Re: Line breaking when a note spans a barline

[Mats Bengtsson]

> I'm attempting to use Lily to get good printing of unbarred parts for
> 16th century music.  
> 
> I'm using:
> 
> \property Score.defaultBarType="empty"
> 
> so that in a tune with a time signature of C where few or no barlines have
> been entered, the line breaks will occur at multiples of four quarter
> notes.  This is mostly happening.
> 
> However, there are cases where there is a note which spans one of
> these fictitious empty barlines.  So say I have a line of mudela that
> reads:
> 
> <stuff> f2 g4 f4. e8
> 
> Lily is deciding to break this line between the dotted quarter and the 
> eighth note, which is the worst possible place for a line break. 
> 
> I am working around this by inserting an empty barline in a better
> place, for instance:
> 
> <stuff> f2 \bar "empty"; g4 f4. e8
> 
> Is there a better way to tell Lily what to do?  

I think that's the easiest way to add possible breaking points.
Won't Lilypond insert the proceeding bar lines at every fourth
beat after your last \bar command?
You could also prevent a break by \bar "" or \nobreak, I think.
Have you looked at the \penalty command (\nobreak is equivalent to 
\penalty 1000000)? Maybe it could be useful. Lilypond will only 
consider breaking lines at the bar lines and I don't think that
the \penalty command itself will add a new possible breaking point,
just change how willing Lilypond is to break at a certain bar line.

> I would think that in general when there's a note that spans a barline 
> that barline is a less good place for a break than a barline that
> comes between two notes.  Is there some way to tell Lily this?  

That's not implemented, as far as I know. Something for the 
wish-list?

> (I'm actually using mudela-book and latex for the printout, if that
> makes a difference.)

The line breaks are determined by Lilypond, so it doesn't matter.

     /Mats