IWBNI for each articulation, one could define a large family of symbols in the Articulation Designer. As it is now, one can define two symbols for each articulation: Main and Flipped.

When designing a particular type of articulation sign, it is often necessary to create a family of articulations where each articulation is to be used for a particular purpose.

For example, in order to get staccato dots to be placed perfectly and automatically, one might create 4 font characters and 2 articulations.

For a more complicated combo-articulation such as accent+staccato, one might create 8 font characters and 4 articulations. This case is more complicated because the spacing between the accent and the dot varies depending upon whether or not one, none or both of the symbols occur within the staff.

To deal with this complexity, charts are needed to indicate which numbered articulation applies to, for example, all down-stemmed notes at or below A on the G-clef.

This feature could be implemented by modifying the Articulation Designer dialog box to allow one to specify a user-defined-number of symbols where each is to be used for a different case. For each member of the family (at a minimum), one could specify the following:

• Symbol. The character of a specified font that is to be displayed.
• Staff Position. The range of staff positions. (e.g. Use this symbol for all notes above staff position 5. Or, just for notes at staff positions 6 and 7).
• Stem Direction. The stem direction. (e.g. Use this symbol only on up-stemmed notes).
• Positioning. These could be the existing positioning settings at the bottom of the Articulation Designer dialog box that now apply globally to both the Main and Flipped symbols. However, these settings would no longer be global to all members of the family of symbols. Also, the resolution on these settings could be increased to 1/64th EVPU (vs. 1 EVPU).

• The Range of Durations. (e.g. Use this symbol only on whole notes). As whole notes are stemless and wider, sometimes these require different settings for articulations. Also, if this feature were included, one could create a single articulation for bowed tremolo in which the three symbols /, //, and /// would be attached in the following way: / to 1/16th notes, // to 1/8th notes, and /// to quarter, half and whole notes.
• Flagged or Not. (e.g. Use this symbol only on flagged notes). As the tip of a flag in a font often extends above the tip of a stem, positioning of (for example harmonic circles) must be different when there are flags present.
• Rest or Not. (e.g. Use this symbol only on rests). Since rests have a different width than noteheads, a different position is required for these cases.
• Accidental. (e.g. Use this symbol only on sharped notes). Some wide articulations might need to be positioned differently when there is an accidental immediately in front of the note.