Re: [PATCH] Fix #305: Allow dynamics to be positioned independently

[Neil Puttock]

2009/10/13 Maximilian Albert <address@hidden>:

> Awesome, thanks for your work, Neil! Just one question: Why is it
> necessary to explicitly specify the \breakDynamicSpan command?

I was just following Han-Wen's suggestion in the bug tracker; it
hadn't crossed my mind that it would be useful to have automatic
breaking based on direction.

> As a
> user, I would normally not include it since I'm not aware of it and
> would thus think that manual positioning of hairpins simply doesn't
> work (or is buggy). Is there a way to avoid it (e.g., by having
> Lilypond automatically detect when two hairpins point in different
> directions)?

I'm sure it's feasible, though it's going to increase the complexity
somewhat due to the necessity of caching the previous direction.  I'll
see what I can do.

Bear in mind though that an explicit command is necessary for
situations where the direction doesn't change (for example, the last
dynamic in the regression test).

> Also, is there a way to 'activate' \breakDynamicSpan
> somehow so that it applies to all future hairpins/dynamics?

It might be possible to redefine dynamic commands to send a break
request automatically, though there is one limitation due to the way
the engraver's coded: you can't have separate alignments for the case
where there's an absolute dynamic directly followed by a span dynamic.

For example, the following snippet wouldn't produce separate alignment
spanners for the forte and hairpin:

\relative c' {
  c1_\f^\<
  c1\!
}

Regards,
Neil