staff positioning.
7. There are parameters that can be adjusted to move some other music symbols closer together. These parameters are accessed from the Parameters dialog (see the Symbol menu). Here is a list of some parameters that may help:
   • ACCIDENTALS, KEYS, CHORD SYMBOLS
     • space left between key signature and next object
   • CLEFS AND 8VA
     • space left between clef and next object
   • STAFF LINES, MARGINS, NOTE SPACING
     • low vision rectangle left x: portion of window width
     • low vision rectangle mid y: portion of window height
   • TIME SIGNATURES
     • space left between time signature and next object (make sure your adjustment of this doesn't place the focus rectangle right on the time signature. Making this smaller than 5 makes notes too close to time signatures in the middle of systems).
     • space given for time signature width
8. If you need more than 10x zoom then you can try making your staff size larger using the Parts and Voices dialog but please do this as a last resort only.
9. If it is very difficult to make all the measures fit with the magnification that is needed, you can change the number of measures per system to 1 (Page | Systems) and change the layout (File | Layout) so that the page width fits the magnification. On the TouchSmart 310, a page width of 4.4 is the maximum size that can be used with a zoom level of 5.

Miscellaneous Tips

• The Lime Lighter pedal can be simulated using the computer keyboard:
  • End = forward,
  • Shift+End = backward
  • Control+End = back to forward repeat.
• ZoomText magnification can be toggled using Alt+Insert.
• Windows Magnifier will only run in docked mode with the Lime Lighter and this will limit the pratical Lime Lighter Zoom level for pieces with grand staves. Here are some useful Windows Magnifier shorcuts:
  • Windows Key + U, Alt + G: start Magnifier
  • Windows Key + Plus Sign or Minus Sign: increase or decrease magnification
  • Windows Key + Escape: exit Magnifier