#5655 general-column entirely drops empty stencils

[Thomas Morley]

With code

\version "2.19.83"

\markup
  \center-column { 
    foo
    \with-dimensions #empty-interval #empty-interval "bar" 
  }

"bar" entirely disappears.

This was introduced in 2.19.82 with:

commit 06be909202d2ced6e651e4420bc8068eafae023e
Author: Thomas Morley thomasmorley65@gmail.com
Date: Sat May 26 23:45:55 2018 +0200

Issue 5331 Let general-column deal reliable with empty args

Previously an args-list of empty-stencils issued a programming error:
  Improbable offset for stencil: -inf staff space
This patch removes empty stencils from the args-list.
If args-list is empty, an empty stencil is returned.

While the patch does what is described, this is not what we would want. Instead empty stencils which would bring some ink on the paper should be allowed doing so.

[Thomas Morley]

http://codereview.appspot.com/567060043

[Anonymous]

Passes make, make check and a full make doc.

[Anonymous]

Patch on countdown for Jan 14th

[Anonymous]

Patch counted down - please push.

[Thomas Morley]

Pushed to staging as:

commit a2bb24fed40e8add5f3cdbbc2d45b1caf4579052
Author: Thomas Morley thomasmorley65@gmail.com
Date: Thu Jan 9 01:55:22 2020 +0100

Issue 5655 general-column does not move empty stencils

With issue 5331 general-column removed empty stencils.
Better not to remove them, but simply return them unmoved, i.e.
Don't apply ly:stencil-translate.
This keeps them printed and still avoids the programming error
  Improbable offset for stencil: -inf staff space
which was the reason for issue 5331