Re: Behaviour of TextSpanner dashes

[Keith OHara]

On Wed, 05 Feb 2014 20:05:28 -0800, Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> wrote:

> > Lilypond does use the text baseline as reference point for text.
>
> Really? Then why do these texts not align along their baselines:

The default settings have the same minimum gap between staff and text, 
including descenders, as the minimum space from staff to the baselines.  So the 
padding against collisions is all we see.

We can change the settings, increasing the space to the baseline:
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/learning/fixing-overlapping-notation#the-staff_002dpadding-property

  {\textLengthOn
   \override TextScript #'staff-padding = #1
   c''^\markup { NO DESCENDERS!! }
   c''^\markup { jjjyyyjjjggg } }

(There are some other things -- tempo marks, I think -- where the code makes so 
many adjustments to placement that I could not figure out how to uncover the 
simple behavior of spacing to the baseline.)

I think it would be better to move the reference line to half the x-height of 
the font above the baseline (as it is now for the p, f, etc., letters in 
dynamics) for any text near music.
Then the same distance from staff to reference line would make sense for items 
both above and below the staff,
and it would be simpler to center lyrics between staves (no longer needing to 
adjust distances by that half an x-height).