Re: bug in magnetic snapping lyrics engraver

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Werner (et al.),

> This is ingenious :-) Thanks *a lot* for this solution.

+1 (x2)

> * I *strongly* vote for polishing and documenting this so that it can
>  be added to LilyPond.  It's an invaluable feature IMHO, greatly
>  enhancing Lyrics.

YES PLEASE!!

If anyone is interested in discussing one potentially related request — also 
having to do with spacing — I'd appreciate it. It may not have any impact on 
this solution, but my instinct is it might, so I wanted to throw it out there.

Consider the following snippet:

%%%  SNIPPET BEGINS
\version "2.23.4"

\layout {
  indent = 0
}

music = {
  \tuplet 3/2 { c'8 8 8 }
}

words = \lyricmode {
  \tag #'fix { \once \override LyricText.self-alignment-X = #0.25 } Loooooong! 
Not long.
}

\score {
  <<
    \new Staff \music
    \addlyrics \words
  >>
  \layout {
    ragged-right = ##f
    line-width = 2.5\in
  }
}

\score {
  <<
    \new Staff \removeWithTag #'fix { \music }
    \addlyrics \words
  >>
}

\score {
  <<
    \new Staff \keepWithTag #'fix { \music }
    \addlyrics \words
  >>
  \layout {
    ragged-right = ##f
    line-width = 2\in
  }
}
%%%  SNIPPET ENDS

A *large* percentage of my tweaking time is spent adjusting the alignment of 
lyrics so that the note spacing is as natural as possible: aligning the first 
syllable of a triplet more to the right and the last syllable more to the left, 
etc. I would love to be able to identify a block of notes (anything from a pair 
to a whole measure or more!) so that the spacing engine would privilege the 
note spacing in that group over the spacing of the lyrics under it, compressing 
or expanding LyricWords [hence the intersection with this feature!], changing 
self-alignment-X or X-offset, etc., in order to keep the notes the most natural.

Janek started to work on this as part of the GSoC Lyric work (10 years ago, 
maybe?!?!), but never finished. It's obviously a non-trivial feature to 
implement… but I wanted to bring it up just in case the potential 
implementation of it in the future might change the way that LyricWord is 
implemented right now.

Thoughts?
Kieren