Documentation (was: Help! \mark, and lesson in Scheme)

[Anthony W. Youngman]

In message <address@hidden>, Erlend Aasland 
<address@hidden> writes
> Hello Anthony
>
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 00:10:36 +0000, Anthony W. Youngman
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> > ...
> > (And I want to create a "format-mark-barnumber" markFormatter too.)
> I agree with this. Many big band / wind band pieces I've seen use
> this. Can we please throw in this patch providing the functions
> format-mark-barnumber and format-mark-box-barnumber?

Thanks for the patch - that's saved me some work. It's now in my 
version...

We'll need to update the docu, as well. Section 5.15.3.

Firstly, can we please change "(The letter 'I' is skipped in accordance 
with engraving traditions.)" to say "orchestral", not "engraving". 
Unless anybody else has a better idea. But "engraving" makes it sound 
like a global thing, and seeing as I can't find an example of it in my 
sort of music it can't be that global. Better yet, just replace the 
sentence completely with the following para:

"The default formatter is format-mark-letters, which skips the letter 
"I" in accordance with orchestral engraving tradition. 
format-mark-alphabet uses all the letters in accordance with band 
engraving tradition."

Note that this will require somebody to take my code, check it, and 
create a proper patch to add it :-) or help me to do it, which I'm quite 
happy to do but need help with!

By the way, a bit further down the docu claims that the default is 
format-mark-numbers. This does not appear to be true, both from the 
example at the start, and from my experience. This para should 
presumably be modified (once all these functions are added) to read:

"The file 'scm/translation-functions.scm' contains the definitions of 
format-mark-letters (the default), format-mark-alphabet, 
format-mark-number and format-mark-barnumber, along with their -box- 
equivalents (format-mark-box-letters etc). These can be used as 
inspiration for other formatting functions."

Not that anyone is suggesting that these functions won't be added, but I 
think we do need them in the standard install. Without them, you can't 
cater for some fifty percent of band music, which will lose you all the 
military bands. Certainly in the UK, bandsmen play two instruments (from 
different families - which often includes strings), and that could 
easily lose you a load of orchestras, too.
> Regards,
>  Erlend Aasland
Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
HEX wondered how much he should tell the Wizards. He felt it would not be a
good idea to burden them with too much input. Hex always thought of his reports
as Lies-to-People.
The Science of Discworld : (c) Terry Pratchett 1999