Re: Constructive Criticism and a Question

[Frédéric Chiasson]

« Although I like the idea of accepting both \tuplet 3:2 and \tuplet 2/3,
I don't like the notion of having \tuplet and \times.  I suppose we
could keep \times as an old command and remove it from the manual to
avoid confusion... but that seems silly.  Either eliminate \times, or
don't bother introducing \tuplet.

Cheers,
- Graham
»

I agree totally to that Graham. Also, the advanced users can make the semantic differences between the real meaning of "tuplet" and the effect produced with #setTupletSpannerDuration or whatever.

>> Indeed, `\times 3' is problematic, but `\tuplet 3' sounds clear to me.
>> Additionally, I suggest that `\tuplet 3' prints the `3' above the
>> group, while `\tuplet 3:2' prints `3:2' (which some composers prefer).
>>
>>> You *could* keep \times and *add* the keyword \tuplet with the
>>> syntax \tuplet m:n {sequence-of-notes},
>>>
>>
>> Actually, I would prefer this too.
>>
> Yes!  \times is shorter than \tuplet to type.

Wow, you are that slow at typing? :))

Seriously, the problem to change \times for \tuplet is to break an habit for many users. But since LilyPond has changed a lot since its beginnings and convert-ly can easily make the conversion, why not!

But I'm not keen to admit typing \tuplet 3 to have a "3" over the notes and \tuplet 3:2 to have "3:2". What about wanting a 7:8 but only print "7" when the standard for 7 is "7:4"? Also, that situation would surely add a lot of code! That would also happen for using only \tuplet without arguments.

But to avoid repeating \tuplet functions for long passages with the same tuplets, we could admit that kind of syntax :

\tuplet 3:2 {c8 d e f g a b c d e d c b a g f e d}

without having one long bracket going through all the notes. But I understand that you don't want to change that for programming issues.

Better keep 3:2 and 2/3. And if you want a function for triplets, just type "triplet = \tuplet 3:2" and it's done.

And I definitely don't want \times #'(2 . 3) This pseudo-Scheme syntax is very hard to understand for the beginner, especially the " ' " ! The least Scheme syntax necessary, the better!


Greetings,

Frédéric