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Re: convert-ly problem


From: Han-Wen Nienhuys
Subject: Re: convert-ly problem
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 01:37:49 +0200
User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6-1.1.fc4 (X11/20050720)

Stephen wrote:
> As I was working, I was pleased to see how much better the new syntax
was. It was very refreshing to see developers who were willing to change a program so much to improve it without regard for compatibility issues. Finally, I found a project whose main objective was to be as good as it can possibly be.


Thanks, we do our best to do that.

It is dissapointing to see that many of the changes from 2.4 to 2.6 are to make Lilypond more user-friendly. TeX has been replaced by Pango because it is smaller and easier to install. I was looking forward to learning how to integrate TeX and Lilypond in my *.ly files more and more.

Additionally, the TeX fonts looked better than the Pango fonts do to me. If I make a title bold it is too bold now. I think the new font needs a slightly less bold bold.

You are confusing some issues, as does Laura. The benefit of Pango is unicode support, so

 * we can support any number of scripts (arabic, hebrew, chinese, etc)

 * with exact metrics for the texts

* without having to explain the idiosyncrasies of all those (La)TeX macro packages.

You can look at the archives for the struggle it took Aaron Mehl (sp?) to typeset hebrew lyrics with LilyPond 2.4 + TeX.

The default font is New Century Schoolbook, which I chose because it

 - somewhat resembled the old font
 - is a standard PS font
 - available as a free font.

Changing fonts has become so much easier. See

  http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/unix/latex/no-bs.html

for what it takes to put a Type1 font into LaTeX (let alone into LilyPond) and compare it to dropping the .pfa into ~/.fonts and doing

     #(define fonts
       (make-pango-font-tree
        "Times New Roman" "Helvetica" "Courier"
        (/ myStaffSize 20)))

You're welcome to reinstate the ec fonts as your private defaults, though.

Put another way, I think the devolopers should develop Lilypond for their own needs and let the other users see for themselves how that makes Lilypond more useful for everyone in the long run rather than try to anticpate the needs of the fictional "general user".

My own needs are just an inexplicable urge to perform brainsurgery on my dearest child, and write cool and nifty code. On average, I typeset two to three non-development related pieces of music per year. Hardly a itch that should steer coding directions.

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




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