Re: headers, and what include doesn't do

[David Wright]

On Sat 17 Oct 2020 at 10:27:10 (+0200), Xavier Scheuer wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Oct 2020 at 09:49, Jean Abou Samra <jean@abou-samra.fr> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > I have learnt this restriction during my very beginnings in LilyPond -- I
> was
> > using 2.18.0 at the time. Since then I never realized it was gone as I
> always
> > followed the practice of putting \header after the music.
> >
> > I'll prepare a patch to update NR examples to use \header before the
> music as
> > I think this looks much more logical.
> 
> 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.
> 
> And thank you David K for implementing this (in addition to all the other
> things you have done and are doing for LilyPond).

Seconded.

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?

¹ Debian, like many distributions, has always lagged behind with
  its stable/buster offering (now 2.18.2). We recently had posts
  from a user with 2.16 running on Mint's rebecca.

² I hadn't yet settled on a satisfactory division of labour between
  \paper / \layout, and top-level / score-level.

Cheers,
David.