Re: Compact Chord Symbols Patch

[James]

On 07/10/14 09:08, Richard Shann wrote:
> On Mon, 2014-10-06 at 20:06 +0100, James wrote:
> > Richard,
> [..]
> > > Richard
> > I have created
> >
> > http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=4154
> >
> > I'll help shepherd this patch through via the standard review process
> > for this.
> Thank you very much. I thought I would follow the instructions for
> contributing to LilyPond starting from the top at http://lilypond.org as
> I know how useful it is for a fresh pair of eyes to look over stuff like
> this. This lead me to the step after creating a patch where it suggested
> "if you have a mentor email the patch", but didn't say what one was. So
> I improvised at this point and emailed the mailing list. I would have
> liked to run the regression tests at that stage, but I think I ran out
> of step-by-step instructions.
>
> > Also See:
> >
> > http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/contributor-big-page#commits-and-patches
> >
> > if you intend (or think you might want) to make further patches for
> > other parts of LilyPond in the future
> Well, it is about 10 years since I last had to tweak the actual LilyPond
> code (at the time you had to type bass figures in the reverse order),
> which far exceeds my memory span for how-to-do-it instructions. I just
> manage to keep up with the processes for developing the Denemo LilyPond
> GUI.
>
> I would have found this development much easier if I could have avoided
> the use of a virtual machine for the actual git part of it (that is, if
> I had permission to create remote branches such as dev/compact-chords in
> the lilypond repository). Then I would only have needed the virtual box
> to compile and run the new version.
> As it is, I had to copy and paste from my virtual box out to the real
> machine, merge my changes and copy and paste them back, a process
> fraught with danger. (I think the LilyDev must have some way of sharing
> file systems but I didn't look into that). If I could have created a
> remote branch, modified and pushed back and then switched to LilyDev to
> pull the remote branch, compile and test that would have been perfect.
>
> Reading over the documentation you quote it seems that you do have
> contributors with the limited permission to create branches, but I
> didn't immediately see how to register for that...
Probably here

http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/contributor-big-page.html#commit-access

I think we could improve the notes in the contributor's Guide generally. 
Having had to help three or four people over the last few months with a 
patch or two, I get how the instructions are probably rather confusing 
if not intimidating.

I'll take a look and see what I can come up with.

The structure of the Contributor's Guide is much 'looser' (shall we say) 
than the manuals on how to use LilyPond. That's not to say it is 
inaccurate, but that perhaps we could condense some of it down or 
organize more logically certain aspects.

Anyway, I haven't yet done anything with the Patch simply because I was 
waiting on if it was really a snippet than something that we want to add 
into the core code. I am not a 'developer' as such (I don't write code - 
just Doc and manage patches) so don't have any real knowledge of these 
things.

James