Re: Problems defining a BraceStaff

[John Zaitseff]

Dear Mats / other LilyPonders,

Mats wrote:
> Do you want both the default ChoirStaff and the BraceStaff in the same
> score (or in the same .ly file)?

Yes, I do.  The solution you had suggested (redefining the ChoirStaff 
context) had already occurred to me...

> Otherwise, I think you only included your new context type halfway into
> the context hieararchy.  You also have to tell which contexts are accepted
> within your new context.
>
> Actually, instead of creating a new context from scratch, as you have
> attempted to do, it's often easier to use an existing context type as a
> starting point, for example [... cut ...]

Thanks, your comments gave me the hints I needed, as demonstrated below.

> If you haven't already looked in the file ly/engraver-init.ly, I recommend
> you to do so. It's the best way to understand how these things really
> work.

I indeed have looked into this file (and the related ly/performer-init.ly), 
although, as you mentioned, "the default definition of ChoirStaff is a bit 
complicated".

In the end, I came up with the following, which seems to work for me:

  \layout {
      \context {
          \GrandStaff
          \name "BraceStaff"
          \type "Engraver_group"
          \alias "ChoirStaff"

          \remove "Span_bar_engraver"
          \remove "Span_arpeggio_engraver"

          \accepts "Staff"
          \accepts "FiguredBass"
          \accepts "TabStaff"
          \accepts "Lyrics"
          \accepts "ChordNames"

          \description
            "Just like @code{ChoirStaff} but with a brace
             (@code{SystemStartBrace}) instead of a bracket
             (@code{SystemStartBracket}) at the start of each system."
      }

      \context {
          \Score
          \accepts "BraceStaff"
      }
  }

  \midi {
      \context {
          \GrandStaff
          \name "BraceStaff"
          \type "Performer_group"
          \alias "ChoirStaff"
      }

      \context {
          \Score
          \accepts "BraceStaff"
      }
  }

Once again, thank you for all your help!

Yours truly,

John Zaitseff

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