tl;dr: Let us place some accents and "dolce"s inside Synfire which will then be exported to both XML and LilyPond.
If you also need this, please support the thread with your comments and opinions.
In the sketch picture, two symbols with accent and staccato markings
Notation is IMHO very important for a software that wants to be a music prototyping software. Synfire's (and other composition programs') goal is not, obviously, to create beautiful scores, because they already have so many other things to do; therefore advanced notation things (and certainly style and pagination) should be done externally with programs like MuseScore or Dorico.
This however means that exporting should be complete and functional (hopefully we're getting there?) and that it should also include some basic notation indications like e.g. accents, in order to make the process of notation less tedious. Not only it's tedious to e.g. put all the accents in a very long piece, but if you were to change anything in Synfire and re-export, you would have to do all that work again.
Therefore, the feature that I ask for is very simple, and I think not technically hard to do at all: let us apply some basic notation markings to segments and/or symbols.
If needed, in order to avoid GUI cluttering for those that won't need this feature, simply make it off by default and let the user activate it via Preferences.
Pro:
- Extreme improvement in the workflow for those who cares about notation.
Cons:
- None
A list of the most useful features that come to mind:
- Before anything else: comments; just text for the composer; could be exported e.g. as a <words> element, maybe with some color for easier individuation. A first version could be just this and nothing else.
- Accents, staccatos, trills and tenutos applied to symbols
- Tempo indications (that the user can simply manually type, e.g. rallentando); just text!
- Expressive markings (that the user can simply manually type, e.g. crescendo, rubato, or dolce); no need for hairpins
For missing features, one can simply type comments and then apply the actual thing via one's favorite notation software program.
The idea to add additional tags is fine. At least for tuplets that would make sense. Automatic detection of tuplets is really hard (ambiguity).
The notation export was originally intended for songwriters to export a lead sheet with chords and lyrics. Over time it got more extensive.
This idea was actually more for accents and similar things. For tuplets it would be very much preferable to have a different feature dedicated to that, well integrated into Synfire, and it would probably require a bit more work than what I was proposing here. And it would probably have to work with groups of notes instead of single notes.
OP and thread title updated
Discarded the old idea of exporting just "comments" and simply asking for basic notation support, which is practically the exact same thing from a technical point of view.