Notation editing in Rosegarden (was Re: Finale, was Re: [linux-audio-user] NoteEdit-2.5.0 : Octaviation (va-lines))

[Chris Cannam]

On Friday 12 Mar 2004 6:49 pm, Chris Metzler wrote:
> Is there any chance that some of that typesetting capability -- in
> particular, the ability to print clean, organized sheet music for
> distribution to others and performance use, with the ability to
> adjust measures per line and mark repeats and alternate end bars
> and so on -- will find its way into Rosegarden's notation editor
> and printing facility?

Yes, there certainly is -- with caveats.  My own original area of 
interest in Rosegarden (as the longest-running developer on the 
project) is in notation, and I'm very keen to continue developing 
that.

But Rosegarden is intended to be a compositional tool rather than, 
say, a score typesetter, and that shows: it's unlikely that you'll 
ever get a printed score from it that matches what you could do with 
Lilypond or Sibelius (except of course if you export to Lilypond from 
Rosegarden).  There are several practical reasons for that, other 
than simply that we have so many other things to work on as well.  
One reason is that we always put more work into making things look 
good and work well when edited interactively at screen resolutions 
before we consider how they might be adjusted for printing.  Another 
important reason is that we're inclined to favour features that can 
be made common between the notation editor and the rest of the 
program, so that for example repeats and alternate endings in 
notation become harder to implement because they ideally ought to be 
represented in the sequencer-style segment canvas as well.

Still, Rosegarden is unlikely to reach 1.0 without having a few more 
essential notation features like repeats, alternate endings, Joerg's 
favourite 8va sections, grand staffs, and the ability to do fine 
adjustments on the positions of individual elements.  Quicker 
printing and better integrated Lilypond invocation are also 
priorities.


Chris