Hi Jay, 2012/10/25 David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org>: > Jay Hamilton <i...@soundand.com> writes: > >> Janek- >> I'm not going to do that. Here's a few reasons why. >> I've been using lilypond since some kind of 1.... version. Some of the >> stable versions have been baby steps and easy to accommodate and >> understand. Many many of the changes that have been taking place in V2 >> have not been like that. It took me a year to figure out all the >> changes during the last two stable versions. And now there is a new >> one and just looking at the templates I realize that I have no idea >> what is going on and that the program has now reached a level of >> complexity that defeats my purposes- to produce a good looking, in a >> quick way, sheet of music for students and professional musicians. > > > Well, obviously I am rather partial here, but I quite disagree with your > assessment here.
+1 [...] > For the normal user, things have not changed all that much. Lots of > typesetting tasks are now done better without user intervention. The > documentation is improving quite a bit. Many operations are becoming > more streamlined and logical. Many weird exceptions are gradually > disappearing, and a lot of things that previously required deep meddling > with Scheme programming have become much simpler and don't require > leaving LilyPond itself all that much. > > Check out > <URL:http://news.lilynet.net/?The-LilyPond-Report-23&lang=en#feature_story_prelude_1_in_scheme> > and compare the final version of input I am using here with the version > from Nicolas Sceaux (referenced in the article) about five years > earlier. Things have become much, much simpler to do. Or look at an example of functionality I need more frequently: Tweaking single accidentals in a chord: \version "2.14.2" smallerAcc = #(define-music-function (parser location mus) (ly:music?) (set! (ly:music-property mus 'tweaks) (acons 'before-line-breaking (lambda (grob) (let ((accidental (ly:grob-object grob 'accidental-grob))) (if (not (null? accidental)) (ly:grob-set-property! accidental 'font-size -2)))) (ly:music-property mus 'tweaks))) mus) \relative c' { <cis \smallerAcc eis gis>4 } Tweaking a single accidental in a chord with "2.14.2" was very difficult and I had a hard time learning how to do it while using "2.12.3" (or was it "2.10.x", I don't remember). With "2.16.0" you could use: \tweak Accidental #'font-size #-2 or put it in a function: smallerAccNew = #(define-music-function (parser location mus) (ly:music?) #{ \tweak Accidental #'font-size #-2 $mus #}) \relative c' { <cis \smallerAccNew eis gis>4 } And the old "2.14.2"-definition still works with "2,16,0" !! Another example: \accidentalStyle "modern" instead of #(set-accidental-style 'modern) #(set-accidental-style 'modern) will still work with "2.16.0" !! A plethora of other examples could be listed. Ok, there are some features, introduced with "2.14.2", I'm still not comfortable with myself: The new spacing and the new beaming-rules. But you *are* on 2.14. so these might be no arguments here. Additionally I want to say, that there are many, many improvements with the new stable, I wouldn't want to miss them. > Now this might still not be the level you are comfortable with, but it > is a level that quite a few readers on the user lists actually can work > with, and consequently you can get help and suggestions here for solving > your problems. > >> So in the course of if it's not broken don't fix it. I'm not going to >> upgrade to the new version. I'm certain that this will render me >> without help down the road (like for this issue about bar numbers) but >> the number of things I see from the lily user group that interest and >> concern them/you lately are rarely anything I have use for or interest >> in using. Well, I do have "2.14.2" and "2.12.3" installed on my computer, so I could write and test suggestions. Regarding your BarNumber-problem: I tested the suggestion by Toine Schreurs http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2012-10/msg00465.html and it worked on my machine (with 2.14.2). There was no follow-up from you, so I thought the problem was solved. >> I'm sorry, perhaps lily is becoming a better program but it's not >> becoming a better piece of software from this user's perspective. And >> hasn't been in the last few iterations, it's just changed. I disagree again. LilyPond *is* becoming a *much* better programm for users. It becomes easier and easier to use. Sometimes I'm afraid that the gap between the knowledge of a medium-level-user and a core developer will raise to an amount that will make it more difficult for that medium-level-user to do some more advanced tasks, because he has to learn _much_ more, before he could do some programming like scheme-definitions/functions. > The typesetting has improved much (lots of collision and spacing issues > have been tackled), and _lots_ of documents will just convert cleanly > with convert-ly to the rather few syntax changes. So even if you don't > want to make use of any new features or possibilities, upgrading is > likely to improve your existing scores. +1 > -- > David Kastrup Best, Harm _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user