Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
Eric wrote So this way, by allowing !, !...! and *=!, everyone would be happy, and I don't know the reason why this thread lasts so long. The reason the thread is lasting so long is that not everyone would be happy with this. The use of abc for printing classical etc music is fairly recent and is to be encouraged but not if it messes up the abc of the original folk users. I vote to change the !--! usage to *--* or some other unused symbol. Ray To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
Changing abcm2ps to use *...* instead of !...! (it accepts ! for a linebreak already) would be a matter of minutes work for Jef. Changing ABC2Win is not possible. no, we don't ask people to change their way of notation or Abc2Win to be improved or conform to anything : !-for-line-break addicts could still use it, and !...!-for-decoration addicts could do the same, with in addition the use of *-for-line-break for the use of the laters, so they . It's just a matter of tastes and every sect wants to keep its '!', and personnaly if it's not really a problem for using for ex. +...+ for decoration I don't find *...* for deco readable, and like most of the !...! sect I find !...! still more readable for this purpose, so I don't wish it to be changed. So this way, by allowing !, !...! and *=!, everyone would be happy, and I don't know the reason why this thread lasts so long. Maybe some fear in Abc 5.0 this !-for-line-break may disappear ? ___ Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français ! Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
Irwin Oppenheim wrote - Using ! and !..! in one and the same tune may lead to disaster if you make a small typo. So, while "!" should definitely be supported, I encourage you to support "*" as well. It just seems to make a messy situation more complicated. You are still going to have to handle ! and !! so it brings no benefit. Whatever clever heuristics you come up with, there is no getting away from the fact that the dual use of ! is very unsatisfactory. Try and think about from the point of view of the ordinary user presented with this stuff. Let's look for the most practical way of solving it. abc2win is only obsolete in the sense that it is not being maintained. There is a large body of abc notation that uses it, it has many users and it is still available and becaues it is easily accessible to non-geeks it will continue to get taken up. As far as I can tell, !...! is much less widely used, the collections that use it and the software that implements it are still maintained. It could be changed. I hear the cry "Why should we?" I reply "For the greater good of abc." This may seem like letting Jim Vint "get away with it" but if I find someone blocking my way on the pavement, I ask them to move; if my way is blocked by a dead dog, I walk round it. That doesn't mean that I respect the dog more than the person, I'm just facing up to practical realities. Bryan Creer
Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 05:58:42AM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Irwin Oppenheim wrote - Using ! and !..! in one and the same tune may lead to disaster if you make a small typo. So, while ! should definitely be supported, I encourage you to support * as well. It just seems to make a messy situation more complicated. I agree. I'm unhappy and confused about this. I have just become able to use ! staffbreaks, in the last few days, with their addition to some of the abc-ps family (or perhaps, my awareness of that, following the discussion here). Simultaneously with this, I'm hearing that they shouldn't be mixed with !decoration!s. But if I need decorations in a tune, and want to control the printing layout, and keep it readable ? Pick any 2, sure. But, if all 3 can be done, it's asking a lot of people to suggest they not do them. I really don't think the idea of constructs that shouldn't be used in the same tune is a flyer. If I have a tune with decorations, and want to add a staffbreak somewhere, I'm just not going to delete the decorations. And I'm one of the people that's at least trying to pay attention. I suppose what I'm saying is that asking the general abc-writing public to have symathy with the poor developers in coping with stuff that's murder to parse properly is just something that won't happen. And, is this reccomendation on the level of a single tune, or does it, actually, apply on the file level ? How about alternate tunes in a file, one using just ! staffbreaks and the next using just !...! decorations, will software be happy with this ? BarFly wants the user to tell it which, I gather ? And along with this, the new draft says the the character to use for staff-break is something that no software I have implements. So I'm not in a position to follow such a standard however much I'd like to. I'm not very sure what I think of a spec. that tries to tell developers what meanings they have to change in their existing code, but _if_ that's where we are ... Either the ! is used for both purposes and parsers will have to accept this as normal, rather than tryng to persuade people not to do it, or something'll have to change ... As far as I can tell, !...! is much less widely used, the collections that use it and the software that implements it are still maintained. It could be changed. I hear the cry Why should we? I reply For the greater good of abc. I agree. I'd think ! should be staffbreak, both for the amount of existing stuff, and usability with abc2win, and for Jack's point about visual intrusiveness. And that then suggests *decoration*, which - as Bryan says - _could_ be done in abcm2ps, etc, *if* Jeff agrees; and visually, I think it works better; by analogy with my emphasis in the previous line - it follows the general ascii conventional usage. But, the raw fact is, in the case of conflict between software and spec. people will do what their software implements. There's no choice. And they seem to be headed in different directions - which is where we came in. -- Richard Robinson The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes - S. Lem To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
