Re: Curious bug

[Dirk Zeckzer]

> > I found quite a curious bug in lilypond. The bug can be found in all current
> > versions of lilypond (1.4.x, 1.5.x). Consider the following example
> > 
> > \notes{
> >   \clef violin
> >     b'4
> > }
> > 
> > The stem of this note is wrong. It should point downwards instead of upwards
> > as all notes should do, which are on the middle line. Of course only, if 
> > they
> > are "alone".
> 
> Of course, this is one of the typesetting decisions where it's
> difficult to talk about right or wrong. Anyway, both music
> typesetting books I have on my desk confirm that Dirk is 
> right and Lilypond is wrong. Fortunately, this is easy to 
> customize in Lilypond, just set the property neutral-direction 
> of the Stem grob to #-1. The system default is set in 
> scm/grob-description.scm.
> 

Thank you for your reply. I named the bug curious, because no one ever
complained about it. And it was not easy to find examples as most of
the time other rules were applied, e.g. two voices or beamed notes.
Nevertheless, my books about theory as well as the music I have (Henle,
Schirmer, Peters) all print stem down. Thus, I think this should become
the default of the lilypond distribution.

By the way, when trying your change I found another neutral-direction
property for beams. Should this be changed, too?

Thank you all for working on lilypond, providing a good typesetting software.

Dirk