Re: MNX Proposal now Available [via Music Notation Community Group]

On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 9:53 AM, capella-software Dr. Dominik Hörnel <
d.hoernel@capella-software.com> wrote:
>
> This has practical consequences: In §5.3 (Musical timelines) you state
> that parent elements should be used as containers to organize child
> elements, and that it should be easy to alter content of a MNX document.
> Most music notation editors perform score editing operations like note
> insertion/deletion on measures: For example, inserting a note into a
> measure will only affect this measure and leave following measures
> unchanged. However some editors (like LilyPond, capella, and partly Dorico)
> propagate changes to the following measures. Now if the score is chunked
> into measures, inserting a note into the MNX document would require a lot
> of restructuring by shifting notes between measures.
>
Two reactions here:

1. If MNX files didn't have explicit barline information, then every MNX
importer would need its own logic for determining where the barlines are —
a recipe for bugs and inconsistencies, no? :-/

2. This proposal raises a more fundamental question: how important is it
that MNX be optimized for real-time manipulation?

You mention LilyPond, capella and Dorico propagate note additions across
measures — a powerful feature — but I highly doubt they would be using MNX
as an internal data format. They would most likely be using proprietary
data structures/algorithms, and MNX would merely exist to import and export
notation data.

If MNX required barlines, those apps could easily ignore the barlines when
importing, and those apps could easily generate the barlines when
exporting. I don't see how a barline requirement would be a problem. But
since you're developer of capella, please do set me straight if I'm
overlooking something!

By the way, if we do not unambiguously answer the aforementioned question
("how important is real-time manipulation?"), we risk making an
inconsistent spec. Some parts of the MNX Use Cases document hint at score
manipulation being important (3.8.4, 3.8.5), but nothing outright answers
the question.

Adrian

--
Adrian Holovaty
Soundslice: https://www.soundslice.com/
Personal: http://www.holovaty.com/