Re: [Denemo-devel] Guitar Tablature

[Richard Shann]

On Sun, 2013-07-14 at 14:57 +0200, Federico Bruni wrote:
> Thinking twice, the problem is that a new user would not be able to
> reproduce what you are doing in the video because you haven't shown
> how to create a Staff + TabStaff.

Yes, you're right, none of the videos show how to get started. To do
simultaneous Staff+TabStaff you do File->Open->Open Templage and choose
the template Tablature. (I've an idea that the demo shows multiple
voices on guitar tablature and I haven't saved a template for that, so
again, you are right without further work on the score layout gui you
would need LilyPond expertise to do it).

> Which leads to my question: is there a "GUI way" to set a StaffGroup
> composed of Staff + TabStaff?
> I could do it only by tweaking the lilypond input.
> 
> 
> I find the Denemo's Score layout not easy to use. AFAICS just few
> variables can be edited in the GUI.

Well there is a lot you can do with the score layout gui: you can select
just some parts, and you can re-order them, you can move lyrics above a
staff, you can edit all the variables that aren't the actual music (by
"the actual music" I mean roughly the stuff that appears in the Denemo
display, though to be precise the initial clefs, keysigs, timesigs
appear there but are customizable in the score layout). 
But most of the editing in the score layout gui of things like clefs is
still straight textual editing of the LilyPond, and naturally that is
not even reflected in the score layout gui, which, in any case, is
purely a one-shot interface, not stored with the file.
What I had in mind for this gui is that it would give you an over-view
of the score, with the titles, movements and so on displayed in a
schematic way so that you could see the whole score at once, and easily
see what movements you had (instead of "Movement 1" it would display the
mvovement title etc) and what staffs, and I envisioned the user editing
things like movement title from that view. They might also transpose one
part and change its instrument name to Clarinet in Bb or some such.
Mostly, this is still the plan, though the editing of titles at the
moment is more naturally done by clicking on the final typeset score.

> Frescobaldi's Score Wizard is much easier.
> Am I missing something?

I think this is a misunderstanding of what the score layout GUI is
trying to do - we used to have a score wizard in Denemo (it got dropped
I think for reasons of code quality, which is saying something for
Denemo :) )
The score layout GUI is not intended as an aid to creating the
staffs/voices/movements that should be present in a score. That is, it
is not a score wizard.
Before you use the score layout GUI you should have created everything
structural in your score.
The score layout GUI is intended to allow you to keep several different
ways of printing a score, going well beyond the capabilities of the
usual "Automatic Part Extraction" that other programs boast of.
Most users could use the score layout feature without even knowing that
the gui exists - if you choose Print Part in the Print View window and
then select a place where you want a page break just when printing that
part then you get offered to put the page break in just for that layout.
You are using a score layout without ever seeing the score layout gui.

>  Maybe a screencast/tutorial on this topic would help.

I think the score layout GUI needs more work first. It is just too
obscure/technical at present. It can be used to provide templates for
things that are otherwise impossible, as I have done with that Staff
+TabStaff template, but it will need a lot more work to become something
a normal user will want to see.

Thank you for your feedback - I didn't make the connection with score
wizard before, but thinking about it there is one very obvious
similarity, namely a score wizard is not something that is stored to
disk, you don't get half way through it and decide to save the file and
continue later. And, conversely, the current score layout GUI would be
quite a good basis for a score wizard - with buttons to add a staff, add
a movement etc you could see your proposed score in outline before
turning to adding the music. This would all be without venturing into
the custom layout features, that is you could use the current layout as
the basis for a wizard to create the Default Score Layout. Hmm, I think
that's a Good Idea.
This score wizard would exceed the abilities of the usual sort of
wizard, inasmuch as you could come back to it (the Default Score Layout)
and add further parts etc. It would not, strictly speaking, be a wizard
however if it didn't prompt you through various stages...

Richard


> 
> 
> Many thanks
> Federico
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2013/6/9 Federico Bruni <address@hidden>
>         very nice!
>         
>         
>         2013/6/4 Richard Shann <address@hidden>
>                 An example of bad guitar tablature typesetting
>                 (something to do with
>                 Finale) came up on the lilypond blog, so I created a
>                 demo for Denemo
>                 setting the bit of tab in question:
>                 https://vimeo.com/67664855
>                 
>                 It uses two voices and typesets both the tab and the
>                 standard notation.
>                 
>                 Richard
>                 
>                 
>                 
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