Re: (de)cresendi syntax

[Graham Percival]

On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 08:47:28PM +0100, Frédéric Bron wrote:
> I am in charge of the question of (de)crescendo syntax issue in
> 2.12.2. I have posted this on -user list but received little replies
> (only support) so it's time now to post on -devel.

I don't think anybody else has replied, so I'll take a stab at it.

-snip-

> Here are my dreams:
> 
> - \<, \>, \! are used to start/stop (de)crescendo spanner (hairpin or text),
> - crescTextXXX, dimTextXXX, crescHairpin, dimHairpin decide if \<, \>,
> \! produce text or hairpin (applies for ever until changed to
> something else), I would prefer simpler syntax: \crescCresc,
> \crescHairpin, \dimDim, \dimDecr, \dimDecresc, i.e. remove Text but
> these commands have to be typed only once so there is no real overhead
> in longer command names

What about reserving \< \> \!  **only** for hairpins, and \cr
\endCr \dim \endDim  **only** for text?  ok, we'd need extra
commands for decresc and decr, but this way we could avoid the
\crescTextXXX stuff entirely.

> - \<"cresc.", \<"cresc. poco a poco", \>"dim."... produce a text
> spanner with corresponding text, the spanner is ended with \!, the
> text applies only once, i.e. next (de)crescendo produces hairpin if
> this is the current setting

Again, I'd rather use text for text dynamics.  What about \cresc
#"cresc. poco a poco" ?  i.e. if \cresc is used by itself, it
prints "cresc.", but if you provide the optional argument, that's
used instead of the default text?



> I know that it is not possible to implement this without rewrite of
> the parser...

This is the sticking point in my mind.  Are you able to modify it
yourself (including Carl's help in "yourself")?   If so, then we
can have a long discussion about the new dynamic syntax.  I'd
encourage you to experiment with changing the parser before we
get into lots of details about the new syntax, though.

Cheers,
- Graham