Re: Be serious about setstrokeadjust in PostScript primitives (issue 8663044)

[Keith OHara]

On Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:39:23 -0700, <address@hidden> wrote:

> On 2013/04/25 07:47:47, dak wrote:
>
> Which is mostly a problem of the previewers (_they_ are supposed to
> approximate the output of the PDF) but it still affects our users and
> we get the blame for it because "it works for others" (TM)

The "others" may well have assigned a junior programmer to keep trying things until 
things looked reasonable on his previewer. I would not think the beam shown at 
<http://lilypond.org/web/about/automated-engraving/software> would escape complaints long 
enough to make it into a release, but it did.

LilyPond is a volunteer project.  We can do whatever maximizes the collective 
satisfaction of the participants.

> But another problem is that of beams and stems not blending perfectly.
> We won't get rid of that before the release.  It requires typesetting
> beams _along_ with their stems.  It's not new, either.

The code tries to use parameters like 'blot-diameter' to fit the beam to the 
stem.  I am not sure if the code allows for varying 'blot-diameter' all details 
(such as the joint between stem and note-head) but the attempt has been begun.

Having the pretty-preview option increase 'blot-diameter' to the width of the thicker of 
the stem or single-bar-line, along with an ugly comment including a reminder to 
"synchronize with Stem.thickness", seems the simplest way to simplify the 
output for the sake of low-quality renderers, and to be easily reversible.