#1093 automatic negative offset for instrument name positioning

[Anonymous]

Originally created by: *anonymous

Originally created by: percival.music.ca@gmail.com

Neil describes the remaining issue clearly. His image
shows what ideally we would want. It is achieved by manually applying
a negative offset to the whole column of instrument names so that it
gets closer to the system, while the items remain centered.  This
allows us to use an otherwise empty space, namely the space between
the longest name and the system, see my image on comment #2 for what
we currently get.  A fully automatic process would draw a pair of
skylines, one for the systems with their starter braces, another for
the column of names, and could automatically compute this override.

\markup { what we currently get: }
\score {
       <<
         \new PianoStaff <<
           \new Staff \with { instrumentName = "short" } { s }
           \new Staff \with { instrumentName = "short" } { s }
         >>
         \new Staff \with { instrumentName = "looooong" } { s }
       >>
}

\markup { what a smart engraver ideally would do, automatically: }
\score {
       <<
         \new PianoStaff <<
           \new Staff \with { instrumentName = "short" } { s }
           \new Staff \with { instrumentName = "short" } { s }
         >>
         \new Staff \with { instrumentName = "looooong" } { s }
       >>

       \layout {
                 \context {
                   \Staff
                   % or \Score, if there are also instrument
                   % names attached to grouping contexts
                   % (e.g. PianoStaff)
                   \override InstrumentName #'padding = #-1.0
               }
       }
}

[Google Importer]

Originally posted by: paconet....@gmail.com

See also https://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=771 which is fixed but
it's the origin of this potential enhancement.

[Google Importer]

Originally posted by: percival.music.ca@gmail.com

I think that Valentin's example in issue 766 is better than this one.

Mergedinto: 766
Status: Duplicate

[Google Importer]

Originally posted by: n.putt...@gmail.com

#766 is a completely separate issue.

This enhancement is suggesting an improvement to the current positioning code, which uses a crude algorithm to align columns of instrument names based on the total extent of the system-start delimiters.

Summary: automatic negative offset for instrument name positioning
Mergedinto: -766
Status: Accepted