On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 1:58 AM, David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org> wrote:

> Janek Warchoł <janek.lilyp...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > 2013/5/10 David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org>:
> >> Janek Warchoł <janek.lilyp...@gmail.com> writes:
> >>> I'm wondering whether we should advertise \shape more.  It's
> >>> tremendously helpful, and yet despite it had been added ~1 year ago
> >>> (IIRC) many users don't know about it.
> >>
> >> I'm somewhat dubious about "tremendously helpful" as it defeats
> >> automated typesetting.
> >
> > I'm 100% for automated typesetting: it's my dream and the very reason
> > why i'm using LilyPond.
> > However, my experience (particularly with Fried project) shows that
> > with regard to slurs and ties, LilyPond is very far from automated
> > typesetting. If you want publication quality, you _have_ to tweak the
> > output quite heavily - would you rather do this via setting
> > control-points directly?  Actually, \shape is quite close to the
> > spirit of automated engraving, because if the layout changes slightly,
> > \shape modifications usually "adapt" and still produce good results.
>
> Not if there is a change in line/page breaking.
>

Sure.  One enhancement would be to warn the user about such layout changes
(issue 2893).  At any rate, the command is most useful for tweaking curves
when the layout is settled.


>
> > Even with \shape, correcting ties and slurs is still the most
> > time-consuming task in preparing the Fried material for publication.
> > Quite frankly, if we didn't have \shape, i'd say that LilyPond was
> > incapable of handling Fried project :(
> >
> >> And "had been added ~1 year ago" is a short time.
> >
> > Well, to look from a different perspective: if there were any pieces i
> > had engraved without using \shape (since it was added to LilyPond),
> > they most probably didn't contain any slurs at all.
>
> Or the post processing would have been done using inkscape or some
> similar tool...


Yes, but I would certainly prefer to do as much as possible with LilyPond.


> At any rate, \shape is no substitute to fixing
> LilyPond's typesetting of slurs.


Of course.  However, I can't envision that day in LilyPond's quest for
quantification of the subjective when a default slur shape will satisfy
everybody.  There will always be a need to change things, position objects
to a user's preference.  Every LilyPond score I've produced has been
heavily overridden, however serviceable the default is.


> It's a stop-gap measure tied into a
> particular version of LilyPond and loosely tied into a particular
> version of a score.  Which may sometimes cause less work than fixups
> firmly tied into a particular printing of the score (which Inkscape
> touchup work is).  But it is still something you can't depend on.
>

Again, I would prefer to do as much as possible with LilyPond, and I doubt
I'm alone here.

--David
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