[Denemo-devel] The Cairo Roadmap

[Richard Shann]

I have been thinking about the cairo stuff.
Short version:
        I think the next step will be to create a set of scolling drawing
areas, each similar to the current drawing area, but the first measure
on each being the one following the last measure on the one above. This
means that if you have four staffs, but only room to display one, then
that one appears in the top drawing area and its music continues in the
next one below and so on.

Terminology:
        A system: a system is a set of staffs linked together at right and left
sides - it represents music that is to be played together. E.G. the four
staffs of a SATB choir piece, or of a string quartet or the large number
of staffs in an orchestral score. A page may have more than one system
on it, representing the music in left to right top to bottom order.

Rationale:
        Denemo is about visualizing the music as you enter/edit it. The current
visualization allows you only to see a small amount at once. It shows
just one system. Just making the font size smaller would lead to long
lines (bad) before you can see much of the music, no matter how wide
your screen. Just starting the next system below the last system would
not be a great benefit if there are many staffs in each system, since
you could not see much of any one part.
        By giving each system its own drawing area, you can actually do better
than the printed page in allowing you to visualize the music, despite
the better resolution of the printed page. So you could choose the
height of the system drawing area to show as many staffs as you wish,
and then you would see the music for those parts going down the page.

Richard