Re: Change stanza formatting

[Aaron Hill]

On 2019-03-01 10:20 am, David F. wrote:
> There’s one small issue that I noticed.  I’m engraving music with
> simultaneous bilingual lyrics and I’m using the stanza number to print
> the language name. Since the language name is almost always longer
> than the first syllable, it is making that first note column wider
> than it would be without the stanza number. Is there a way to keep the
> sanza number from influencing the width of the note column?
>
> (On the one hand, the extra space isn’t necessarily a big deal.  But
> the whole reason I want to print the language names on top of the
> lyrics instead of to the left of them is that I’ve run into cases
> where the extra text in the stanza number is preventing me from
> getting everything I want onto the first line of music.)

Would it work to use abbreviations for the languages?  (e.g. "E:" and 
"F:" for "English" and "Français".)  Unless your first LyricText is 
particularly wide, there should be enough room for such an abbreviation 
as a traditional StanzaNumber without the need to play around with 
properties.

--

As an alternative, you could see if right-aligning the StanzaNumbers 
works for you.  Since this means the LyricTexts and StanzaNumbers share 
a common right extent, there should be no additional space added before 
the next syllable:

%%%%
\version "2.19.82"

\layout { \context { \Lyrics
  \override StanzaNumber.direction = #UP
  \override StanzaNumber.side-axis = #Y
  \override StanzaNumber.padding = #0.2
  \override StanzaNumber.X-offset = #(lambda (grob)
    (define (grob-list-property glst prop)
      (map (lambda (g) (ly:grob-property g prop)) glst))
    (let* ((sse (ly:grob-object grob 'side-support-elements))
           (lyrics (cdr (ly:grob-array->list sse)))
           (lyrics-extents (grob-list-property lyrics 'X-extent))
           (lyrics-widths (map interval-length lyrics-extents))
           (lyrics-offsets (grob-list-property lyrics 'X-offset))
           (lyrics-rights (map + lyrics-offsets lyrics-widths))
           (lyrics-right (apply max lyrics-rights))
           (grob-extent (ly:grob-property grob 'X-extent))
           (grob-width (interval-length grob-extent)))
     (- lyrics-right grob-width)))
} }

\new Voice \relative { \time 3/4 g'2 e4 a2 f4 g2. }
\addlyrics { \set stanza = #"English" Hi, my name is Bert. }
\addlyrics { \set stanza =  #"Français" Oooh, ché -- ri, je t'aime }
%%%%

NOTE: The code above considers all of the LyricTexts in the column, not 
just the current line.  As a result, there is a consistent 
right-alignment of the StanzaNumbers based on the widest of the 
LyricTexts.

--

Assuming you want left-alignment without the added space to the right, 
you will probably have to resort to altering the actual extents of the 
StanzaNumber:

%%%%
\version "2.19.82"

#(define (interval-max . args) (reduce interval-union empty-interval 
args))
#(define ((side-support-property func prop) grob)
  (let* ((sse (ly:grob-object grob 'side-support-elements))
         (elems (cdr (ly:grob-array->list sse)))
         (props (map (lambda (g) (ly:grob-property g prop)) elems)))
    (apply func props)))

\layout { \context { \Lyrics
  \override StanzaNumber.direction = #UP
  \override StanzaNumber.side-axis = #Y
  \override StanzaNumber.padding = #0.2
  \override StanzaNumber.X-offset = #(side-support-property min 
'X-offset)
  \override StanzaNumber.X-extent = #(side-support-property interval-max 
'X-extent)
  \override StanzaNumber.Y-offset = 
#ly:side-position-interface::y-aligned-side
} }

\new Voice \relative { \time 3/4 g'2 c,4 a'2 f4 g2. }
\addlyrics { \set stanza = #"English" Hi, my name is Bert. }
\addlyrics { \set stanza =  #"Français" Oooh, ché -- ri, je t'aime }
%%%%

But be advised this approach can generate overlapping ink.  In the 
example above, I lowered the E in the first measure to middle C to 
demonstrate this.  The collision occurs because we told LilyPond that 
the StanzaNumber only extended as far to the right as the supporting 
LyricTexts.


-- Aaron Hill