Re: Spacing between adjacent \lyrics?

[Graham Percival]

On 6-Apr-06, at 9:48 AM, Rick Hansen (aka RickH) wrote:

> Is there a document or appendix that simply lists all reserved words 
> that
> could possibly occur in an .ly document and their definition, and what
> "type" of constant or funtion or macro, etc. the reserved word is, 
> also if
> it's been depricated, renamed, etc. across versions?  IOW All reserved 
> words
> in alphabetical order no matter what "type" of word it is.

No, we don't have one.

In the next few months, we might get a separate index of all commands 
that are present in the manual (instead of commands and concepts being 
mixed together in the index).  Within the next few weeks, I'll improve 
documentation on how to find out more about macros (ie looking at  
ly/property-init.ly  and related files).  Note that macros like this 
(such as \slurUp) are not reserved words; you can redefine them if you 
wish.

Listing depricated and renamed words across all versions will not 
happen.  Interested users could read  python/convert-rules.py  and/or 
read the NEWS files, but I cannot possibly imagine that a list of all 
these would be interesting enough to warrent the amount of time and 
effort required to create it.

> Such a list would be useful once one learns the basic concepts in the 
> user
> manual.

It might be useful, but at this point I prefer to take a very realistic 
view of documentation -- namely, if it's not something I can finish in 
a few hours, it isn't going to get done.  Sorry to be so abrupt, but 
I've been burned by this issue too many times.


A brief history of LilyPond documentation: every 4-6 months, somebody 
comes up with a great idea for the docs.  Completely rewriting the 
tutorial is a common one; we've also had things like ``really detailed 
clickable examples'', ``annotated three-page examples'', and the like.  
Every time these ideas come up, we spend a few hours reading and 
writing emails about it.  And a few weeks after the discussion, nothing 
has happened and everybody's forgotten about it.  A few months ago, I 
realized that I was spending more time discussing the documentation 
than actually *working* on the docs.  At this point, I'm not looking 
for new doc ideas, unless I ask for ideas on a specific issue..  I have 
about a month's work of my own ideas to do on the docs.

If you're offering to write this documentation, it's a completely 
different story, of course.  :)   I'm willing to spend a lot of time 
discussing or helping people who are writing docs.

Cheers,
- Graham, LilyPond Documentation Editor