>>The problem here lies not with the proposed mechanism, but with the fact
>>that the original (v1.5 abc) guitar chord format permitted abuse, and we
>>can't go back in time and change it retrospectively.
>
>I'm afraid he is right. Presumably guitar chords were originally seen as
>simple text. We are stuck with the results but can't we learn from the
>experience and try not to make the same sort of mistake again?
I suppose I'm misurstanding again, but are you folks really
regretting that the guitar chord mechanism can be used to put text above
the staff? I really can't understand that attitude. A music printing
program with no means of putting arbitrary text above the staff is brain
dead, and that's the only mechanism that abc's ever had for doing it.
What actually happened was that the gc mechanism, flakey tho it is, turned
out to be useful enough that we users didn't have to beat down the
developers' doors to get a genuinely good way of doing it. The only bad
effect it had was to delay the introduction of a way to put arbitrary text
_below_ the staff. Using the gc chords to put text above the staff is an
abuse? I don't think so. Not at all. Avoid that kind of mistake in the
future? Nonsense, it was the best mistake made in the development to date.
A brilliant mistake. You should make more of them!
Cheers,
John Walsh
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