Re: Quit [now definitely O/T]

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi David,

> It is too cheap to put this down to "faster".  The problem is not that
> you need longer to do some things with Lilypond initially.  The  
> problem
> is that there is a large number of things for which there is no proper
> way to do them at all, and you have to take out the crowbar.

As is also true with Finale/Sibelius/etc. — for example, try doing  
<http://lsr.dsi.unimi.it/LSR/Item?id=506> and its opposite (i.e.,  
barline-synced version) in a single score in Fin/Sib.  ;)

> The documentation for extending Lilypond is not working out well

Any chance you can/will improve it?

> lilypond-extending does not contain examples for the various layers.
> There are no examples for how to work in Midi functionality.

Since I don't [yet] make any use of MIDI, this doesn't really matter  
to me — if it matters to you or others, by all means make it better!

> Things like "ritardando" can't be found in the notation index

Patch?

> Not only does it appear ridiculous to have to use a TextSpanner  
> override
> before even starting the relevant note just to specify the text  
> (rather
> than have \startTextSpan take an argument), naturally nothing will
> appear in the Midi output.

1. Define a music function to do this.
2. Submit a patch.

> it is important that Lilypond gets to do more things all by itself

I couldn't agree more! [See Steps 1&2, above.]

> The mailing list is somewhat helpful, but many of the answers are  
> in the
> line of "you can trick Lilypond into showing this/you can hack the
> output to be like this" rather than "Lilypond's language for this
> musical construct would be".

Can you give an actual example from the archives?
i.e., link to a message where the answer wasn't what you needed/ 
wanted, and rewrite the answer so that it is

Thanks,
Kieren.