Mensural dot

[rettinghaus]

For common notation augmentationDot is available, for chant notation there is the mora glyph (chantAugmentum).

Dots in mensural notation however are not comparable with those because

1. they can have different meanings (Punctus perfectionis, Punctus divisionis or Punctus additionis)
2. they usually have a boxier, diamond-like shape:

It would be nice if this dot could be added at a separate code point (and not as an alternate of the former ones). I think it would fit nicely into the Medieval and Renaissance individual notes range, if we want to align this range with the individual notes from the common repertoire.

[rettinghaus]

Just for reference, I noticed that this is available in November music font (as augmentationDotDiamond).

[mscuthbert]

I'd be concerned about encoding the meaning of the dot in SMuFL (rather than MusicXML/MNX/etc.) there are so many cases where the dot could be one thing or another, so we'd end up with punctusProbablyDivisionisButPotentiallyAdditionis, etc. They are graphically identical to each other. There are fonts cases where someone might want to distinguish a modern augmentation dot from a medieval/Renaissance punctus graphically, (and also from chant) so I could be okay with adding one glyph/code-point for a mensural punctus separate from augmentation dot, but not multiple for different uses.

[rettinghaus]

I wouldn't expect there to be half a dozen different glyphs, just one. I just wanted to point out that it does indeed have a different meaning than the available dots.

[dspreadbury]

@mscuthbert, would you prefer to find such a single-purpose mensural dot in the "...noteheads and stems" range, the "...individual notes" range, or the "...miscellany" range?

[mscuthbert]

I think best in "miscellany"

[rettinghaus]

Since the counterpart for common notation (augmentationDot) is in the "Individual Notes" range, I would still prefer the corresponding "...Individual Notes" range for consistency.

[dspreadbury]

This glyph will be called mensuralPunctus and have code point U+EA11 in the Medieval and renaissance miscellany range.