[smufl-discuss] Re: Private use area?

[dspreadbury]

Emil wrote:

> Additionally, in some output conditions, there is sometimes an issue
> with scaled objects, which appear too thin. For instance, at some staff
> sizes and resolutions, the width of the hair stroke of a treble clef is
> rendered with two pixels line, whereas a scaled clef (at clef change,
> 75%) has its hair stroke rendered with just one pixel line (way too
> thin). This should be avoided, and including the glyphs for changing
> clef is the most elegant solution.

I certainly don't dispute that it is important to be *able* to use
alternate glyphs for clef changes. However, I still don't believe that
clef changes are intrinsically any different than any other glyphs that
are identical in form but required at a different size relative to the
staff, such as accidentals, articulations, noteheads, flags, etc., which
amounts to hundreds of different glyphs.

The same argument about strokes becoming too thin when glyphs are drawn at
a smaller size surely applies to all of these other cases too (the
vertical stem on a flat, the angled lines of an accent, etc. etc.). Are we
also going to include all of these glyphs at multiple sizes at recommended
code points? Surely not -- but why not, given the rationale stated above?

A number of different solutions are possible without arbitrarily assigning
clef changes special status, as I have outlined already: the one I favour
for Bravura is defining a stylistic set containing optical variants for
the common glyphs (not only clefs, but also noteheads, accidentals,
articulations, dynamics, time signature digits, and so on); Dave has
talked about inserting his three required glyphs into the "private use
area"; and there are probably others, too.

> My suggestion is to encode:
> - changing G-clef
> - changing C-clef
> - changing F-clef
> - control character 'changing clef' (this is to avoid duplicating all
> the clefs, while enabling to use dedicated glyphs e.g. for clefs with
> ottava bassa, as sometimes seen in double bass parts).

This is a reasonable suggestion, in as much as it is pragmatic. However,
the use of a control character to perform glyph substitution means that
it's no more simple to support for a scoring application than using a
stylistic set, which remains my current recommendation.

Daniel

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