Re: Some random lilypond questions

[Graham Percival]

On 10-Aug-04, at 7:39 PM, Benjamin Esham wrote:
> - In concert band music, multi-measure rests always appear as a thick
> horizontal bar with vertical flares at each end-- for an example of 
> this,
> see the 17-measure rest in the "Multi measure rests" section in the
> documentation.  Is it possible to force lilypond to always use this 
> kind
> of rest, regardless of the length of the rest?

AFAIK, Lilypond automatically does this if you're using R rests 
(instead of
r rests).  Or did you want to display partial-measure rests like this?

I don't quite understand what you want.

> - Are there any plans to make text markups "smarter" with regards to
> collisions?  In a score I typeset recently, about half of the text 
> markups
> collided with something or other.  Will these just have to be tweaked 
> by
> hand, or will markups eventually get smarter?

I'm not aware of any immediate plans -- that's the primary use of
\once \override #'padding = #'foo
in my scores.

I'd especially like to improve text markups that go with dynamics -- 
like
"p dolce".  Currently I have to either do

d4\p d_\markup{ \italic dolce}

which looks a bit odd, especially with different rhythms, or

\once \override TextScript #'extra-offset (foo . bar)
d4\p\markup{ \italic dolce}

which involves a lot of guessing for the values of foo and bar.  :(

> - What is the "preferred" way to organize a .ly file containing more 
> than
> one \score (e.g., multiple movements)?  I'm using this right now, but I
> wanted to see if there was some kind of preferred way of doing it.

I'd say that lilypond-book is the "preferred" method.  :)

The question of organizing large works crops up every few months here, 
and
I've been swayed to the side of those who say that lilypond-book is the
answer to all problems.  :)
It takes a while to get used to it, but once you've completed one or two
projects with it, you won't want to go back.  Just like Lilypond, in 
fact.

Cheers,
- Graham