2012/10/26 David Nalesnik <david.nales...@gmail.com>: > Hi James, > > On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 1:08 PM, james <james.lilyp...@googlemail.com> wrote: > >> >> My main issue is that when I don't understand how to do something, while >> there might be a way to do it that I could understand, because the "power >> users" are the ones that more often than not respond, I'm left with an >> answer that my solve my immediate problem, but in a way that I don't >> understand, and can't adapt to future problems. Unfortunately, there's no >> real solution to the problem other than saying, "and please limit the amount >> of scheme in an answer, because I don't understand it". > > OK, I guess I qualify as one of the "power users" who puts a bit of > Scheme on the lists. There are questions that can be answered with a > simple "do this basic override and look at this reference for more > info". If there are questions like this, that's the kind of answer I > give (though I am usually beaten to it!) > > However, there are often questions that can't be answered in any way > but to delve into Scheme. As recently, for example, when a question > was posed about using \draw-line to make a dashed line instead of a > solid one. AFAIK, there's no simple way to do it which you can look > up in one of the manuals. The only way to answer the poster's > question was to rewrite Lily's Scheme code for \draw-line into Scheme > code for a new command \draw-dashed-line, which Harm and I did.
Well, my first thought was to demonstrate how to do it using postscript. But the disadvantage would be that the user has to know (or learn) to use postscript-commands. > Maybe > someday Lily will be enhanced so that no one need "see the gears," but > in the meantime, that's the stopgap solution these questions will > receive. (Unless they are to remain unanswered, that is.) > > Lately, I have noticed that there are fewer basic questions being > asked. I do hope that that's not through some sort of intimidation, > over a misconception over what this forum is about. I think some intimidation could be present, but how to do it different? Not answering? Or (back to the draw-dashed-line) demonstrating how to do it with: drawing a small line some padding drawing a small line with appropriate offset some padding drawing a small line with appropriate offset some padding drawing a small line with appropriate offset ... ?? All needed commands are default-commands! This would be a work Sisyphus would refuse to do. Answering user-questions (with some scheme where necessary) is the sort of work I _do_ like and I'm not that bad in doing so (at least I hope so). Well, I could switch more on the developer-corner, doing more review-work, as far as scheme is concerned (would help David (K), too), but I feel I would be less effective there, at least currently. > Perhaps users are > finding their answers more reliably in the manuals, and it is only > when they can't find them that they turn to the lists--I don't know. > > -David Regards, Harm _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user