Re: untangling the remaining regressions

[David Kastrup]

"Keith OHara" <address@hidden> writes:

> The various functions labeled pure do not all keep this promise.  (My
> struggle today was using pure_vertical_stencil_from_extents on a
> note-column, and finding it set the cross-staff beam position, through
> various paths.)  The code before Mike's two big commits does not seem
> perfect in this regard either.
>
> 'cross-staff' marks grobs whose positioning (relative to their parent)
> depends on the spacing of staves on the page.  These grobs have to be
> positioned last, after all grobs moving with their parent Staff are
> positioned relative to him, and staves are spaced.  There is not an
> overarching mechanism to enforce this timing.

Given the complexity of getting these kind of things right manually, we
most definitely _want_ an "overarching mechanism" in place here.

With regard to getting our backend into working order, we are currently
doing hardly better than treading water, putting up a fight for making
more forward than backward progress.

On our wishlist are user-definable grobs.  If their placement mechanisms
required the sort of work that we currently have with regard of getting
the regressions under control, they are clearly far out of the range of
feasibility.  Not because they are impossible to provide, but because
they would be impossible to use correctly.

Your whole letter most definitely should be placed in the CG right now:
it is an excellent overview of the current state.  And we should work
hard on being able to throw the whole of it out again in few years.

-- 
David Kastrup