Re: text spanning

[Nick Payne]

Hugh Myers wrote:
> Perhaps I misunderstand your reply, but bar 14(where the problem is)
> has nothing to do with a rest. The text starts where (as you say) I
> wanted it to. That is not the problem. What is the problem is the
> continuation of the spanning text at bar 14--- here it starts outside
> in the margin instead of being aligned beneath a note. Is this
> behavior controllable?
See music function below that I wrote for creating text spanners with 
arbitrary text. It allows you to specify as parameters:

The starting text
The outside staff priority
Whether the spanner is above or below the stave
The amount by which you want to adjust the left and right ends of the 
spanner
The amount by which you want to adjust the left and right point at which 
the spanner breaks when it crosses a line break

% usage e.g.:
%   \tspan "sul ponticello" #0 #DOWN #'(0 . -0.5) #5 #1
%   g\startTextSpan c bes' ees, aes c, g c bes' ees, aes c,\stopTextSpan
tspan = #(define-music-function (parser location text osp dirn shorten 
adjBreak adjEnd) (string? number? number? pair? number? number?) #{
   % set osp to 999 if spanner is colliding with another element
   % this will position the spanner outside all other elements
   % can be normally be set to zero
   \once \override TextSpanner #'outside-staff-priority = #$osp
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'left #'text = 
\markup\italic\small\bold { \concat { { $text } " " } }
   \once \override TextSpanner #'font-shape = #'upright
   % direction (either #UP or #DOWN)
   \once \override TextSpanner #'direction = #$dirn
   % setup dashed line and draw a bracket edge on RHS
   \once \override TextSpanner #'dash-period = #1.5
   \once \override TextSpanner #'dash-fraction = #0.3
   \once \override TextSpanner #'thickness = #0.8
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'right #'text = \markup 
{ \draw-line #(cons 0 (/ $dirn -1)) }
   % set alignment of line with reference to left text
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'left 
#'stencil-align-dir-y = #CENTER
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'left #'padding = #(car 
$shorten)
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'right #'padding = 
#(cdr $shorten)
   % allow adjustment of line end when it wraps to following stave
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'right-broken #'padding 
= #$adjEnd
   % adjust LH end of line when it wraps to following stave so that it 
doesn't
   % extend to the left of the notes on the stave
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'left-broken #'X = 
#$adjBreak
   % optional override to remove text and bracket edge at line breaks
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'left-broken #'text = ##f
   \once \override TextSpanner #'bound-details #'right-broken #'text = ##f
#})