GSoC 2018: Score Comparison Tool for MuseScore

Hello!

I am Dmitri Ovodok, a master student in Saint Petersburg State University, and I am pleased to participate in this year's Google Summer of Code with MuseScore.

While working on a score one may often need to compare different version of the mastered score and identify those parts that were changed in it. One may also want to have a more convenient way to compare different scores, e.g. different arrangements of the same composition.

My GSoC project will be directed towards the solution of this problem. Although ideally it is desirable to have a nice visual comparison tool, this goal probably can not be accomplished during this GSoC's three months. The more realistic goal is creating a tool that will denote differences between scores in textual form so they will be easy to find and understand. This goal will be the main one for this project. A work on the visual flavor of this tool will start if I have time left after finishing the textual tool.

Technically, differences between the scores will be found via comparing textual representations of the scores. MuseScore is currently able to create a textual representation of the score: it is known as MSCX file format which is available in MuseScore for storing score files. A few changes will be made to this format to make it more convenient for automatic comparison. This means that this project will have another interesting implication: more technically advanced users will be able to use powerful version control systems while working with scores in MuseScore. Not sure there will be a lot of such users, but still why not :)

I hope you will like the work I will do. Thank you for attention, and feel free to leave your comments!

My Github profile: https://github.com/dmitrio95

Dmitri Ovodok