8 Dec
2011
8 Dec
'11
8:24 p.m.
On 8 Dec 2011 at 11:50, Fred Cisin wrote:
WYSIWYG and YAFIYGI both have their uses and
benefits.
Nothing beats WYSIWYG for an amateur playing with fonts;
V "I KNOW what they look like. I can get more DONE, putting in the
codes while working in text mode."
There's still much to be said for handling things with WordStar. My
editor-of-choice on Linux is Joe. The other day, I was given a mass
of text that included tables that needed to be edited, replacing
columns and duplicating others. WordStar column mode to the rescue.
WordStar was WYSIWYG until prop fonts came along. I still have an
add-on kit for WS 3.3 (CP/M) that allows for prop spaced fonts, even
if they don't show on the screen.
There were several early text-processing packages whose formatted
output was very different from what was being displayed on the
screen. Troff wasn't even remotely the first.
I find that music notation is very similar to text layout. Actually,
it compares more accurately to calligraphy.
It wasn't all that long ago that most music scores were produced by
copper plate engraving by hand. And the result was some truly
artistic work. Even today, the troff-type Lilypond still struggles
to match the quality of the old hand-engraved scores. By the same
token, I can identify a computer-produced score from the likes of
Sibelius and Finale in a heartbeat. There's no "flow" or "style"
to
the output.
To see what I mean, take a look at the Lilypond essay:
http://lilypond.org/web/about/automated-engraving/introduction
That being said, setting a full orchestra score by text input into
Lilypond is unbelievably onerous. Most of the WYSIWYG "front end"
packages to Lilypond have been abandonded or are buggy or awkward.
--Chuck