comments on CVS from 2002-07-14 15:58 (long)

[Werner LEMBERG]

I'm baack!

Compilation went smoothly, well, almost: the --with-kpathsea-lib and
--with-kpathsea-include options are missing apparently.

[I've used flex 2.5.4 without problems during compilation.  Is the
parsing of LilyPond affected by this version?]

Here my comments which I've collected while reading lilypond.dvi.  I
concentrate on typographical issues.

Since I haven't worked for a loong time with LilyPond, I pretend to be
Joe User, having no ideas about the internals...

  . Section 3.3, fourth example

    The key change from two sharps to three flats doesn't look OK
    (I check this with the dvi output at 600dpi): The two flats are
    too close together.

  . Section 3.8, first example

    The arpeggio line doesn't look good.  Its wiggles are too big.

    I don't know whether the appearance of the beam knees is a bug
    (since at one place the stem sits on the wrong side of the note)
    or whether some fine tuning is missing; I'm just reporting here
    that they look wierd.

    The slur between the grace note and the main note is definitely
    buggy; close inspection shows that one end isn't rounded but ends
    needle-like.

    The last three slurs in the upper stave are not correct.  They are
    notated with `( ... )' but they look like being written with `~'.
    I think such slurs should start and end exactly above the stems.

    It is possibly better to center the `3' (denoting a triplet)
    exactly over the middle stem.

    The trill sign is too big in comparison to the notes.

    The rests in the fourth bar should be moved up automatically -- we
    are still using \VoiceOne, aren't we?  The same should be done
    for the half rest in the left hand.

    To improve readability I suggest that you use @smallexample for
    the code fragment.

  . Section 3.9, first example

    According to the code, I expect the treble clef in the left hand
    to be inserted in front of the lower staff's first note, but it
    appears at the beginning immediately after the 3/8 sign,
    overlapping with the beams.  Looks like a bug...

    The default vertical extension of the small slurs is too big.  I
    don't know (yet) how this is handled by LilyPond, but I assume
    that the height of a slur is dependent on the length, right?
    Which formula is used?

  . Section 3.10.1

    Timpani don't have keys AFAIK.  At least not in classical music.

    Usually the lines

          Timpani
          (C-G)

      are centered:

          Timpani
           (C-G)

      How can this be achieved?

    There is a trailing `Solo II' at the end of the Trombe line.
    This looks like a bug.

    Bar numbers manipulations are described in the tutorial but don't
    appear in the example output.

    The defined `text-flat' is still too big.

  . Section 3.10.2

    The staff lines extend stick out slightly at the right of the
    final bar.  Either the metrics of this bar line type is not
    correct, or there is a positioning error in LilyPond.

  . Section 4.5.1, second example

    This must be a bug.  If I write [f'8 r16 f' g' a'], I should get
    this:

       -----------
       |     -----
       |  7  | | |
       x  7  x x x

     not this:

       -----------
       |  --------
       |  7  | | |
       x  7  x x x

    The latter form may be used in modern music (?), but it shouldn't
    be the default.

    I think it is another bug that the 16th rest is moved down that
    far.  Well, this is probably not easy to compute, but I think in
    most cases the default position (i.e. not moved) is better.

  . Section 4.8.5, first example

    Is a quick notation available to give a note more horizontal
    space?  Something like `c\wwide\ppp c\wide\pp' comes to my mind...

  . Section 4.9.4

    The code

        \repeat tremolo 4 { c'16 d'16 }

      gives the following warning:

        Interpreting music...
        programming error: Skipped something ?! (Continuing; cross thumbs)

      (the last line is repeated 3 times).

      Besides that, the result is ugly (beam too short).  I think this
      is another place where the width of a graphical element (the
      tremolo beam) isn't taken into account for computation of the
      spacing.  BTW, selecting `8' for the repeat counter two other
      bugs show up: An incorrect (or rather inappropriate) warning
      appears

        warning: beam has less than two visible stems:
        \repeat "tremolo" 8 { c'16 d'16 }

      and the tremolo beam's vertical position is far too high.

  . \clef "bass_8" is ugly.  The `8' glyph is too big and should be
    below the lowest staff line.

More to come...

As you know, I send you this list to make a good program even better!

Keep going!


    Werner