Re: changing size of \tempo marks

[David Kastrup]

Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> writes:

> [2.17.26]
>
> Folks,
>
>
> it seems there isn't an easy possibility to change the size of \tempo
> marks globally.  Have I missed something?  This code
>
>   {
>     \tempo "abc" c''1 |
>     \override MetronomeMark.font-size = #20
>     \override MetronomeMark.font-family = #'sans
>     \tempo "abc" c''1 |
>   }
>
> has zero effect – inspite of the fact that `font-interface' is
> explicitly mentioned in the list of supported interfaces of
> `MetronomeMark' (in `lilypond-internals').  This smells like a bug...

No, it's by design.

\override MetronomeMark.font-size = #20 is just short for

\override Bottom.MetronomeMark.font-size = #20

which is most often the same as

\override Voice.MetronomeMark.font-size = #20

(unless the current Bottom context isn't a Voice).  Maybe we should
explain this better in the override section?

Now you _could_ move the Metronome_mark_engraver to Voice level where
the overrides would indeed see an effect, but that would lead to some
funny-looking scores.

> Looking into metronome-engraver.cc, I see that the whole formatting
> work is delegated to `metronomeMarkFormatter' (something which should
> be mentioned in the documentation of `MetronomeMark'), which in turn
> is by default bound to `format-metronome-markup'.  What about making
> `format-metronome-markup' honor the unused `font-size' property of
> `MetronomeMark' grobs?  Ditto for `font-shape' and friends.

{
  \tempo "abc" c''1 |
  \override Score.MetronomeMark.font-size = #20
  \override Score.MetronomeMark.font-family = #'sans
  \tempo "abc" c''1 |
}

works just fine.

> Of course, I can simply provide a modified version of
> `format-metronome-markup', but I consider this overkill if I just want
> to change the font size...

It's overkill anyway.

If you can't remember your context, try tweaks:

{
  \tempo "abc" c''1 |
  \tweak font-size #20
  \tweak font-family #'sans
  \tempo "abc" c''1 |
}

also works fine (starting with 2.17.16, issue 3296).

-- 
David Kastrup