Re: Substitute for s1*0

[David Kastrup]

Ian Hulin <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi all,
> Point of information:
> On 07/05/12 10:29, Graham Percival wrote:
>> On Mon, May 07, 2012 at 11:00:39AM +0200, David Kastrup wrote:
>>> James <address@hidden> writes:
>>> 
>> <snip>
>> 
>> A number of people think that <> is the ideal tool for a 
>> non-duration post-event.  James and I disagree; we think that a 
>> different tool (such as a new \null or \nullevent) would be easier 
>> to read.
>> 
> Except \null has already been used as \markup command. I know you can
> distinguish by context, but your argument here is about readability.
> You would really need a colour syntax-highlighting facility like in
> Frescobaldi to make the distinction clear.
> There aren't any really nice alternatives, though we could legalize 0
> as a duration for s only in the parser (yuk, adds another exception
> case and just 1* out of the existing documented) or do some
> hornswoggling in the documentation and , introduce a \placeholder
> command which hardly anyone will use with the docstring

We can't.  Neither music functions nor music identifiers take
postevents.  That would require further surgery.  You could do

placeholder = s1*0
\new Voice { < \placeholder >^\markup {Hi} c4 c c c }

and that would work.  Now you just need to explain to people why they
should write \placeholder here when this will work perfectly fine
without it.

Good luck.

> "This produces an event in the music stream that does not affect
> note-spacing in the visual output from LilyPond, nor does it affect
> the default note-duration in the parser. It is commonly abbreviated to
> the empty chord symbol @code{<>}.  It is commonly used to attach
> markups and similar items where there may not always be a real note to
> which to attach the item"

+ "Use inside of a chord."

This is really going to fly.

-- 
David Kastrup