Re: Figured Bass support

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

address@hidden writes:
> I sent a sample output from 1.8.0 to a composer (who had only seen 
> finale, sibelius etc before) he commented
> 
> < Thanks for sending it to me. The quality is very impressive, and
> aesthetically pleasing. >

Good to hear!

> One thing he pointed out (amongst other things I am working through)
> is that the figures in the bass are unconventionally far from the
> notes they refer to. The figures all begin at the same vertical
> offset, computed to miss the worst case note. In the hand engraved
> scores I've looked at the figures start a short distance below the
> note, or the bottom staff line if the note is entirely within the
> staff. (i.e. they are ragged top and bottom).

> This is rather verbose - is there some tweak available to make the 
> figures automatically sit just below whatever is above? I have a 

In effect, you are saying that you want the bass figures to behave
like texts and fingerings wrt. notes. Implementing this is possible,
and not even that difficult - but not very high on my current priority
list.

For the moment, you could use markup texts. For example:

        \header
        {
        texidoc = "An alternate method to make bass figures is to use
        markup texts."
        }
        \version "1.9.4"

        nat = \markup { \musicglyph #"accidentals-0" }
        sh = \markup { \smaller \raise #0.6 \musicglyph #"accidentals-1" }
        fl = \markup { \musicglyph #"accidentals--1" }

        \score {
              \context Voice \notes {
                  \clef bass
                  \property Voice.TextScript \set #'font-family = #'number
                  \property Voice.TextScript \set #'font-relative-size = #-3
                  \property Voice.TextScript \set #'baseline-skip = #1.4

                  dis4_\markup { 6 }

                  c_\markup  { 7 }
                  d_\markup { \column < { 6 \sh } \bracket { \nat } >}
                  ais_\markup { \column < 6  5 \bracket { 3 \sh } >}
                  }
        }      


Use << >>  iso. < > for 1.8, and quote the numbers, i.e.

     \column << { "6" \sh } ...



-- 

Han-Wen Nienhuys   |   address@hidden   |   http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen