Re: text questions

[David Petrou]

> > I'd like to move the text on a note around.  Let's say I have
> > c^"foo". 
> 
> >   \property Voice.TextScript \set #'padding = #5
> 
> >   \outputproperty #(make-type-checker 'mark-interface)
> >   #'extra-offset = #'(-1 . 4)
> 
> I find it really surprising that you, after finding the two
> examples, didn't think of combining them into
>
> \property Voice.TextScript \set #'extra-offset = #'(-1 . 4)

Rune, there are many "reasonable" things I could have tried, and none
seemed more likely to work than another.

Is it obvious that extra-offset is something you can \set?  The second
example above uses a different syntax than \set.  This is exactly my
point about the documentation in my last message.  If I understood
more about how lily's internals (in this case that there's at least
two ways of setting something a variable), then of course I'd combine
the two.  At my level of lily ignorance, if I spent all my time
randomly trying things that looked reasonable, I wouldn't have time to
write any music.  :)

Further, since Voice.TextScript takes "padding", isn't it natural to
assume that there's a higher-level (less tweaky) way of handing the
spacing than extra-offset?  The latter seems more fragile.

Let me give you another example.  After using your "\consists
Instrument_name_engraver" command (works great, thanks), I saw that I
needed to shift the instrument name.  To me, it's reasonable to try:

  \property PianoStaff.instrument \set #'extra-offset = #'(3 . 3)

Of course, that doesn't work.  What's agonizing is that I'm sure the
correct command is something very close.  :)

Anyway, as always, thanks very much for your help.

> > I use lily regularly and often spend a _lot_ of time trying to get
> > information from the manual because in almost everything I do, I need
> > to tweak something, that is, to make a special case adjustment.  If
> 
> Try looking at the internal documentation. Just visit the home page
> and click on "Documentation of internals" in the left menu.

I think I'm going to make that section required reading before I enter
anything else into lily.  I'd suggest to anyone not entering the most
trivial music to do so as well...

> -Rune

david