Hi Urs,
But this really _is_ helping to find suitable values for the
control-points.
I'm very glad to hear this!
* Although I know bezier curves from vector graphics software, I
also was convinced that the 'control-points' were four
points on
the curve that define its shape.
Initially I did too...
* In fact the first and last are such points, whereas the
middle two
'control-points' are the 'handles'.
-> Is this explained somewhere?
* From seeing the crosses I now realize that (when using your
function) all four offsets are relative to LilyPond's original
decision.
Well, if you think about it, that's quite obvious, but I always
assumed that if I change one offset the other
control-points would
be affected accordingly.
But in fact they aren't. So if I for example raise the
endpoint of
a slur, the third control-point may well get below the slur.
This makes me understand the seemingly strange behaviour of the
slurs when fiddling with the offsets.
* -> Probably it'll greatly improve my 'tweaking experience',
even
if I have seen this only once, not to speak if I manage to
include
this in a real-life workflow ...
So, many thanks once more, David!
You're very welcome! I've been playing around with it a bit myself,
and I'm becoming more and more convinced that something like this
would be a very useful feature.
You can also use it to show you the effect of changing other
properties. For example, you can see the effects of overriding
'height-limit and 'eccentricity. I'm finding it very instructive.
At least one thing, which I did do right now:
I compiled one score with and without your cross setting, and
comparing the two pdfs with Alt-Tab showed that the layout was
perfectly identical - except for the additional crosses.
So obviously the crosses are added after LilyPond decides about
the layout.
I'm very glad to hear this! My worry was that the crosses might push
staves further apart in extreme situations.