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Re: an innocent's query :)


From: David Bobroff
Subject: Re: an innocent's query :)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:45:06 +0000
User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Windows/20080421)

Bill Mooney wrote:
Greetings All,
I am a newcomer to the list, and to Lilypond. Notwithstanding this I am finding LP very satisfying to use and am currently setting some hand-notation music for a friend - from which activity rises my query. Would it be worthwhile to consider changing the way LP 'reads' its input files to allow the use of UpperCase letters for the notes? It seems to me, in my innocence, that this would allow, amongst other things, a change to the way sharps/flats etc are dealt with ( eg Aa = A-sharp, aA = A-flat, and other one-key-strokes for quarter-tones, etc, etc... ), and might lead to dropping the need for the various 'language' include files. It would also make global replacements of one particular note very easy (if perhaps in notating handwritten score by someone who is not very accurate in their note placement! ).
Regards
Bill

I'm hardly an expert in these matters but some things do occur to me regarding your question.

As for eliminating the 'need' for language include files; These were created, I presume, to facilitate note entry for people who learned different note naming conventions. I'm American and learned B-flat, C-sharp, etc. I also lived in Spain for a year and had to learn the Spanish note names. Now I find myself in Iceland where the note naming convention is the same as in German for the most part (one school teaches what is, essentially, the Dutch naming convention). I simply use the Dutch naming convention because I find it very compact and consistent.* Having these language options eliminates the need for a user to learn a different note naming convention.

As for changing the input note naming convention; I see no reason why you couldn't create your own 'language' file based on your desire to use upper-case note names. Simply open one of the language input files (~\LilyPond\usr\share\lilypond\current\ly\) and make a new copy and then edit it to suit your needs. In fact, even the default (Dutch) is a 'language include' file. It's simply the default. I would be surprised if it were not possible to change the default.

As for easing global replacements of errors I'm not convinced it would offer much of an improvement. There would doubtless be instances of other text which could be affected by global replacements.

Hope this helps,

David

*Dutch and German differ in the naming of the B's:

English         Dutch           German
B-flat          bes             b
B               b               h
B-sharp         bis             his




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