Editing Capella (notation program) (section)

==History==
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Before ''capella'', there was ''tonica'', a program to analyse musical notation. Since some people used tonica mainly to print musical scores, the idea for a scorewriter was born.

The first version was published in 1992 as a program named "Allegro", running under [[MS-DOS]] with its own graphical interface. Since the name was already taken, the name had to be changed - taking the name from the brightest star in the constellation [[Auriga (constellation)|Auriga]], [[Capella (star)|Capella]]. Only the original file name extension ALL was kept for the binary notation file format. The first real ''capella'' is version 1.01 dated 15 May 1992. Version 1.5 was the last MS-DOS Version, published in 1993.

The only alternative back then was the much more expensive [[Finale (software)|Finale]] on [[Atari ST]] or [[Macintosh]], or since 1993 [[Sibelius (software)|Sibelius]] on [[Acorn Computers]].

Version 2 used [[Windows 3.1]]. The file format changed to another proprietary binary format with extension CAP. Many details, including lyrics, were lost in the conversion from ALL to CAP files.

Version 3.0 moved from 16-bit to 32-bit software. The file format changed again, also with some losses in the conversion. This format is internally designated as CAP3. This binary file format was kept, until the XML-based format CapXML 1.0 with extension CAPX was introduced.

In 2004, scripting was introduced.

Capella has always used and uses copy protection; initially by requiring the installation CD to be in the CD reader, today by requiring activation (after a trial period of 30 days).

The company was originally called "whc Musiksoftware", then "whc Musiksoftware GmbH". The name was changed to "capella-software GmbH" in the fall of 2002, changing the legal form from [[Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung|GmbH]] to AG ([[Aktiengesellschaft]]) in March 2011.

Version 8, published in late 2017, is a major rewrite of the program using the [[Qt (software)|Qt]], a [[cross-platform]] [[application framework]] and [[widget toolkit]], which made possible the publication of a version for [[macOS]], i.e. Apple Macintosh. The Reader 8, using the Qt platform, had already been released March 29, 2016, 20 months before the main program.