Re: many users don't know about \shape

[Janek Warchoł]

Hi,

2013/5/10 David Kastrup <address@hidden>:
> Janek Warchoł <address@hidden> writes:
>> I'm wondering whether we should advertise \shape more.  It's
>> tremendously helpful, and yet despite it had been added ~1 year ago
>> (IIRC) many users don't know about it.
>
> I'm somewhat dubious about "tremendously helpful" as it defeats
> automated typesetting.

I'm 100% for automated typesetting: it's my dream and the very reason
why i'm using LilyPond.
However, my experience (particularly with Fried project) shows that
with regard to slurs and ties, LilyPond is very far from automated
typesetting. If you want publication quality, you _have_ to tweak the
output quite heavily - would you rather do this via setting
control-points directly?  Actually, \shape is quite close to the
spirit of automated engraving, because if the layout changes slightly,
\shape modifications usually "adapt" and still produce good results.
Even with \shape, correcting ties and slurs is still the most
time-consuming task in preparing the Fried material for publication.
Quite frankly, if we didn't have \shape, i'd say that LilyPond was
incapable of handling Fried project :(

> And "had been added ~1 year ago" is a short time.

Well, to look from a different perspective: if there were any pieces i
had engraved without using \shape (since it was added to LilyPond),
they most probably didn't contain any slurs at all.

best,
Janek