constructive criticism

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

address@hidden writes:
> 
> It would be nice to extend the scoping idea to fix the problem with the
> Staff context described in the paragraph above.  Instead of "\property
> Staff" automatically creating a new Staff context, it would store the
> setting somewhere, so that new Staff contexts created in the same scope
> could inherit their default values from it.

A similar idea has been on my mind for some time. In LilyPond 2.1 CVS,
you can now do

     \context Staff \with { StaffSymbol \set #'line-count = #4 }    { c4  }

to get a staff with 4 lines.

Currently, this only works for new contexts. It would be possible to
add a hack that translates

     \context Staff \with { Stem \set #'thickness = #4 }
         { BLA }

to


     \context Staff {
              \property Staff.Stem \override #'thickness = #4
                        BLA
              \property Staff.Stem \revert #'thickness
     }

for existing Staff contexts.


Questions:

1. Is that a good idea? 

2. Syntax suggestions? The { and } are rather overloaded, especially
   in this construction.

3. Further comments anyone?


>In other words, if you don't like the default, the only way to change it
>is with a complicated hack which requires an expert in scheme, tex,
>postscript, and lilypond internals to figure out. If you cannot find a
>preexisting recipe or someone to write one for you, you are screwed.
>(Relevant example in this context: how do I create a staff group with a
>brace on the left, but without connecting the barlines?)

Your "relevant" example actually has nothing to do with the manual
snippet you quote, and the hack doesn't involve postscript or tex. It
is also not something that is very complicated. The information you
need is in the program reference manual, and appropriate sections are
directly linked from the refman section on bar lines.


--
 Han-Wen Nienhuys   |   address@hidden   |   http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen