Re: GSoC 2016

[Urs Liska]

Hi Paul,

Am 27.01.2016 um 02:37 schrieb Paul Morris:
> While we’re at it, one thing I’ve thought about is simplifying vertical 
> spacing changes.  Basically something like this[1] but possibly integrated 
> into LilyPond.  One idea is that alongside padding, minimum-distance, and 
> basic-distance, there could be a property like “scaling”.  Then the 
> properties padding, minimum-distance, and basic-distance would each be 
> multiplied by “scaling” before being put into effect.  So you could do things 
> like:
>
> \new Staff \with {
>   \override VerticalAxisGroup.default-staff-staff-spacing.scaling = #1.2
> } { … }
>
> \paper {
>   system-system-spacing.scaling = #0.9
> }
>
> That gives the user one property to change to simply increase or decrease 
> vertical spacing without having to look up default values (or guess) or have 
> to decide whether to change padding, minimum-distance, or basic-distance or 
> some combination of them.
>
> Thoughts on this idea in general?  And/or as a GSoC project?  (I’m not sure 
> that it would be enough or well-suited for GSoC.)
>
> [1] 
> https://github.com/openlilylib/openlilylib/tree/master/notation-snippets/scale-vertical-spacing

Did you get any feedback on this so far?

I think this is a very important area for improvements, as the layout
settings are still somewhat confusing for many users. However, I'm not
sure it's "big" enough to make a GSoC project. Things like your
suggested function could very well be integrated as regular patches.

OTOH, I've just factored out a "page-layout" package
(https://github.com/openlilylib/page-layout). The part I've already
moved from the old openLilyLib is about choosing alternative sets of
breaks, but this package could (should) grow in several directions. In
any case it might be a way to make your original snippet more
prominently accessible.

Urs