Re: aligning melisma and non-melisma lyrics across staves in the same system

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the detailed and helpful response!

> If you want to attract me working on some of your most pressing
> issues, please write short, add a compilable code-example (no link)
> and give feed-back.

I will make sure to do that.

Now as to your proposed solution…

First, thank you so much for it! It looks like an excellent start on tackling 
the problem. (n.b. If this snippet achieves "production-ready” status, I’ll be 
happy to pay you a little something for your valuable time, effort, and coding 
experience; we can discuss the exact amount off-line.)

> it might be only a workaround.

Why do you feel that?

> How should the lyrics of third Staff be aligned?

I guess in a perfect world, the engraver would only “couple” lyrics which are 
exactly the same string as a melisma-aligned lyric. So in the case of the 
example you provided, the alignment of the lyrics for the third staff would be 
unaffected (i.e., would align as per default); *however*, if there were a 
fourth staff with the same lyrics as the third staff, and one of those were 
melismatic, then the lyrics for the third and fourth staff would “couple up” 
with regard to alignment.

1. Does that make sense?
2. Is it feasible to implement?

> Maybe affecting 'self-alignment-X is the wrong method at all,
> instead I could probably set 'X-offset.

Perhaps someone else [with a more encyclopedic knowledge of the back-end] can 
weigh in on that. I am (and always have been) a little confused by the 
difference — and especially interaction — of these two parameters.

1. They seem to have the same effect, once the math is worked out (i.e., 
‘self-alignment-X is proportional to the width of the LyricText grob, whereas 
‘X-offset is an absolute value). I don’t see any difference between them in 
terms of the effect they have on [horizontal] spacing, etc.

2. On the other hand, I have recently found that there are potentially 
frustrating interactions between them. For example, the “center-on-word” 
snippet appears to render #'self-alignment-X untweakable, and it also appears 
to render lyricMelismaAlignment incapable of accepting non-integral values. (I 
intend to code a minimal example, but am currently too swamped to do so, which 
is why it’s not been made into an issue.)

Thanks!
Kieren.
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden