Use neume names instead of font's chars

[anaskaejdar]

This will make Kassia BNML files much more human-readable and human-writable, and will also provide the amount of abstraction necessary to be able to incorporate other people's fonts, which aren't structured the same way that Kassia's own fonts are.

PHASE 0: Starting point

• Finalize KA New Stathis so we have a stable starting point
  • Consider using "Byzantine Musical Symbols" Unicode block

PHASE 1: Implement the shorthand

• Create abstractneume class
• Replace the chars in neume_dict.py with the shorthand neume names
• Translation layer to convert shorthand abstract neumes into font's chars
  • Read a font's fontconfig.yaml file for char assignments
  • For every neume, replace it with its char counterpart and rebuild the neumes_list

PHASE 2: KA New Stathis-based char shorthand

• Translation layer to convert KA New Stathis chars to shorthand abstract neumes

PHASE 3: Proper syntax

• Translation layer to convert shorthand abstract neumes into proper abstract neumes
  • For everything in the shorthand form, translate to proper
  • For everything in proper, translate to proper+positioning info
• Translation layer from proper abstract to concrete (font chars)
  • Read fontconfig.yaml for char assignments
  • For every neume combination, substitute it with the chars specified in fontconfig (if the given combination is defined therein)
  • For every neume, replace it with the chars specified in fontconfig
  • Create a stacking engine to spatially-align combinations that weren't defined in fontconfig

[anaskaejdar]

Is phase 2 necessary if we're breaking backwards compatibility anyway?

[ilizol]

Is phase 2 necessary if we're breaking backwards compatibility anyway?

This will be helpful only for someone, I suppose @t-bullock, who has written many scores with the old format.

[anaskaejdar]

We're already going to break compatibility with existing scores once we implement issue #2 .

[t-bullock]

I don't think it's necessary, as long as we keep development in a separate branch for a while. I could always write a little script to convert old scores.