Re: Notehead collisions, accidentals

[Trevor Bača]

On 2/10/07, Mark Knoop <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 20:34:32 +0100 Mats Bengtsson <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Quoting Mark Knoop <address@hidden>:
> > > 1. There seems to have been a decision made at some point to merge
> > > note heads in some cases (see collision-head-chords.ly in the
> > > regression tests and the second chord in the example code below). I
> > > personally find this ugly and cannot find an example in my library
> > > of published music where an engraver has taken this same decision. I
> > > prefer the forked stem solution - see the attached picture. I would
> > > be interested in others' opinions on this, and advice as to any
> > > possible workarounds.
> >
> > Unfortunately, there isn't any support for forked stems in LilyPond
> > at the moment, but the feature has been requested a number of times
> > over the years.
>
> Is there any indication as to the priority this feature has in the
> minds of developers? i.e. Is it something that might appear within a
> year, or not for at least five years?

Hi Mark,

Sponsoring is a feature in LilyPond is surprisingly easy and successful:

 http://www.lilypond-design.com/sponsor/index.html

It's a great way to give something to the whole community (and
guarantee an important feature in far less than a year).


> > > 2. Forcing the display of all accidentals with ! demonstrates a
> > > collision bug - perhaps forced accidentals are bypassing the
> > > accidental collision code?
> >
> > If you try
> > <fis' fes'>4
> > you will realize that it doesn't have anything to do with forced
> > accidentals per se. Rather, it seems like a bug that you don't
> > get a natural if you do
> > <fis f>
>
> There does not appear to be an issue in the bug list - should I report
> this?

If it's a bug, please report. Take a look at the submission guidelines
(the most important of which is a small, reasonably sized example).


> > > 3. These points are both related to a feature request for a new
> > > accidental style which is common in quite a lot of contemporary
> > > music. That is, accidentals, including naturals, before _every_
> > > note, excepting immediate repetitions.

So like in Henze's recent scores? Hm. Pretty sure we don't have that
as an option at the moment, but see 9.1.1 just in case.


> > See the section on Automatic Accidentals. You probably want something
> > close to
> > #(set-accidental-style 'forget)
> > however, the tricky aspect is the "except immediate repetitions"
> > which isn't supported as far as I know.
>
> Yes, #(set-accidental-style 'forget) is the closest option, but that
> does not print _any_ natural signs. At the moment my best option is to
> just use ! everywhere.

Again, sponsoring for something like this is definitely a reasonable option.

I'm kinda surprised that we don't already have this treatment for
accidentals. I suppose a lot of us working with contemporary score are
using 'forget, and perhaps that's why it hasn't come up more
frequently.


--
Trevor Bača
address@hidden