Description of the two sub-windows in the VHV interface.

VHV is organized into two main components: a text editor on the left and a music-notation editor on the right:

VHV main page
Text editor on the left and notation editor on the right

Humdrum data typed into the text editor converts dynamically into music notation:

Entering data into the text editor
Notation is generated as Humdrum data is typed into the text editor.

See the Humdrum encoding tutorial for instructions on how to type musical data directly in the text editor. Musical data can also be loaded by drag-and-drop of Humdrum, MusicXML or MEI files onto the webpage. MusicXML and MEI files will be converted automatically into Humdrum data in the text editor. To edit MusicXML or MEI files without conversion into Humdrum data first, then copy-and-paste the data rather than drag-and-drop of the file. See documentation for MusicXML import and MEI import for more information.

The current note being edited in the text editor is highlighted in red in the notation view. Don’t forget to end a spine with data termination token *-; otherwise, the Humdrum file will not be valid, although the VHV interface adds one automatically so that you can see the music while entering data.

You can click and drag the divider between the text and notation regions as demonstrated in the following animation. There is also a keyboard shortcut for hiding/showing the text editor by typing alt-y.

Moving divider between text editor and notation editor
Moving divider between text editor and notation editor
(press alt+y to toggle display of text editor).

See the getting started index page and in particular a description of the help menu for more basic information about VHV. Also see the Humdurm load/save page for more ways of loading Humdrum data into VHV other than typing it in by hand. See the introduction to humdrum page for a tutorial on how to encode music in the Humdrum syntax, although most often data import is done via drag-and-drop of MusicXML files.