Re: \mark\markup\left-align bug

[John Williams]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
> added
>
>       Some objects have alignment procedures of their own, which cancel out
>       any effects of alignments applied to their markup arguments as a
>       whole.  For example, the @internalsref{RehearsalMark} is horizontally
>       centered, so using @code{\mark \markup @{ \left-align .. @}} has no
>       effect. Similarly, whole texts over notes cannot be moved vertically
>       with @code{\raise}. For moving and aligning complete objects, grob
>       properties should be used.

Thanks, that's actually quite helpful, now that I'm getting used to using
properties.  For newbies you might want to hint that the properties are
"Score.RehearsalMark \set #'self-alignment-X" for RehearsalMarks and
"Staff.TextScript \set #'padding" for text scripts.  (Although we're still
up a creek if we have scripts both above and below the staff...)

> > Also: (documentation bug)
> >
> > \left-align (and others) is not documented in Tuning output -> Text
> > markup. It is only documented under a different name (left-align-markup)
> > in program-reference -> Markup functions.
>
> Yes - I'm not sure what is the best way to go about.  Documenting all
> of them may lead to duplication and inconsistencies.  What do you think?

Well, I took a closer look, and I don't think what's in Program-reference
-> Markup Functions can be considered documentation.  It doesn't describe
most of the functions at all (so there is nothing to duplicate), and some
of what is there is wrong or misleading.  I'm tempted to rewrite the
entire TextMarkup page, but it turns out that there are too many bugs, and
things that don't work, and things I don't understand, for me to do that
yet.  So for now, here is a bunch of comments.  Maybe if you can clarify a
few things and address some of the easier programming issues, I could work
on the documentation after that.


Summarized from (Tuning Output -> Text Markup)

Sizes (absolute)
\teeny
\tiny
\small
        (Need something to select the \normal size)
\large
\huge

(relative)
\larger         (WRONG!!  should be \bigger)
\smaller
\fontsize
\magnify

(fonts)
\dynamic
\number
\italic
\bold
\super
\sub

\musicglyph
\char
\note   (The syntax for this is really bad!  Why not just \note 2. <dir>,
        and let the computer compute logarithms and count dots?)

\bracket
\hbracket

\hspace
\translate

\override       (How do we know which properties we can use?  i.e.
                "formatting property" as opposed to "object property" or
                "interpreter property"?)

The difference between { a b c } and < a b c > is not clear from the
documentation. As far as I can tell from testing \column \line and \center
simply require <> instead of {}, which seems like an arbitrary aberation
of syntax. We don't write \sequential<> or \simultaneous<> !


Additional things listed on (Program reference -> markup functions)

\bigger         (documented as larger?)
\box            (very useful: should be documented with bracket and
                hbracket)
\center
\column
\combine        (no clues given in documentation.  Does it just put them
                in the same place/overstrike them?)
\dir-column     (Description refers to an unlisted argument DIRECTION.
                Requires <>. I finally figured out it goes top-down under
                the staff and bottom-up over the staff, but it took a
                while to figure out, even after looking at the code.)
\finger         (fingering font?)
\fraction
\halign         (typo in description "haling" instead of "\halign"
                In testing, I can't get this to actually do anything.)
\left-align     (see \right-align comment)
\line           (says "\line << markups >>" instead of < > )
\lookup         (So... what does it do after finding the glyph?)
\musicglyph     (arg: "any type"? doesn't it have to be a string naming
                a character from the feta font?)
\normal-size-sub        (is this identical to \sub\normal ? Oh wait,
                there is no \normal ...)
\normal-size-super
\right-align    (one expects a right-justifying counterpart to \center,
                but it does, um, something subtly different. It should
                probably work just like \center.)
\roman
\simple         (Requires a #"scheme string" instead of a markup string.
                Can leave this one undocumented.)
\strut          (not sure what is meant.  \strut gives programming error:
                No parser tag defined for this signature)
\typewriter


MISSING functions

\sans-serif     (to select a helvetica font)
\normal         (to return to normal font size, esp. in cases where that
                is not the default)


One last question, concerning text in some music I'm doing recently.  Is
there any way to typeset a Measure Repeat (like \repeat "percent") in a
text script or lyrics?

~ John Williams