.show('flat'), support for http://flat.io

[Meekohi]

Adds ConverterFlatio which uploads XML to flat.io on .write('flat') and opens a browser tab to the file on .show('flat').

• Introduces a environLocal['flatioAuthToken'] which is required to use their API. There is a helpful error message if you forget to set it and try to do .show('flat)'
• This does add a dependency on requests and webbrowser which is slightly weird. Might be better to leave them out and just instruct people to pip install them if needed in the documentation?

[Meekohi]

Looks like I need to figure out how to get import 'requests' to pass pylint, but first I figure I would check if this a feature anyone except me actually wants ;)

[mscuthbert]

can we make the format 'flatio' -- it's just that 'flat' has such a prominent other meaning in m21. OR since it's actually a subformat of musicxml, I think that musicxml.flat should also work. I'll just need to think a little bit about having a format that I can't fully test and whether I'm willing to commit to the support costs of maintaining this for the next decade. I think so, but it's something I'll have to think about. Supporting MuseScore problems and Lilypond problems, etc. has been a lot, and I know I'll get a lot of emails about "how do I set up my flatIOAuthToken" which I don't know the answer to. But it is something really good I'd think.

[Meekohi]

Yeah I definitely appreciate the extra maintenance burden -- let me know what you decide. On the upside, there isn't much technical trickery to worry about since it's just "send raw XML" and then let flat.io deal with it.

[mscuthbert]

I think what people will ask for help with is "What do I name my app?" and "What are the authroization scopes I need?" since they don't think of themselves as using an APP and, "How do I put that in environment?" since the vast majority of users never configure their environment. So if the docs for that can be a more step-by-step description, or even a prompt to paste the token into the script to update their environment (see the configure package for instance) then it'll be less of a hassle in the future.

I'm leaning "yes" on this, but I think we'll tag it as an "Experimental feature that may be removed in future versions"

[jacobtylerwalls]

Hi @Meekohi. When it's time to retun to this, could you also update requirements.txt? I think this section of setup.py is just for requirements-minimum, i.e. not packages that we import late and want to keep optional. I suppose Michael needs to decide whether requests will be mandatory. Historically music21 has had users brand new to Python who only install music21.

[jacobtylerwalls]

also, webbrowser is in the standard lib, so we don't need to call it out.

[Meekohi]

Roger that -- I do plan on revisiting this PR, but we've gotten dragged onto other work for now.

[mscuthbert]

requests isn't in the requirements.txt. Is it possible to do this with the python standard library? If not, it needs to be added to requirements.txt

[mscuthbert]

Oops, was already mentioned above. I think that given that the Python std library docs already suggest using requests instead, and it's only not in the std library because it gets security fixes faster than other libraries, it's probably okay. So we just need the format name changed and a mechanism for helping users get their API codes, etc.

[mscuthbert]

Hello -- just as a note (from the music21list Google Group) I'm taking a sabbatical from reviewing music21 issues and PRs until at least Jan 1, 2024, so this PR will be deferred until then.