Re: headers, and what include doesn't do

[Jean Abou Samra]

Hi,


On Sat 17 Oct 2020 at 10:27:10 (+0200), Xavier Scheuer wrote:
> Thank you Jean, I was not aware either, that it is now (actually since 
> many
> years now!) possible to use \header before music within \score.
> This is great and makes more sense (corresponds to user expectation). It
> would be nice to update the documentation indeed.

This became https://gitlab.com/lilypond/lilypond/-/merge_requests/469.

> > And thank you David K for implementing this (in addition to all the other
> > things you have done and are doing for LilyPond).
> Seconded.
Thirded, if I can say so!
> I discovered the ordering that worked for me when I was still
> floundering with LP back in 2007 (version 2.2.6), by looking at
> the LP [sic] manual for 2.8 that was already released.¹ Looking
> back at my oldest 2007 sources, I see I had settled on:
>
> \score {
>      \notes <<
>          \context ChoirStaff <<
>              …
>          >>
>      >>
>      \midi { … }
>      \paper { … ²
>      }
>      \header {
>      }
> }
>
> I think the placement warning has been rewritten out of NR since
> 2.19.83 (page 471), but remains in Usage 2.21.1 (page 22), which
> it possibly should as it still presumably applies to conversions
> of such ancient versions as 2.8.
>
> But that raises the question: are there syntax changes that have
> been made since 2.8 that are dramatic enough to require manual
> conversion, or has convert-ly been improved sufficiently enough
> so as not to require any warnings added to Usage §2.5?
convert-ly hasn't improved: it is still, and will very likely forever
stay, a text-based replacement using regular expressions (and, on
rare occasions, further processing). There is already at least one
“non-convert-ly-able” change in the 2.21.7 release. In principle,
it should at least emit warnings when encountering syntax it can't
handle.

Best,
Jean