Five Line Skink is a desktop application which is used to create music staff notation using the abc standard described at http://abc.sourceforge.net.
Skink is available for the Macintosh, Windows and Linux platforms (early versions were also tested on Solaris), but requires that Java be installed - at least Java 1.4 for Skink version 1.x and Java 5 for Skink version 2.x. If you are running on a Macintosh, Java is installed for you.
Skink is a java application which supports the abc 1.6 standard with some extensions. It can open, edit, save, play and display abc files. The goal when creating this app was to have a lightweight abc editor that can be used as a portable tunebook on a laptop to display tunes, as well as a basic abc display program that can be run under Solaris or Windows NT. As a result, the idea was to create a legible staff display that is small enough to be usable on a laptop with an 800 by 600 screen. Playback is (at least for now) focused on 'proof-hearing'; that is, playing back the bare bones of the tune.