On Fri, 25 Jul 2003, Richard Robinson wrote: If I have a tune with decorations, and want to add a staffbreak somewhere, I'm just not going to delete the decorations. Of course you won't delete the decorations! All I am proposing is that you should be able to use !...! for decorations and * to add staffbreaks at the same time. Isn't that reasonable? Of course, people who don't use any decorations can without any problems continue to use ! to add staffbreaks. So the bottom line is: it would be nice if both ! and * could be used to notate a staffbreak. The people who do not use !...! won't be bothered by it, and the people who use decorations will have an easier time. Enjoy your weekend! Groeten, Irwin Oppenheim [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~* Chazzanut Online: http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/ To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
So the bottom line is: it would be nice if both ! and * could be used to notate a staffbreak. The people who do not use !...! won't be bothered by it, and the people who use decorations will have an easier time. We're into the territory of defining new stuff here. As I said before, I suggest it may be preferrable to invent *decoration* instead. There is a good historical basis for precisely using * as a staff break operator, alongside the ! operator. Namely, in abc2mtex it was already in use to force right-justified line breaks. It's a piece of cake to implement * as an alias for the ! operator, so I don't think it's worth a long discussion. There are more important things happening in the world, even in the ABC world. Let's take a pragmatic stance. Users that don't like the * operator need not use it, users that like it should be able to use it. Period. Groeten, Irwin Oppenheim [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~* Chazzanut Online: http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/ To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 07:15:34PM +0200, I. Oppenheim wrote: So the bottom line is: it would be nice if both ! and * could be used to notate a staffbreak. The people who do not use !...! won't be bothered by it, and the people who use decorations will have an easier time. We're into the territory of defining new stuff here. As I said before, I suggest it may be preferrable to invent *decoration* instead. There is a good historical basis for precisely using * as a staff break operator, alongside the ! operator. Namely, in abc2mtex it was already in use to force right-justified line breaks. I know that's what abc.txt says. a * at the end of each line of abc notation will force a right-justified line-break. But actually, it's the end of each line that's the linebreak - the * forces the justification. Try it :- X:1 T:Test K:C cdef gabc'- |*c'bag fedc |] $ abc2mtex test.abc error in input file test.abc: line no. 4 - syntax error - note cannot follow justification -- Richard Robinson The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes - S. Lem To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
Phil Taylor wrote: Changing abcm2ps to use *...* instead of !...! (it accepts ! for a linebreak already) would be a matter of minutes work for Jef. Changing ABC2Win is not possible. Changing all of the existing files which use !...! to use *...* is just a matter of search and replace; there are not many of them and we know where they are. Changing the existing ABC2Win files is not possible because there are many thousands of them and they're everywhere. It's the only logical way. I use the !decoration! syntax in my tunes. If the rest of you would finally agree to use *decoration* instead, I am more than willing to replace all instances in my collection. It's just as Phil says: since abc2win isn't supported anymore, we can't change it. !decoration! is more recent and I really think that most abc tunes on the web that use it are still maintained. Adapting it really shouldn't be a probem. Come on guys, let's get this over with finally! Cheers, bert -- Bert Van Vreckem http://flanders.blackmill.net/ Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer. -- Dave Barry To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
From: Bert Van Vreckem [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 11:18 PM Subject: Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!' Phil Taylor wrote: Changing abcm2ps to use *...* instead of !...! (it accepts ! for a linebreak already) would be a matter of minutes work for Jef. Changing ABC2Win is not possible. Changing all of the existing files which use !...! to use *...* is just a matter of search and replace; there are not many of them and we know where they are. Changing the existing ABC2Win files is not possible because there are many thousands of them and they're everywhere. It's the only logical way. I use the !decoration! syntax in my tunes. If the rest of you would finally agree to use *decoration* instead, I am more than willing to replace all instances in my collection. It's just as Phil says: since abc2win isn't supported anymore, we can't change it. !decoration! is more recent and I really think that most abc tunes on the web that use it are still maintained. Adapting it really shouldn't be a probem. Come on guys, let's get this over with finally! * has a few problems too but, less intervening than ! so I second the vote for *...* instead of !...! Arent To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
Irwin Oppenheim wrote - line breaking To force a line break at all times, a star (*) can be used. The star can be inserted everywhere, where a note group could. Deprecated line breaking The abc2win program used a `!' character to force line breaks, as is currently supported with the * operator (see section Line breaking). If there is a recognised need for a line break character, then, whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, ! is well established in that role. It seems pointless to waste another character to do the same job. The abc2win usage obviously conflicts with the !...! style notation for musical symbols It would be more accurate to say that !...! conflicts with the abc2win usage and is far less widely used. (I've never come across an example in nature.) Why not use ** for musical symbols? Bryan Creer
Re: [abcusers] Re: About the choice of '!'
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It would be more accurate to say that !...! conflicts with the abc2win usage and is far less widely used. Both !...! and ! are established notation, and therefore the standard encourages parsers to handle both, and even provides an algorithm to do so. It seems pointless to waste another character to do the same job. I do not think so. Using ! and !..! in one and the same tune may lead to disaster if you make a small typo. So, while ! should definitely be supported, I encourage you to support * as well. Groeten, Irwin Oppenheim [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~* Chazzanut Online: http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/ To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
