Re: documentation request (or feature request) w.r.t. polyphony

[Trevor Daniels]

Kieren MacMillan wrote Wednesday, October 29, 2008 1:16 PM
> To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of answering questions about 
> "bugs" in Lilypond that are really just issues related to implicitly- 
> instantiated voices, i.e., the << {} \\ {} >> construct.
> Even writing (or seeing others write) "look at the docs on explicitly 
> instantiating voices" is getting on my nerves.
> The four examples in the last two days finally made me write this…

> Any chance we should — or even just COULD — change the docs so that  the 
> *FIRST* thing newbies learn is explicitly-instantiated voicing,  and only 
> *LATER* are they introduced to the "shorthand" construct?

This wouldn't impossible to do, but would take a little time.
The Notation Reference already discusses the explicit form
first (see 1.5.2), so that needs virtually no attention.  The
problem is the Learning Manual.  Although this discusses them
in two separate sections, it is not as simple as swapping them
over as the second rests heavily on the first.  They would
have to be pretty well re-written, unfortunately.

> Better yet, why can't the shorthand automatically "do the right  thing"? 
> i.e.,
>
>     << {} \\ {} >>
>
> should be translated automagically into
>
>   << {} \new Voice {} >>
>
> That way, the *only* time anyone has to do any tweaking is when they 
> *want* two brand new voices — which is (AFAIK) the rarest situation  of 
> all — in which case they'd have to do
>
>   << \new Voice {} \new Voice {} >>
>
> Am I the only one who thinks this would be, overall, a better default?

No, I agree with you, with Mats' caveats.  But how easy would it be
to implement?

I'll hold fire on the re-documentation until this is decided.

> Kieren.

Trevor