Re: First release of ly/tablature.ly

[Marc Hohl]

Joe Neeman schrieb:
> On Tue, 2009-06-23 at 12:53 -0600, Carl D. Sorensen wrote:
>   
> > > http://codereview.appspot.com/67174/diff/1/2#newcode237
> > > Line 237: \layout {
> > > It seems to me that we have 3 versions of tablature now: the "default"
> > > version in engraver-init.ly, the version that appears if the user
> > > includes "tablature.ly" and the "full" version that the user gets by
> > > including tablature.ly and using the tabFullNotation. Is there a reason
> > > for keeping the old versions in engraver-init.ly? Perhaps we should
> > > scrap them altogether and require that the user include tablature.ly in
> > > order to get tabs.
> > >       
> > The current structure comes because I suggested we keep the default the
> > same, so that we wouldn't break all of the existing tablatures.  But Marc
> > wanted to have TabNumbersOnly be the default (and that's why it's
> > implemented that way in tablature.ly).
> >
> > The tabFullNotation is probably almost the same as that in engraver-init.ly.
> >
> > If we don't mind breaking previously existing scores, then we can go ahead
> > and change the initialization to numbers only.
> >     
>
> I don't particularly mind breaking existing scores (as long as there is
> a convert-ly rule to at least warn about the problem), but I don't think
> the situation in the patch is particularly friendly. We've a long
> tradition of choosing sensible behaviour over backwards compatibility
> and I see no reason to change it now.
>   
Joe,

I am not sure whether I understand your comment correctly.
What should I change to make the patch more "friendly"?

Some users called for changing the initial behavior of tablature
because they are using a combination of normal staves and tablature,
and in this situation, only numbers are shown.

To be backwards compatible with older scores, we finally came to the 
conclusion
that it would be best to enable the new settings by including 
"tablature.ly".
On the other hand, for small snippets and stuff it is convenient to use
the \TabFullNotation, which has the advantage of displaying glissando lines
correctly and offers a double stemmed half note.

I don't know whether users have typeset much tablature scores in the past,
so I cannot decide about the right behavior concerning backwards 
compatibility.
Personally, I think tablature was not used very often (or at least 
heavily hacked
to fulfil the needs of the users) due to the lack of important features 
which we are
about to support in future versions - so establishing the 
\TabFullNotation as the
(improved) standard in engraver-init.ly and getting rid of this command 
will not
be a serious break, as far as I can see.

Marc


> Joe
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