RE: Better vertical spacing in 2.11 adversely affects lyric spacing

[Trevor Daniels]

> Joe Neeman wrote 30 October 2007 01:26

> On 10/30/07, Monk Panteleimon 
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> > It appears that 2.11 is trying to keep single 
> staves from occupying their
> > own (last) page. That's a good idea too but, at 
> least in my case, it seems
> > to be doing so at the expense of good lyric 
> spacing in a ChoirStaff.
> > Lyrics should be equidistant from higher and 
> lower staves, right?
> 
> I'm not sure -- I wrote the code but I don't 
> usually use lyrics. It
> was suggested to me (I can't find the email) that 
> lyrics should stay
> close to the staff to which they are attached. So 
> when lilypond
> stretches the systems (to better fill the page) 
> it leaves the lyrics
> close to the staff above. This is described, 
> along with the relevant
> overrides, in the 2.11 manual (the section on 
> vertical spacing).
> 
> If someone can suggest a better default algorithm 
> for the placement of
> lyrics in stretched systems, I'd be happy to hear 
> it (although
> probably not until 2.13).
>
The idea behind the default algorithm is correct 
for lyrics which are associated with a single
staff containing a melody line, but is not so
good for lyrics which are associated with several
staves - think of a hymn, where the words apply
to all four parts, SATB, but have to be associated
within the lily syntax with just one voice, whereas
they are really associated with all four.  In this 
case the lyrics should remain centered between the 
two staves but I don't know we might indicate this.
Perhaps the answer is to write such lyrics quite
independently of the music using a Devnull context
to place them between the staves, although I have
not tried this to see if the spacing is any better.  
 
> Joe
>
Trevor D 
> 
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