Braille output support

[Ralph Little]

Hi All,
I have had a request to re-animate my efforts to include some kind of
Braille support.

In the past I have looked into adding some kind of typesetting features,
in the way of special engravers, and I got quite a way to doing this, to
the extent of actually rendering simple Braille expressions on their own
BrailleStaff but time is not a thing I have in great abundance at the
moment, and it was never completed to an extent that I was prepared to
release it for inclusion.

However, what has been suggested to me recently is that I could add some
support similar to the MIDI output using an option similar to the midi
options to enable a music expression to be parsed and converted to
braille directly to a recognisable Braille file for direct printing,
that would be a lot easier. The engraving stuff could come later if
necessary, perhaps off the back of that.

I'm quite prepared to put some time into the code used to assemble the
Braille, but I haven't got the time to delve into Lilypond code to set
the initial stuff up.

Would somebody be willing to add some outline support for this, like
adding options for Braille output to the command line, and a stub in the
right place with access to the music specified, and I will fill in the
conversion details as best I can - that should jump start the effort? It
could perhaps just open a file, output something fixed, then close it.

Greg Kearney (who I understand is big into the Braille thing anyway) has
suggested the following (I hope he doesn't mind me quoting him here!):

----
Usually this is set in 40 char lines with 30 lines to the page however 
this should be user settable as some people may be embossing on wider or

shorter paper. So we might end up with something like this: /braille 
w=40 h=30
---

I gather there is quite a need for Braille processing and would
potentially open up the Mutopia library to blind musicians, which has
got to be a worthwhile thing.

Regards,
Ralph

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