This works, but I don't understand why

[James Wilkinson]

The d flat has both an accent and a staccato mark over it. Lilypond 
wants to put he accent on top of the staccato. I wanted the staccato 
on top of the accent.  Here are four tries. Two of them work; two of 
them don't. (no surprise there) Two seem to be according to the 
manual page 96; two don't. That's a surprise.

\once \override Script #'script-priority = #500    %%works but shouldn't
df4->-.

\once \override Script #'script-priority = #-500    %%doesn't work but should
df4->-.

\once \override Script #'script-priority = #500    %%works and should
df4-.->

\once \override Script #'script-priority = #-500    %%doesn't work 
and shouldn't
df4-.->


Here are my assumptions; some of them must be wrong:



I want the staccato to have low priority so it will be outside the accent.

-> and -. are both Scripts, so I shouldn't mess with TextScript here.

500 is low priority; -500 is high priority.

Because of the once, the priority change will apply to the first 
script it comes to, i.e. the accent in the first two examples and the 
staccato in the second two. The second script will retain its normal 
priority (which I don't know the value of, but which I think has an 
absolute value less than 500).

My reading of the manual says that, in the order of the examples, the 
accent will be low (500),  high (-500),  high (because the staccato 
is low at 500),  low (because the staccato is high at -500).

The results I'm getting tell me that the override is always applied 
to the staccato, no matter whether it comes before or after the 
accent, i.e. the accent is high, low, high, low.



Can someone clarify this for me?     thanks

--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Jimmy Wilkinson            | Professor Emeritus of Computer Science
address@hidden        | The College of Charleston
(843) 953-8160             | Charleston      SC        29424
http://www.cs.cofc.edu/~jimmy

If there is one word to describe me, that word would have to be 
"profectionist".