Re: What to do when \> and \< produce text

[Mats Bengtsson]

Valentin Villenave wrote:
> 2008/10/29 Reinhold Kainhofer <address@hidden>:
>
>   
> > \cresc ... Starts a text crescendo
> > \dim ... Starts a text diminuendo
> >     
Already done, as I mentioned in an earlier email.

> \decresc ... Starts a text decrescendo

This one wasn't available earlier, but can of course easily be added if 
there's consensus
about it. For the macros that change the layout of all future dynamic 
indications, we have
\crescTextCresc, \dimTextDecresc, \dimTextDecr and \dimTextDim, so for 
symmetry
we should then have \cresc, \decresc, \decr and \dim for the one-time 
versions. The problem
is that the command name \decr already is occupied and is a synonym to \>.

Before we make these macros "official" by including them in the docs, we 
should discuss if
they should just print the "cresc." / "dim." or if they also should give 
a dashed line. I cannot
say, without looking at my music collection, how common it is to have a 
cresc./dim. indication
without the following dashed line which tells how long it should last.

>   
> > All of these would simply be ended by \!.
> >     
>
> I agree, but in this case we'd have to first have a convert rule that turns
>
> \version "2.6"
> { a \cresc b c d }
>
> into
>
> \version "2.12"
> { a \cresc \! b c d }
>
> because otherwise the "old" \cresc would be left unfinished and
> therefore would risk to break some old ly scores.
>   
This conclusion isn't fully correct. Even in old LilyPond versions, we 
had \endcresc and \enddim
that were equivalent to \!, and the intention was that they should be 
used like
{a \cresc b c d \endcresc }
However, if you forgot to add an \endcresc or \enddim, the only thing 
that happened was that you
had an invisible dynamic spanner that went on until the next dynamic 
indication. Since the \cresc and
\dim commands don't start any dashed line, this isn't a problem. So, if 
you didn't use \endcresc in version
2.6 (or 2.10 or whatever) and didn't suffer from it at that time, then 
you won't suffer from it now either.
On the other hand, if we decide to add the dashed line, then it 
certainly matters.


> Besides, we should also have a rule to delete \endcresc since this is
> no longer needed in any way.
>   
Well, it's a synonym to \! and \endcr.

  /Mats