Line dashing

[Ruud van Silfhout]

Hi guys,

Today I was typesetting a piece which required a tie to be dashed. 
I know I can replace the tie by a slur. But that does not solve the 
problem. Furthermore I also saw requests on the group to have bars 
that can be dashed. So I propose that a separate 
'line-dashing/line-property interface' is made that is implemented by 
all objects that support dashing. Another option is that line-dashing 
is added to one of the other standard interfaces.  
Advantage of a generic line interface is that it can handle other line 
properties as well, such as line thickness. IMO dashing is an attribute 
of almost all 'lines' in lilypond. I could image that also stems can be 
stippled/dashed this way.

IMO is the advantage of making it a separate interface that dashing 
is supported in a uniform way over all objects which have to support 
dashing. Currently two systems are supported:
1. Slurs have a 'dashed' property
2. Hairpins and TextSpanners have a dash-fraction and a dash-period 
and a style attribute to set a hairpin dashing mode. I think the style 
attribute is not required. If needed anyway I would prefer a separate 
'dashstyle' attribute (giving the opportunity to introduce different 
dashing styles (stippled, dashed, dash-dotted etc). The Hairpins' style
attribute could indicate more hairpin specific styles.

Personally I prefer the dash-period/dash-fraction style over the 
'dashed' style as it gives more control over the line.

What are your opinions on this? Is this something to be implemented after
3.0 is out?

Regards,
Ruud van Silfhout