TextTo: a modest proposal

[David Raleigh Arnold]

I am interested in what other long-time users of lilypond think of
this suggestion to implement a \textto to work similarly to \lyricsto.

for lilypond entry of fingering and text:

example:

bassfinger = \text {
.3 '4 . ^Cresc\dots 4 'i;3,;^"a tempo" |^\segno }
123 4 5 6           7 8                bar  <-wc

fingers a sequence with eight notes/rests in it.  If
a barcheck or something else not a note/rest is used, it can have
text, but you don't have to count those as notes.  The simplest
thing would be to use \time or \clef as a reference to the same
point in the score.  To skip bars, use || or |20 using only the
barchecks in the notes.

.3 is skip 3 words. A '.' is skip a single word, either note or rest.
It's not skipping time, it's skipping words.

<Chords g d> are not counted, only the notes in them in order given in
\bassfinger.  On the last note head in the example, there is an 'i'
above and to the left, a '3' below and to the right, and "a tempo"
is centered above. A '!' like '3,!' would orient the number to the
stem end instead of the head.  The ';' is a separator. 

A single word retains the relative position code of that which
precedes.

- are literal.  They are often used literally, as has been
noted many times.
~ also literal.  "double quotes" are for strings with spaces only.
No letters or numbers are used for anything except inserted text,
except such \commands as may be used in the block.

before note:  :3  :"text before"
farther before: ::3

3*  text before#*
 |              |
 |              |

centered above: ^a
centered below head: _"a tempo"  below stem: _"a tempo"!
before and above: '3 more to left: ''3
before and below: ,3 more to left: ,,3
after note and above: 3' farther right: 3s'' 
after below: 3, more right: morendo,,
flushright above: ^'3  farther left: ^''3
flushright below: _,3  farther left: _,,3
flushleft above: ^dim' farther right: ^dim''
flushleft below: _dim, farther right: _dim,,

repeat position: "nothing necessary"

The reason for suggesting this is that fingering and text are a
different step from entering the notes, and fraught with much more
difficulty in tweaking and changes due to upgrades and just plain
editing.  There is also the use of t p i m a r q c for various right
hand fingerings for plucked strings, and the use of hyphens -3 3- and
3-4.  Adoption of a \textto, similar to \lyricsto, would help a lot
with every sort of revision and make editing *much* quicker for those
of us who have a lot of fingering and other text.

It would also make it much easier to read the notes in the final
lilypond file, because they would stay clean.  I think this is the
strongest argument of all for making it part of LilyPond rather than
just an editing tool.

Much could be done with simple substitution, but stacking text gets
difficult because for example something left and above relative to the
note would complicate the placement of something above all that
because the latter should be somewhat lower.  Worth it to me.  ;-)

As for using symbols differently, you have to do that with lyrics,
so why not other text?  Comments?

daveA

-- 
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