Editor's Message

1. MTO is Framed!

Readers will notice a new look in MTO after seeing the essay, commentary, and review in this issue. We are now using "frames." Frames allow the browser window to be divided up into separate sub-windows (frames), each of which may contain a separate, scrollable document, each with an independent set of hypertext links. Netscape introduced frames last year, in version 2.0, and they have since become ubiquitous on the Web. At first, only Netscape's browser (Navigator) supported frames. Microsoft began supporting them with version 3.0 of their browser (Internet Explorer). The most common non-graphical browser, Lynx, has apparently not been developed for some time, and does not support frames. A separate version of MTO items will be available for readers who use Lynx. ASCII versions of all items will continue to be available.

Featured pieces in MTO (essays, commentaries, reviews) will be displayed in two or three frames. A sidebar running down the left side of the browser window will contain links to musical examples, as well as links to other MTO and SMT pages. The sidebar may be resized (widened, narrowed) by clicking on the frame border, holding down the mouse button, and moving the border to the right or left. Following links in the sidebar will automatically open a second browser window so that readers can view musical examples and text at the same time simply by activating one window or the other. Sidebar links to examples are useful for returning quickly to previously viewed examples. The second window may be closed at any time, though it is handy to keep it open. If closed, the second window will reopen on following another example link, or any of the other sidebar links.

The largest frame contains the main text. It, too, has links to the examples which, again, are displayed in a second window. If the text has footnotes, they are displayed in a third, horizontally-oriented, resizable frame at the bottom of the window. Following a footnote link in the text will cause the associated footnote to appear at the top of the third frame. It is thus now possible to read footnotes while keeping an eye on the main text.

Readers who use Netscape Navigator 1.x or Internet Explorer 2.x may want to upgrade to version 3.0 of either browser if they haven't done so already. Those who use a non-graphical browser or who read MTO in ASCII format may rest assured that non-frame versions of all items will be available. However, we urge all subscribers to change to a frame-enabled, graphical browser, if possible, in order to take full advantage of MTO's multimedia and new display features.

Back to Menu

2. Commentaries

At times, traffic on mto-talk has been quite heavy, and occasionally the postings have become rather lengthy. The original purpose of 'talk' was to carry short postings (up to ca. 50 lines of text) to stimulate rapid peer responses. While long postings (4-5 or more screens) may be very interesting, subscribers who receive many email messages daily may not take the time to read such long ones. We invite mto-talk participants to consider submitting their remarks for publication in MTO as commentaries. These must be prepared according to certain relatively simple guidelines (MTO staff make up HTML versions), and are likely to be read more carefully and by more people than extensive postings to mto-talk. By no means do we want to stifle the discussion list; if that seems the best place for commentary, then so be it. However, we would like to remind subscribers of the option to publish remarks in MTO, and to point out the possible advantages of doing that. Please contact the General Editor if you have a submission.

Back to Menu

3. Volunteerism: MTO Wants You!

As Web technology has advanced, and as more people have acquired the necessary hard and software to take advantage of that technology, the possibilities for enhancing MTO as a multimedia publication have grown exponentially. With a small, volunteer staff (full-time faculty and students), it has not been possible to keep pace with recent developments, particularly with regard to making MTO pages more interactive through Java and JavaScript. The talents of those who have such programming skills could be put to good use, and would be much appreciated by the MTO staff and our readers. Contact the General Editor if you would like to volunteer.

Back to Menu

Lee A. Rothfarb, General Editor
Music Theory Online
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6070
U.S.A.

mto-editor@societymusictheory.org
voice: (805) 893-7527 (with voice mail)
fax: (805) 893-7194