Re: Flexible lyric alignment

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le 12/11/2022 à 00:23, Carl Sorensen a écrit :
> IIUC, columns are spaced with springs and rods considering collisions 
> between adjacent columns.
>
> The hope was that one could create negative space in the column with 
> no lyricText, thus allowing the adjacent column to overlap the column 
> with no lyrics and not have it be considered a collision.  Then the 
> standard spacing rules could be followed, but the columns could overlap.
>
> Maybe this makes no sense at all (I'm clearly not at expert -- or even 
> a novice -- in the spacing engine).  It was just a thought of a way to 
> try to approach the problem by changing grobs, instead of the spacing 
> engine.



Preventing the spacing engine from seeing a collision somewhere is
not a problem. You can use extra-spacing-width for that. The problem
is that in this situation:



       |                     |                       |
    lyric_word   exceedingly_long_lyric_word another_lyric_word
       |                     |                       |
       |                     |                       |

   column 1               column 2                column 3


If what you need is less space between column 1 and column 2,
you can keep the long lyric word aligned on the right, making
for a small space:


Possibility 1
==============

      |         |                             |
    lyric_word  exceedingly_long_lyric_word   another_lyric_word
      |         |                             |
      |         |                             |

   column 1   column 2                   column 3


If, on the other hand, what you need is less space between
columns 2 and 3, you will do

Possibility 2
=============

     |                               |         |
   lyric_word    exceedingly_long_lyric_word  another_lyric_word
     |                               |         |
     |                               |         |
  column 1                     column 2     column 3



In order to prevent the lyric words from colliding, you normally
need to set up a minimum distance from column 1 to column 2
and from column 2 to column 3. If you want to keep both
alignment possibilities open in order to leave the spacing
engine more freedom for spacing notes equally, the minimum
distance from column 1 to column 2 needs to be as small
as the distance there is in the first possibility. Otherwise,
you will just prevent that possibility from happening
by forcing columns 1 and 2 to be too far from each other.
Similarly, the minimum distance from column 2 to column 3
needs to be no larger than the distance there is in possibility 2.
The issue is that this doesn't tell the spacing engine that
the distances from 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3 can both be
small, but cannot be small *at the same time*. So, it might
choose to do


       collision           collision
         |                    |
         v                    v
   |          |        |
  lyric_word  |      another_lyric_word
   |  exceedingly_long_lyric_word
   |          |        |
 column 1  column 2   column 3



I hope it's clearer explained in this way.

Best,
Jean

OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature