John Chambers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Here's a brief description of the repeat/ending syntax that I've > implemented in my jcabc2ps clone of abc2ps. This isn't a solution to > all the world's repeat problems, but it does handle at least 95% of > what you see in print.
[snip] > There were suggestions that the allowed chars include '+' and 'x', > and I did include them in my implementation. I don't remember what > the 'x' was supposed to mean; does anyone know? Andrew Baker and I had proposed a syntax in which xN meant to play a particular block of material N times *within* a repeat. Thus you could have |: AA |[1x2,3x5 BB :|[2x3 CC || This would be truly useful if we could get away from the idea that "conditional material" occurs only in endings. In piobaireachd, a section which plays | AA | AA | BB | AA | BB | BB | AA | BB || is generally put on the page as |:: ["twice first time" AA] | ["twice second time" BB] ::| i.e. |:: [1x2,2,3 AA] | [1,2x2,3 BB] ::| > I've also been contemplating solving the need for random text such as > "last time" under an ending bracket. This obviously needs quotes, and > has syntax problems after a bar line. What I think would work is to > say that you must use the '[' in this case, and you can then write > |: CEC DED |1-3 EGE FAF :|2,4 EFG FED :|["last time" EFG ABc :| > > This looks like it would be intuitively obvious to a naive reader, > and it doesn't seem to have any obvious syntax problem. The "last > time" is not an accompaniment chord, because the chord notation can't > immediately follow a bracket like this. The bracket isn't the start of > a [CEGc] type chord, because such chords can't start with a > double-quote char. It takes a while to verify that it works, but I > think it does. > > The description then would say that the actual ending syntax is: > ["text" > This would be followed by saying that the quotes may be omitted if > the text contains only the characters "0123456789,-", and the bracket > may be omitted immediately after a (single) bar line '|'. In the > usual cases, the bracket and quotes will be omitted; the full ending > syntax is expected to be rare. Again, I think it would be better not to try to mix the flow control and the arbitrary text functions. Why not say that the flow control stuff is mandatory, and generates some default display text, but that text may be added to replace this? Thus ... |: CEC DED |1-3 EGE FAF :|2,4 EFG FED :|[5"last time" EFG ABc :| cheers, e. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
