Neanes (pronounced neh-ah-ness) is a free and open source scorewriter for notating Byzantine Chant.

• WYSIWYG design
• Rapid entry of neumes and lyrics
• Automatic alignment of supporting neumes (i.e. fthoras, accidentals, klasmas, gorgons, et al)
• Automatic calculation of martyria
• Print or export to PDF

This software is intended to create simple scores that contain:

• A title
• A mode signature
• Neumes and lyrics

To create a new score, use the file menu: File -> New. This will give you a template containing a title and a mode key.

To update the title, click on it and begin typing. While editing the title, a toolbar will appear at the bottom of the window. This toolbar can be used to change the size, color, font, and alignment of the text.

To update the mode key, double click the current mode key to open the mode key dialog. You can also launch the dialog by clicking the mode key once, and pressing Change Key in the toolbar at the bottom of the window.

In the mode key dialog, select the mode on the left, and then pick the appropriate signature on the right. Most common signatures should be present in the dialog. Many signatures can be written in several different ways, and not all variations have been included. If a signature is missing, request it by opening an issue.

While the mode key is selected, a toolbar at the bottom the screen will be visible that allows you to change the color, size, and alignment of the key.

Quantitative neumes are inserted by clicking the desired neume in the panel on the left side of the window. Supporting such as fthoras, gorgons, accidentals, etc. can be inserted by using the toolbar that appears on the bottom of the screen when a neume is selected.

To insert a martyria, use the martyria button in toolbar on the top of the window. The note and root sign of the martyria are automatically calculated based on the mode key and fthoras placed above neumes. If the melody leaves the range generally used by traditional Byzantine Chant, the martyria will not display properly.

To insert a tempo marker, click the desired marker in the toolbar on the top of the window.

There are three modes of neume entry.

• Auto Mode
• Insert Mode
• Single Edit Mode

To change the entry mode, click the Auto, Insert, or Single buttons in the toolbar at the top of the screen.

When creating a new score, you will most likely want to use Auto Mode. In Auto Mode, clicking a quantitative neume will advance the cursor to the right and set the neume. When a supporting neume is clicked, such as a gorgon or a fthora, the neume will be added to the currently selected neume, without advancing the cursor.

This mode allows you to quickly enter neumes by clicking the quantitative neumes in left panel. You can either enter all the quantitative neumes rapidly, and then go back and add the gorgon, fthora, etc., or you can click a quantitative neume, click the gorgon, click another quantitative neume, etc.

If you make a mistake, and wish to go back a character, press the left arrow key to move the cursor back to the left and continue entering neumes. The mistake will be overwritten.

If you need to insert neumes in the middle of the score, then you should use Insert Mode. This mode functions similarly to Auto Mode, except neumes are not overwritten, but are instead inserted to the right of the current cursor position.

In Single Edit Mode, clicking a quantitative neume updates the currently selected neume without advancing the cursor. This can be used to correct a single mistake by clicking directly on the neume and changing it.

To remove a neume, text box, or mode key, select it and press the delete button in the main toolbar.

To insert a page break or a line break, click the neume that you want the break to occur after, and press the Page Break or Line Break button in the toolbar at the top of the window.

Drop Caps may be inserted through the main menu by clicking Insert -> Drop Cap.

The application will automatically save your work as you go to a temporary cache. If you close the application and re-open, your previous score with unsaved changes will be restored.

It is best, however, to save the file to a disk using the main menu. Click File -> Save or File -> Save As.

To export the score to PDF, click File -> Export to PDF in the main menu.

To print, click File -> Print in the main menu.

First install the project dependencies:

npm install

To create a release build, type:

npm run electron:build

The build artifacts are found in dist_electron/. For Windows, the installer will be called neanes Setup [version].exe. The raw files can be found in dist_electron/win_unpacked.

To run the development server, type:

npm run electron:serve

This will launch the application in development mode. As changes are made to the source code, the app will reload automatically.

To format the code before committing, type:

npm run prettier

This software uses the "EZ" Byzantine Music Font Package created at St. Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery. See the monastery's website for more details. Thank you for your work on these fonts, without which this program would not be possible.