Idea for improved automatic beaming

[Mats Bengtsson]

Hi,

Based on the recent discussions on automatic beaming, I got an idea on
a possible improvement/simplification.
Currently, a setting like
#(override-auto-beam-setting '(end 1 16 4 4) 1 4)
means that beams are ended on the first beat if the beamed notes are 
16th notes.
What if we changed the implementation so that
#(override-auto-beam-setting '(end 1 16 4 4) 1 4)
meant that beams are ended on the first beat if the beamed notes are
1/16 *or shorter*?

With this modification, the current settings for common meter could be
shortened to:
   ((end * * 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 1 2))
   ((end 1 12 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 1 4))
   ((end 1 12 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 3 4))

   ((end 1 32 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 1 8))
   ((end 1 32 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 3 8))
   ((end 1 32 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 5 8))
   ((end 1 32 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 7 8))

and as an extra benefit, it would also automatically handle 16th triplets,
32th septuples or whatever tuplets you can think of.
Actually, at second thought, the above list should perhaps be replaced by
   ((end * * 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 1 2))
   ((end 1 9 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 1 4))
   ((end 1 9 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 3 4))

   ((end 1 17 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 1 8))
   ((end 1 17 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 3 8))
   ((end 1 17 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 5 8))
   ((end 1 17 4 4) . ,(ly:make-moment 7 8))
saying that any tuplet with a duration shorter then 1/9, i.e. strictly 
shorter than 1/8
should be beamed on every beat. For example
c8 c \times 4/5 { c8 c c c c } c8 c
would give
c8[ c] \times 4/5 { c8[ c c c c] } c8[ c]

Can anybody think of a typesetting situation where these kind of rules 
wouldn't
work, i.e. where notes with shorter durations should result in longer 
beams than
notes with some other longer duration?

   /Mats


--
=============================================
        Mats Bengtsson
        Signal Processing
        School of Electrical Engineering
        Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
        SE-100 44  STOCKHOLM
        Sweden
        Phone: (+46) 8 790 8463                         
       Fax:   (+46) 8 790 7260
        Email: address@hidden
        WWW: http://www.s3.kth.se/~mabe
=============================================