Re: A documentation suggestion, was: Problem with remove bar number/ why I'm not upgrading to the new stable version

[David Kastrup]

james <address@hidden> writes:

>> Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> writes:
>> 
>>> So I ask again: What exactly are the difficulties you have
>>> encountered?  What concepts are badly explained, what examples are
>>> `greek' to you, and why?  Simply skipping the Scheme code and asking
>>> for a non-Scheme solution isn't helpful either.
>
> Perhaps there is a much simpler solution. Notation reference, 1.3.1 is
> where I got the example which I have been using since at least 2.12,
> because centering such a new dynamic is probably rarer than having it
> left-aligned, I think it would be useful to note that there's an easy
> way of doing this. A minor change from the example in the
> documentation.  \version "2.14.0"
>
> rinforzaF = #(make-dynamic-script
>             (markup #:normal-text "rinforza"
>                     #:dynamic "f"))
> tweekRinforzaF = \tweak DynamicText #'self-alignment-X #-1

[...]

That name is rather awful.  It would also be more useful to have
rinforza =
#(define-event-function (parser location text ev)
                        ((markup? "rinforza") ly:event?)
   (make-dynamic-script #{ \markup { \normal-text #text
                           \dynamic #(ly:music-property ev 'text) }
                        #}))

And then you can use \rinforza\f or \rinforza\ff or
\rinforza "sempre" \ff

Admittedly, this last usage is not really compatible with the spirit of
a macro named \rinforza, so the "optional argument" idea might be
overdoing it.

> I think the extension that happen to lilypond are a good thing, I have
> no problem with them. I don't have to understand all of them.

Well, I was getting defensive here partly because I confused you with
Jay.  It is hard keeping track of everybody involved in the discussions.

> I know that when these extensions happen, updating the documentation
> becomes an extremely arduous task. From a certain point of view, it's
> not really feasible to update everything in the documentation that's
> easier because of something that's changed in lilypond. I think,
> however, this would be a great place to make a change that certainly
> would have helped me.

Yes.  Part of the problem is that writing documentation from scratch is
a _lot_ of work, so people tend to change and extend preexisting
documentation if at all.  But of course, the existing documentation has
been designed and modeled around the capabilities and restrictions
existing at the time of its writing.

-- 
David Kastrup