Re: Ties over multiple chords

[David Kastrup]

Richard Shann <address@hidden> writes:

> On Fri, 2016-11-11 at 10:09 +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Richard Shann <address@hidden> writes:
>> 
>> > On Fri, 2016-11-11 at 09:15 +0100, Urs Liska wrote:
>> >> Try \set tieWaitForNotes = ##t
>> >
>> > Is there any circumstance in which it is useful to have this set
>> > false?
>> 
>> When you want to catch a mistake instead of silently getting ties across
>> half the score?  Particularly for stuff like
>> 
>> c~ << e \\ c >> d e c
>> 
>> you have the effect that the tie will reach across the whole phrase
>> since the second c is not in the tied voice.  If LilyPond silently does
>> "something"
> Well, there would be no need for the quotes if ~ was documented to tie
> from the current note to the next occurrence of that note in the current
> voice.
>>  this may cause a visual surprise
>
> the "visual surprise" would be much more useful to highlight the
> mistake than the current behavior, where the absence of the tie may
> not be noticed.

Uh, the visual surprise comes _without_ a warning.  If you don't study
all of your visual output closely (and there is some expectation that
LilyPond's output will at least be playable even if tweaking might
improve it) you'll miss it.  The tie that is absent comes _with_ a
warning.

>>  when the score is getting used.

"Used" is not "proofread".

>> However, a useful default may also be to draw the tie anyway but
>> _warn_ unless tieWaitForNotes is set.  Sure, people ignore warnings
>> all the time but at their own peril.
>
> that sounds excellent.

Mojca pointed out that tieWaitForNote = ##t _also_ causes different
behavior for cases where tieWaitForNote = ##f would produce a proper
result without warning.  So there are use cases for tieWaitForNote where
there is a difference but we would not want a warning.

That makes designing a coherent strategy quite muddier.

-- 
David Kastrup