RE: Middle line stem direction in 2.8

[Father Panteleimon]

Yes, I was running 2.8.0 on both platforms with exact same .ly files. I
uninstalled 2.8.0 from linux (SuSe 10) and tried both 2.8.1 and 2.9 with the
same results. Only 2.7 will do the stem thing under linux. I didn't know
decidous note-stems were bad. They sure look nice, though, especially where
slurs are involved. They keep slurs from having their ends floating high
above the notes. I wonder (having no access to examples) if the old-school
engravers would have the b-stem down in a phrase like this:

\relative c'' {  \set Score.timing = ##f \key d \major
                  g4 g8[( a)] b2( a4. g8) fis4 e fis8( g) a2 }

That leaves a big white space between b2 and its slur, which looks odd to
me. I imagine that old-school engravers had a very limited number of slur
shapes to work with, so this case would make the levitating slur the only
option, unless the note-stem is inverted, in which case the slur looks very
natural. So what did the old-timers do here, and did they do it from
aesthetics, necessity, or convention?
Just wondering.

Fr. P.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mats Bengtsson [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2006 2:58 PM
To: Father Panteleimon
Cc: address@hidden
Subject: Re: Middle line stem direction in 2.8

Are you really sure that you use the same LilyPond version both in Windows
and Linux? These differences cannot possibly be platform dependent as far as
I can understand.

For the reasoning behind the change, see
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2006-03/msg00104.html

   /Mats

Quoting Father Panteleimon <address@hidden>:

> In the 2.7 development versions prior to the release of 2.8.0 , the 
> stem directions for notes on the middle line of the staff followed the 
> direction of neighoboring notes (a feature sponsored by Mike Rolish and
Basil Crow).
> It appears that in 2.8.0, this feature (which looks very nice and 
> helps with slurs, too) became an option rather than the default. So I 
> looked at the snippet behind the appropriate graphic on the "changes" page
and found this:
> \new Voice \with {
>  \consists "Melody_engraver"
>  \override Stem #'neutral-direction = #'() } And then the \relative, 
> the notes, etc.
>
> Since I have no other need for a "\new Voice \with{.." in my scores, I 
> tried putting  \override Stem #'neutral-direction = #'() in the layout 
> block. This worked unders windows but not under linux (which runs 
> lilypond much more quickly).
> I also tried the entire \new Voice...etc. snippet under linux and that 
> didn't work either, although it does under windows. The .ly files I'm 
> using for both OS's are exactly the same. Is there something wrong 
> with my installation of lily under linux, or else can someone tell me 
> some other way to make Mike & Basil's feature default for middle-line 
> note stems again? I am assuming that it was changed from default to 
> option intentionally, as the wording of the "changes" doc suggests.
>
>
> Fr. P
>
>
>
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