Re: volta bracket placing

[Mats Bengtsson]

Simon Bailey wrote:
> hi all,
>
> trying the following example:
>
> \include "deutsch.ly"
> \score {
>  \notes \relative c' {
>   \time 4/4
>   \key b \major
>   \clef bass
>   \repeat volta 2 {
>     r4 g16 a b8 ~ b4 ~ b16 f f8 | f' () c d () b b16 b g8 ~ g8. f16 |
>     es'4 d c b16 b8. ~ | b2 r2
>   }
>   \alternative {
>     { R1 * 4 }
>     { r4 g16 a b8 ~ b4 ~ b16 f f8 | f' () c d () b b16 b g8 ~ g8. f16 |
>     es'4 d c b16 b8. ~ | b2 r2\fermata }
>   }
>  }
> }
>
> the second volta bracket is higher than the first (i'm using lily
> 1.6.6). is there anyway to get round this? i think that volta brackets
> should be placed at the same height, but have no idea how to acheive
> this ...

The standard trick is to increase the default padding for the volta
brackets. Try something like
\property Score.VoltaBracket \override #'padding = #2.0
and increase the value until the lower of the two brackets
reaches the same level as the other one.

> i also think that the standard behaviour should be to place the volta
> brackets at the same height automagically... (i've never seen brackets
> at different levels in printed music). does lily 1.7.x do this?

This should clearly be considered a bug but I've got the impression
it's hard to solve it in a satisfactory way without major changes to
the internal workings of Lilypond. At least we've had the problem for
several years. I haven't used 1.7.x much but haven't seen anything in
the change logs indicating that it has been solved.

> and while i'm on that track, i've just started working on a large
> project with lily 1.6.x -- can lily 1.7.x understand 1.6. syntax w/out
> changes?

No, 1.7.x involves a few major syntax changes, but convert-ly
can help you with most of them.

   /Mats