Thanks for the response!
I did use LilyPond for long and complex scores (operas tend to be a
LOT less complex than chamber music or solo piano music
The actual *notes* tend to more complex in piano music, of course… but everything around the notes (e.g., markup, footnotes, part separation, sheer scale, etc.) tends to be far more complex in my musicals and operas than in any piano music I’ve ever written.
- I don’t care much for lilypond-book. Never have used it nor required it.
- I never needed to use anything other than plain vanilla LilyPond.
This was my main question, and it appears unanimous that I should just stick with vanilla Lilypond (as I have been to date), with helper functions as necessary for the text work.
- In this regard, I also favor staying as close to the default layout
as possible. Every tweak you make is an additional risk of trouble to
come with future versions.
EXCEPT… the default layout(s) are, in my opinion, downright ugly. =\
To get something I would be proud to publish requires a great deal of customization, e.g.,:
Fortunately, most of this formatting can be abstracted into a stylesheet, so that Lilypond upgrades don’t require too much adjustment in order to recover them.
-> I was fortunate enough to publish my first opera at the exact time
when Nicolas Sceaux added the \bookpart thingy, which was _immensely_
helpful (and part of the reason why lilypond-book isn’t required IMO).
+1
There are still a few things that would be immensely helpful in that regard — I’m hoping we (the community) can get that “perfected” very soon.
-> Most of the stuff I really, really wanted to do but couldn’t is now
quite easily achievable thanks to David’s work over the past couple of
years.
+1
Thanks again,
Kieren.