Re: (de)cresendi syntax

[Cameron Horsburgh]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 09:25:57AM +0100, Frédéric Bron wrote:
> Hello,
>

>
> Here are my dreams:
>
> - \<, \>, \! are used to start/stop (de)crescendo spanner (hairpin or text),
> - crescTextXXX, dimTextXXX, crescHairpin, dimHairpin decide if \<, \>,  
> \! produce text or hairpin (applies for ever until changed to something  
> else), I would prefer simpler syntax: \crescCresc, \crescHairpin,  
> \dimDim, \dimDecr, \dimDecresc, i.e. remove Text

I would prefer it if the \< and \> forms produced hairpins and the
various textual forms produced the various text possibilities.

> - \<"cresc.", \<"cresc. poco a poco", \>"dim."... produce a text spanner  
> with corresponding text, the spanner is ended with \!, the text applies  
> only once, i.e. next (de)crescendo produces hairpin if this is the  
> current setting

This is a great idea. In fact, it would make sense to me to have the
\< and \> forms default to hairpins, but have some sort of attached
markup to describe a textual form instead. So, for instance,

       a\< 

would produce a hairpin starting on the a, while 

      a\<_"cresc."  

would produce a 'cresc.' attached to the a instead. I can see there
might be a problem if this was a fully fledged markup, because there
is already a lot of formatting applied to the text mark. (I can also
see that my syntax is ambiguous, because it could also mean that I
want a simple markup attached to the a).

I have no idea about the programming, but we might also be able to add
another symbol that would suggest the addition of dots. However, this
preference would often apply globally to a piece, so it might be best
set once for all in the current way.

> - \cresc, \dim, \decr, \decresc produce a text without spanner, applies  
> only once to the previous note, no need to finish with \! or \endcresc,  
> this could be implemented with a \markup command
> - remove unnecessary \cr, \endcr, \decr, \enddecr
> - remove unnecessary \enddim, \endcresc
>

I agree. These different forms are all confusing, and I always worry
I've been mixing forms and just hope I haven't used the wrong one!

> I know that it is not possible to implement this only with scheme and  
> lily code but I am sure it is possible in C++.
>
> Could you please comment on these propositions and give any other ideas.
>
> F. Bron
>
> PS: attached is a file that show the behaviour of the commands.


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-- 

Cameron Horsburgh

Blog: http://spiritcry.wordpress.com/