Hi, This continues a discussion sparked at https://gitlab.com/lilypond/lilypond/-/merge_requests/921
In short, I propose to make the first argument to \repeat optional, making \repeat n music equivalent to \repeat unfold n music. The principal motivation is sparing typing. \repeat unfold is commonly used as a time-saving shortcut, not only in real-world usage, but also while constructing minimal working examples involving filler music. It is personally one of the commands I use the most frequently, and I am apparently not alone in that case (https://gitlab.com/lilypond/lilypond/-/merge_requests/921#note_682103342). My experience is that every time I want to repeat a note four times, I have a half-a-second wonder about whether typing "\repeat unfold" will be shorter than cut-and-paste. Now, if we want to shorten \repeat unfold, what's the best syntax? I favor \repeat as it matches usage patterns of functions with optional arguments (like \time). Even though \repeat is not currently a music function, I think having it mimic that syntax helps mnemonics. \repeat n music is also very readable. Other possibilities: - "\rep n music", not as self-telling (and I think Lukas only calls his shortcut \rep because redefining \repeat is not syntactically valid); - "music * n", attractive but the difference between c1*5 and { c1 } * 5 would be confusing; also, for longer passages one would rather state the number of repetitions from the start than having to remember to put it at the end; - "\* n music", very short but doesn't read as nicely I think, and I don't view repeats as special enough to warrant this kind of syntax with many special characters. With this change, documentation can be updated to use the short syntax (let's leave Documentation/snippets as-is though, to avoid piling work that will have to be paid at the next LSR upgrade, whenever that happens). Thoughts? Regards, Jean PS: Apart from regression tests and documentation, I have a draft implementation locally.
