Several questions/comments...

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

address@hidden writes:
> Hi!
> 
> Being back from a trip to Rome with the university choir, I had a
> short look at 1.5.30.  I noticed some things:
> 
> * My ledger lines patch that I submitted on Dec 31st has not yet been put
>   in.  IIRC, the main problem was draw_box, which does not always adhere
>   to blot_diameter.  Is there some general solution in sight for draw_box?

I recall answering that post. My proposal is to use direct postscript
for the ledger lines, using a rounded pen, and have both thickness and
roundness adjustable. I fear that a mix of rules and characters would
lead to alignment problems.

> * MetaFont *does* support fonts with more than 256 characters; at least
>   the version that I have installed at home (tetex 1.0.7).  Maybe TeX
>   itself is not able to address all characters of such a font,

Yes, but since output still goes through TeX, the 256 char limit still
is an issue. Yes, we have direct PS output, but I think it doesn't
work well enough out of the box to suggest this as an option. Either
we start working on direct PS output, or we figure out how to do the
switch to parmesan, or figure out how to address >256 fonts.

Also, IIRC, PS encodings are also 256 chars and larger fonts require
some trickery somewhere. Don't know about the details, though.

> * Due to the new parmesan font

> (actually I would prefer the name of old
>   good red wine rather than old cheese ;-)),

(brunello20.mf ?) 

>ancient-font.ly is currently
>   perfectly broken.  I would like to fix this.  What is the status of the
>   font selection?

There are no real plans to improve this; I recently changed font-name
and added font-magnification, though. Probably currently the best
option is to encapsulate ancient formatting instructions into an
indentifier, and add

    medicaStyle = {
    \property Voice.NoteHead \set #'font-series = #'ancient

    ...

    }


to the settings.

> * I still have to think about gregorian ligatures, so I presumably will
>   first correct/enhance some other stuff.  The current porrectus engraver
>   is likely to become dedicated for mensural ligatures only.  Maybe I
>   should complete mensural notation first.

Yes -- complete, working features are always more appealing to the
masses. There are already too many half-working features.  

-- 

Han-Wen Nienhuys   |   address@hidden    | http://www.cs.uu.nl/~hanwen/