Re: String at the bottom of a cover page without using \markup

[Valentin Petzel]

Hello Paolo,

That is not exactly true. The first time you used the word template was quite 
some way in when you assumed that you’d need to set the markups differently 
for any possible configuration (which is where I answered you’d be 
underestimating Lilypond as you do NOT need to do that. My example showed a 
way you can have ONE header/footer markup producing different results on 
global flags (these could also be put inside the header block or a paper 
block), basically showing you how to create a simple interface like you wanted 
(although by that point it was not clear to me that you wanted that)).

Then your reasoning why that customization is hackish seems somewhat arbitrary 
to me. It seems to boil down to: I think the world should behave like that, 
and this doesn’t. You even claim some arbitrary template rule.
So you might see why simply saying: „This solution is a hack” is not 
particularly helpful for understanding what you want.
The technical problem here is that there is no clear border between body, 
header and footer (unless we are taking full control of the page, for which I 
gave you a way to do this without footer (as I said before, I did not realize 
we were talking about cover pages before that, even though it says so in the 
subject. I was expecting a first page with music on it)). The reason for this 
is that we usually do not exactly know where the bottom of the page is in 
terms of content (again, on a cover page we do know this). So we need to use 
the footer to be able to place stuff at the bottom of the page. Well, we could 
change this at the very low level to basically include a second kind of 
footer, but that would not make this any better.

Point is if you refrain from modifying any mechanics you cannot get any 
nonstandard functionality to work.

But let’s be specific about the problem: So your aim here is to create 
templates? Or do just want to create a cover page with something at the 
bottom? What problems do you have with my vertical fill method? Maybe you can 
provide a short example of what you want to actually do? Again, I never 
intended to negate your concerns, but I intended to understand what you want 
and maybe correct missconceptions you might have about Lilypond (like needing 
to have separate markups for each possible configuration).

Valentin


Am Samstag, 18. Dezember 2021, 18:13:48 CET schrieb Paolo Prete:
> On Sat, Dec 18, 2021 at 4:44 PM Valentin Petzel <valentin@petzel.at> wrote:
> > And please don't feel offended by my last mail, I'm not in the best shape,
> > as a friend of mine killed himself recently.
> 
> Hello Valentin,
> 
> This is really sad news, especially if it happens at a time of pandemic,
> which in itself is hard. As a personal advice I tell you: dedicate your
> time as much as possible to programming in these months, this will help you
> to distract yourself. Don't worry about me, I didn't feel offended at all.
> I was just sorry to see a so helpful and active helper/contributor like you
> being unmotivated to participate in discussions.
> 
> > I did not mean a random specification, but a very important core
> > specification at a random point.
> 
> If you read again my posts, you will find the core specification, with a
> specific word, since the very first posts of this thread, not at a random
> place. And I repeated it several times. The magic word is: *template*.
> At a certain point, Jean highlighted the fact that LP currently lacks the
> ability of stylesheeting in an easy way; then you focused the problem. But
> the big picture is that LP currently lacks the ability of easy-templating
> (and the stylesheet is only a part of this context). Currently, LP supports
> only one generic template out of the box (header, body, footer), which
> therefore needs to be customized (and its customization is somewhat
> uncomfortable) for any variation. Customizing a template, as a general
> procedure, is not a good idea, for several reasons, including readability
> of the code and maintenance. Therefore, typography programs offer a *set*
> of templates: then you pick the one that is closest to your specs, and do
> customizations only if you really need to. Then your code is *clean*. To be
> even more clear: the kind of customization you wanted to do is a hackish
> and messy one. In fact, you violate the template rule by putting what
> should be part of the body in the footer, by swapping it from the header
> (!) ad using a non pertinent field (copyright) (with low-level functions).
> This is not how I would proceed. I would avoid hacks at all on templates.
> And I would customize templates only for dummy things (for example:
> swapping header with footer) and only if I really need to.
> I really don't know how to explain it better. But in any case, please read
> again the previous posts with these observations.
> 
> Hold on for the bad period. I'm sure it will go away, after some time. And
> consider this thread a way to get distracted from it...
> 
> Best,
> Paolo

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.