Here is a little applet concocted in some spare time, mainly to learn some Java, rather than to achieve visual perfection.... The aim of the applet is to demonstrate the path of bells in a method defined in "place notation".
Enjoy !
After a year without any upgrades, I have finally managed to introduce some enhancements into the applet. In addition to accepting standard place notation for the method definition itself, you can also define what to do at a bob or single, and specify how many leads you want to display, and what to do at each lead head.
For the method definition and for the definitions of what to at lead heads, bobs and singles, you can put in "x" or "-" to represent a change where all pairs swap. For a change where bells are held, specify the bells held. Use "1"-"9" for bells one through nine, and then "0", "E", "T" for ten, eleven and twelve. If you omit a place it will try to hold a sensible extreme bell (treble or last). Full stops can be used between places to indicate the break of the change. Here is an example:
Number of bells - "6"
Method - "x16x16x16" represents Plain Bob Minor
Lead head - "12"
Bob - "14"
Single - "1234"
You can identify with a capital "Y" if the method is symmetric about the half-lead, and then only specify up to the half lead. (So, for Bob Minor above, you would use "Y".) If the method is not symmetric, use "N". If the method is symmetric like Stedman (i.e. rotationally), then put in "S". For methods "N" and "S" you need then to put in the complete method definition, starting from the lead head and going to the lead end.
The reason for this little piece of complexity is that it allows me to place lead heads, bobs and singles over a set of leads. To make it work, you need also to indicate whether lead heads, bobs or singles are offset from the starting point, rounds. If you look in the ringers' diary, you can spot this by seeing where the horizontal dividing line goes.
So, for instance for Plain Bob Minor above, the offsets should be all zero.
For Grandsire, however, the offset could be -1, because we start 1 from the next
lead head. The method definition for Grandsire is then totally symmetric, as follows:
Number of bells - "5"
Method - "1.5.1.5.1" represents Grandsire Doubles
Lead head - "3", offset "-1"
Bob - "3", offset "-2"
Single - "3.123", offset "-2"
For Stedman, we should start with a lead head offset of -3, since we begin 3 from
the lead head in the middle of the six. The definition for Stedman as follows:
Number of bells - "5"
Method - "3.1.3.1.3.5.1.3.1.3.1"
Lead head - "5", offset "0"
Bob - "5", offset "0" (no bobs)
Single - "345", offset "-3"
Having specified the method, you can then define how many leads you want,
and what to do at each lead head:
"p" is a plain lead
"b" is a bobbed lead
"s" is a single at the next lead
Note that if you define a method which starts with an offset from the "real" lead head (as I defined Grandsire above with "-1"), you will need to add a plain lead to what you would "normally" consider the leads you want to define.
If you specify nothing for the leads, the applet will try to complete as many plain leads as it can until it hits rounds again.
Future work to be done could include the following:
Providing the applet with a parameter driven method of working
Providing an applet or application in which printing works
Configuration of colours for numbers
Linking to a proper database of methods
Proper horizontal dividing line between leads
Or please feel free to suggest something...
If you want to find out a bit more about bellringing, I suggest you have a look at some of the following sites:
Central Council - a good point to find out the basics about bellringing
Roger Bailey's Ringing Info - an excellent way to find anything you need about bellringing
The Bells Applet - Change Ringing on the Web - a much better applet doing a very similar job to mine, which includes sound, but doesn't do the line drawing
The Ringing World - The bellringers' newspaper
The Middlesex Association and London Diocesan Guild website - What's going on in Middlesex for bellringers
This page belongs to Otto Benz. You can mail me at webmaster
...since April 2003
Page last updated September 2000
Links updated January 2008