Re: Distance of a grob from its reference point

[kieren_macmillan kieren_macmillan]

Hi Paolo (et al.),

> Why do I need to move a grob?
> For the simple fact that any score, in order to have a * professional *
> appearance, needs HUNDREDS of these adjustments.
> Even the simplest ones.

I think we all agree on that.

Now… At one end of a philosophical spectrum lies the point where everyone spends
all their energy, time, and brainpower trying to make Liypond do all of those
adjustments automagically; at the other end lies the point where we say "It’s
good enough now; let’s build a tool by which the user can make the necessary
adjustments."; and somewhere in between is the spot where energy, time, and
brainpower goes into both those efforts. That last spot is different for each of
us — some want to spend more time improving Lilypond’s decision-making
capabilities, some want to spend more time giving users tools to fix what
LIlypond doesn’t do perfectly.

> This type of music requires so many adjustments that it is impossible to
> achieve with Lilypond, unless you spend a very very very long time with the
> trial and error process.

The point is that Lilypond v1 required many, many times more adjustments than
Lilypond v2.19.83 does, because people took the time to improve Lilypond’s
engines and algorithms and decision-making functions. If everyone had spent
their time building a fabulous GUI on top of [stagnated] Lilypond v1, we’d be in
the same boat now that Finale and Sibelius are in: data entry is really no
faster than in Lilypond, but it takes hours and hours of tweaking just to get to
Lilypond’s default output.

> Without having to use the combination with Inkscape, because it also has many
> disadvantages.

For the record, I do all my engraving and drawing in Lilypond (leveraging the
edition-engraver), and never take it out to Inkscape — even when I’m drawing
things like Tonnetz graphs (e.g.,
https://www.mail-archive.com/address@hidden/msg131758/Inte__gral32_ProtoHarmony_Ex8c.pdf).

> Try making these micro- (or big) adjustments with just the text editor. You
> will go crazy.

I do hope you make your tool able to generate tweaks that go into presentation
code/files that are separate from the content code. I use the edition-engraver
for all my Lilypond scores, and as non-crazy-making as that is by itself, I
would love to have the option of using a tool like yours to calculate, write
out, and modify the tweak code.

Cheers,
Kieren.