Your First Score
From nothing to a shape that moves when you press play, in about ten minutes. You need Oscilla running — if it is not yet, install it first — and Inkscape for drawing.
1. Open Oscilla
Start the app. A small window titled Oscilla Server appears: that is the server console, not the score. Click Open Oscilla.
The score opens in a window of its own (or go to http://localhost:8001 in
any browser on the same computer). You are on the splash screen, with
four buttons: New, Open, Demos and Help.
Just looking? Click Demos and open any of them — each shows one part of Oscilla, with the cue written under every example. Press ▶ in the transport bar at the bottom.
2. Make a project
Click New and give the project a name, say first. Oscilla creates the
folder ~/oscilla-projects/first/ with a ready score in it, score.svg, and
opens it.
3. Draw something
Open ~/oscilla-projects/first/score.svg in Inkscape. Draw a shape — a
square, a star — near the left edge, on the Score layer, and save.
The browser reloads by itself and your shape is there. Oscilla watches the file: every save in Inkscape shows up at once.
4. Make it move
In the browser, click the ✏ pencil in the top bar to turn on the cue editor, then click your shape. The Add cue panel opens.
- Choose rotate. It starts with trig set to auto: the shape turns by itself, with no playhead needed.
- Click Save to SVG.
The shape starts turning. The cue is written into score.svg — open the file
in Inkscape and it is there, on the shape, as
rotate(dur:2, trig:auto) or similar. Click the shape again to change it.
5. Let the playhead fire it
Most cues wait for the playhead — the vertical line the score scrolls past. Click your shape, change trig to playhead and save. Press ▶: the score scrolls, and the shape starts turning when the line reaches it.
That is the heart of Oscilla: things in the score happen when the playhead reaches them.
6. Bring a second device
In the score, open Menu → Share project link (QR code)…. Scan the code with a phone on the same network: it opens straight into this project and plays in step with your computer. Each device draws the score itself; only the timing is shared.
(The QR code in the server console works too, but leads to the project list,
where you pick first.)
Where next
- Workflow — the whole loop: projects, Inkscape, the cue editor, saving, sharing, rehearsing.
- Cues and Animation — everything a score element can do, each with a picture from its demo.
- Map Mode — a score that is a map, and a piece that is a route through it.
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