Which bells were used to make Virtual Belfry?

St. David's Cathedral, Hobart. [More...]

What are those extra bells I can see on the left hand side of the frame?

They are chiming bells. There are (were) eight swinging bells and five fixed bells, together forming a chime of 13. If the swinging bells are given numbers from 1 to 8 in the conventional way, the fixed bells could be given numbers of -1, 0, 1#, 3# and 5#.

Can Virtual Belfry be used like Abel or other simulators, connected to real bells in the tower?

No (well, not yet anyway). Simulators such as Abel require sensors that tell the program when the bell has struck, but nothing else. Virtual Belfry would need a more complex gadget. No plans exist for production of such a thing at this stage.

It seems to take a long time for the bells to come up to the balance when I select bells to ring immediately after starting the program. Why is that?

The animation requires over 600 images, totalling around 150Mb, to be loaded from the hard disc and configured in the computer's memory. This can take some time. Older computers can take 40 seconds or more to complete this process. Later models should be much quicker (a PC with a 2GHz processor can do it without appearing to be slow at all).

While ringing a plain course, why do the tool-bar buttons for bobs and singles turn themselves off and on again at the end of every lead?

The buttons disable themselves during the brief period when it would be ambiguous to make a call. Like real ringers, the bells on the screen require a couple of blows' notice to cope with calls. Once the deadline has been reached there is a period of ambiguity - the actual making of the bob or single (or no call) has still to be witnessed on the screen, but the program is a couple of blows ahead of the visible action and so the bells are committed to your decision. Once the processing of the bob or single (or lack thereof) has finished inside the program, the buttons are made available again.

The sense behind doing this becomes more obvious when you try calling a touch of Original, where calls can occur at every handstroke. It is essential in this situation to have a clear dividing line between calling opportunities.

The 7th and tenor strike slightly late on the last blow before standing. Why is that?

The delay has been introduced artificially because the author felt that striking with mathematical precision right to the end sounds robotically perfect and not entirely realistic. But it can be adjusted. Refer to the online help topic called "Behind the Scenes". It includes a paragraph about a text file named "eight.txt", which includes settings to control the amount of delay for the final stroke.

Why does the ropes window show only the sallies?

Experiments were carried out to show the tail end moving up and down as well as the sally, and also to paint a "blob" where the hands go and have them move correctly with regard to the sally and the tail. Other more creative and weird options were explored too. But in the end the author found that the most effective ropesight was to be had by watching just the sallies. Everything else seemed to be a distraction.

Further developments can be expected with this feature to increase its effectiveness as a ropesight tutor.