Re: ugly default output

[Urs Liska]

Am 28.02.2015 um 20:39 schrieb Kevin Barry:
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 6:47 PM, Martin Tarenskeen
> <address@hidden <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>
>     Having entered one line of music it occurred to me that the spacing
>     looks quite sub-optimal. Not to say plain ugly.
>
>
> Just as a test, I typeset the music myself again. With 2.18.2 LilyPond
> split it onto two lines (which looks good if a little generously
> spaced). With the latest development version (i.e. 2.19.16 if/when it
> arrrives) I got exactly the same result as you. The development version
> has had some improvements to the layout engine that produce tighter
> output. In this case it presumably decided that the ugliness of bar 4 in
> your example was preferable to spacing it out to completely fill two lines.
>
> Despite the ugliness the 2.19 version may be easier to read/play than
> the 2.18, but it's hard to say. Either way I think, as someone else
> suggested above, that you have found a marginal case where there are
> just enough bars that one system is too little and two systems is not
> enough. If you think it is a serious enough issue you could maybe
> consider posting it to the bug list where it would receive more serious
> discussion (especially since the changes that created it are not in the
> stable version of LilyPond yet).
>
> Attaching the 2.18.2 version in case you're interested.

Thank you for posting the alternative version, Kevin.

I think as they are right now these measures should be laid out on one 
and a half systems. Neither version is optimal, but I'd also say this is 
mostly due to the fact that the music isn't really suitable for the page 
format. So LilyPond failed at making an impossible choice.
This issue will go away when you add more music.

A very similar and annoying issue is when it isn't clear whether the 
music should fill one or two, or two or three pages. It is usually not 
an issue when LilyPond has to decide between 22 and 23 pages.

If I were you and for some reason would have to engrave exactly this 
music, I'd start with reducing the global staff size. But as said I 
think it will go away on its own.

Which isn't to say that LilyPond couldn't be improved ;-)

Urs


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--
Urs Liska
www.openlilylib.org