Re: roman numerals

[David Nalesnik]

Hi Kevin,

On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Kevin Patrick Barry <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:04:48 +0100
>> From: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
>> To: address@hidden
>> Subject: Re: roman numerals
>> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
>> Content-Type: text/plain
>>
>> Michael Rivers <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> Sweet! Thank you so much for that code, and thank you to whoever wrote it.
>>> Open source is amazing.
>>
>> "Dunno who I stole this from" does not meet the licensing criteria for
>> either Open Source or Free Software.
>>
>> --
>> David Kastrup
>
> I hope you're joking!
>
> I also used that code for a while (I think David Nalesnik wrote it, or
> at least updated it at some point?),

Yup, I wrote it way back when.  I've since improved it a bit, and I
need to upload these changes to the LSR (which Mike S. is quoting
above) when I get it all finalized.  Ultimately, I'd like to see this
kind of support in the codebase.  As a theory teacher, I have used
this function many many times.  One of my long-term goals has been to
work on this project--to take this from a snippet, and make a viable
part of the program.  The big issue to resolve (other than the best
way to parse the user input) is how this all would interact with
LilyPond's figured-bass capabilities.

> but it has a few limitations that
> break it for me, namely that I can't put an accidental in front of the
> Roman numeral (although it suggests I should be able to do this),

You can do this no problem.  Just write:

\markup \rN { fII 6 }

or

\markup \rN { fA 6 }

Possibly you're using an older version?  (I know several versions are
out there,)

The version for which this certainly works is available here:

http://www.mail-archive.com/address@hidden/msg69861/rN.ly


> and
> that it is limited to two figures per numeral (I frequently need
> three, sometimes more).

Three or more figures aren't a problem.  I've got that
working--somewhere.  As soon as I get this all together, I'll update
that snippet on the LSR.

>
> It is possible to do Roman numerals using only markup commands.  I
> don't get them to look as good as the rN code, but the results are
> more flexible.  Here's a deliberately convoluted example (in case
> anyone else has similar needs to my own):
>

Yes, the \rN command is simply an aid to creating a complex markup,
which is immensely tedious if you churn this sort of analysis out and
want the symbols to look like they do in the theory texts.


> I find the alignment under notes is best when the numerals are in a
> lyrics context, but ordinary markup above or below works well enough
> also.
>

This brings up another struggling point.  There are slight differences
in the appearances of the markups depending on whether you use them
inside or outside a Lyrics context.  Possibly I'm splitting hairs
here, but I'd like to resolve this.

HTH,
David