Bug reports and a patch for 1.3.113

[nel]

Hi,

Below there's a small file that demonstrates some problems with
lily 1.3.113: there's a beam joining eight notes across a barline;
there's a tie that is not printed (and produces a warning "no ties
were created"); and the crescendo also produces an error, "cannot
find start of (de)crescendo".

There's also a tie problem with the midi performer, but this is
already known. The crescendo problem has to do with the midi
performer, since removing midi references from the source file
eliminates the warning. I'm also having trouble with
"Staff.transposing", don't know if it's a bug or a change in the
syntax (I'm following the example in examples/input/test).

I also found two simpler problems: the debian package "thinks"
lilypond is a native debian package, and dh_installchangelogs
barfs with "-k CHANGES"; the workaround I used was to include
CHANGES as one of the ordinary documentation files. The other
problem is that make htmdoc doesn't make the pages on the
lilypond internals (the self-documenting backend).

I'm also attaching a small patch to convert-ly; the identation
inserted the last time the file was corrected (for compatibility
with python 2.0) is inconsistent with the rest of the file, so
the script doesn't run. I tested with python 1.5.2 .

While I'm posting this, I'd like to point out one thing:
I have to agree with someone else on this list that stated that
the music syntax for lily is getting too complicated; indeed, it
is. Now, of course the developers are free to do what they like,
but it would be nice to go easy on the less knowlegeable :-) . I,
for one, cannot be considered naive with computers, but I'm kinda
new to lily and am quite lost with the recent changes.

The solution to this is, of course, a good facelift on the
documentation. First, a good explanation on the Guile concepts
that appear on the music files, the different syntaxes for
setting properties (when to use \override, #, ##, parentheses)
etc; and second, the files in examples/input/test must be
corrected. I believe there's a lot more that could be done,
but this is the bare minimum to allow users that are not
programmers to use lilypond; the self-documenting backend is
cool, but is a reference for advanced users only (for example,
I found a reference to tuplet-bracket-visibility on the
backend, but figuring out how to use it was only possible
after a *lot* of guesswork).

As I reread this message, I noticed I'm only nagging about
problems :-) . Let me try to compensate this here: lily is
great!

Here is the file that produces the errors:

------
\include "english.ly";
test = \notes \relative c' {
\time 2/4;
\clef "treble";
fs4. a8 |
g8 g-\cr b b-\rc-\sf |
r4 <fs4 b>~ | <fs4 b>~ <as,4 b'>
}
\score { \context Staff = test \test
        \midi {
                \tempo 8 = 72;
        }
        \paper { linewidth = 18.0 \cm;
        }
}
------

See you,
Nelson

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