I am concerned about the lack of backwards compatibility of the proposed standard with abc2mtex. Since this was the original program for ABC, I think these issues deserve some consideration.
1. I have already mentioned the E: field in a previous e-mail. This needs reinstating 2. This version of the standard has gone overboard in specifying %% type directives. As I understand it, this is a postscript notation. In abc2mtex, lines starting with "\" were used to pass information directly to the typesetting level. These must be allowed in the new standard 3. When the last (none-space) character on a line is a backslash (\) the next line is appended...... If the next line is a comment, meta-comment, directive or begins with a backslash, it should be treated appropriately and the the next line appended to the previous unless................ (I'm sure there is a more concise way of putting this). 4. Line-breaking. I understand the logic behind the approach, but it conflicts with the ABC standard. This stated that a line of ABC generated one or more lines of input. All music was left justified and a right justified break could be forced by using "*". In earlier ABC music was terminated with "**" to ensure a justified final line. This is no longer part of the standard, but future software should not fall over when this is encountered. Get rid of "!". Note that it has been used, it was never standard and its use is severely deprecated. 5. I preferred the approach in Guido's Draft: "It should be stressed that meta-comments are not part of the ABC notation" Meta-comments should be allowed to start with ' \' or '%%' The exact range of forms (The Stylesheet specification) should be an appendix. To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
