Total rework of the *Ardour's Interface* part

[ardour-manual] / _manual / 03_setting-up-your-system / 05_setting-up-midi.html

diff --git a/_manual/03_setting-up-your-system/05_setting-up-midi.html b/_manual/03_setting-up-your-system/05_setting-up-midi.html
index 8fb4083a3fafa85cde1a2cb3623cb21e63f9e897..4172ba99ce0ea804d68a51127f7a6274b0df6c92 100644 (file)
--- a/_manual/03_setting-up-your-system/05_setting-up-midi.html
+++ b/_manual/03_setting-up-your-system/05_setting-up-midi.html
@@ -2,29 +2,53 @@
 layout: default
 title: Setting Up MIDI
 ---                        
- <h2>MIDI Handling Frameworks</h2>
-<h4>CoreMIDI</h4>
 
-<p> CoreMIDI is the standard MIDI framework to comunicate with MIDI
-hardware on OSX systems. It provides drivers and libraries needed by
-MIDI clients. These ports do not show up in qjackctl</p>
+<h2>What Can Ardour Do With MIDI?</h2>
+<p>
+  <dfn><abbr title="Musical Instrument Digital
+  Interface">MIDI</abbr></dfn> is a way to describe musical
+  performances and to control music hardware and software.
+</p> 
+<p>Ardour can import and record MIDI data, and perform a variety of
+  editing operations on it. Furthermore, MIDI can be used to control
+  various functions of Ardour.
+</p>
 
-<h4>ALSA MIDI</h4>
+<h2>MIDI Handling Frameworks</h2>
+<p>
+  MIDI input and output for Ardour are handled by the same "engine"
+  that handles audio input and output. 
+</p>
 
-<p> ALSA MIDI is the standard MIDI framework to comunicate with MIDI
-hardware on Linux systems. It provides drivers and libraries needed by
-MIDI clients. These ports show up under the "ALSA" tab in qjackctl</p>
+<dl>
+<dt>OS X</dt>
+<dd>  <dfn>CoreMIDI</dfn> is the standard MIDI framework on OSX systems. 
+</dd>
+<dt>Linux</dt>
+<dd>
+  <dfn><abbr title="Advanced Linux Sound API">ALSA</abbr> MIDI</dfn>
+  is the standard MIDI framework on Linux systems.
+</dd>
+<dt>Windows</dt>
+<dd>
+  <dfn>There is no single standard MIDI framework on Windows,
+    but Ardour can work with ASIO and others.
+</dd>
 
-<h4> JACK MIDI</h4>
+</dl>
 
-<p> JACK MIDI is a framework used to comunicate between JACK MIDI
-software clients. It provides zero jitter and a fixed latency of 1
-"period" (the same latency that exists for audio). These ports show up
-under the "MIDI" tab in qjackctl.
+<p class="note">
+  On Linux systems, <dfn>QJackCtl</dfn> control software displays ALSA MIDI
+  ports under its "ALSA" tab (it does not currently display CoreMIDI
+  ports).  By contrast, JACK MIDI ports show up under
+  the <kbd class="menu">MIDI</kbd> tab in QJackCtl.
 </p>
-    
+   
+<h2>JACK MIDI Configuration</h2>
 <p>
-Various ways of "bridging" between the native MIDI framework
+By default, JACK will <strong>not</strong> automatically detect and use existing MIDI
+ports on your system. You must choose one of several ways
+of <dfn>bridging</dfn> between the native MIDI frameworks
 (e.g. CoreMIDI or ALSA) and JACK MIDI, as described in the sections
 below.
 </p>