TabStaff feature requests

[Steve Yegge]

Hi all,

The TabStaff is amazingly cool.  I'm not a big tab user myself,

but for people who want tabs, LilyPond makes it easy to add them.

I've been busily adding tabs for a few months and have some feature

requests to put into the queue if possible.

1) Setting fixed strings to use for ascending/descending chords.

Currently it's nontrivial to specify tab positions for something like:

<c c'> <d d'> <e e'> <f f'>

<g g'> <a a'> <b b'> <c c'>

I've found it's most convenient to append the actual strings after

every chord, hence:

<c c'>\5\3 <d d'>\5\3 <e e'>\5\3 <f f'>\5\3

<g g'>\5\3 <a a'>\5\3 <b b'>\5\3 <c c'>\5\3

This is pretty verbose, and only gets worse with more notes:

<c-4 e-3 g-1 c-1>4.\6\5\4\3

<d-4 f-2 a-1 d-1>8\6\5\4\3

<e-4 g-2 b-3 e-1>4.\6\5\4\3

<f-4 a-3 c-1 f-2>8\6\5\4\3

<g-4 b-3 d-1 g-2>4.\5\4\3\2

<a-4 c-2 e-1 a-3>8\5\4\3\2

<b-3 d-1 f-1 b-1>4.\5\4\3\2

<c-4 e-3 g-1 c-2>8\5\4\3\2

Of course with aliases for setting the TabStaff minimumFret you

can make full chords less verbose, but there seems to be no good

way around specifying strings for octave runs.

2) Have the automatic tab calculator understand the -0 fingering.

Currently if you do something like this:

\relative c' {

  \set TabStaff.minimumFret = #2

  <d'-0 a'-2 d-3 f-1>

}

It will choose strings 5, 4, 3, 2.  Obviously in this case you could

just set the minimum fret to #0, but this may be an exception to a

passage that is otherwise all in position 2.

Moreover the calculator gets confused by open chords in higher

positions, e.g.

\relative c {

  <e'-2\5 ges-1 d'-3 b-0 b'-4>

}

It picks correct strings for all the notes except the open b, which

is ignored (and for which a warning is issued).  You can fix it

by specifying the remaining strings:

<e-2\5 gs-1 d'-3 b-0 b'-4>16\4\3\2\1

But it seems like having the tab calculator understand open string

fingerings would solve nicely a number of situations like this.

3) Being able to specify the frets for harmonics.  I know there's been

some talk about this, but it's a pretty big deal as there's no workaround.

Anyone planning on publishing in the next few months (e.g., me :)

is going to be out of luck.

Cheers,

-steve