Re: Distance of a grob from its reference point

[Aaron Hill]

On 2020-01-14 7:10 pm, Paolo Prete wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 9:08 PM Aaron Hill <address@hidden> 
> wrote:
> >  I am not connected to the world of modern notation, but I
> > cannot envision any musical meaning for the exact vertical position of
> > an OttavaBracket.
>
> This is not true. There are many and many cases in which you need to 
> tune
> the position of the ottava bracket as well as any other bracket.
> And I'm not talking about modern notation. Even in nineteenth century
> notation this is absolutely necessary.
> The first obvious example is when you have slurs near brackets. Which
> happen *very frequently*
> In this cases a common algo is to:
>
> 1) choose which of the two objects has to be placed above (there's not 
> a
> rule for that: it depends on aesthetical choices)

That was what I suspected.  This is aesthetics, not semantics.  The 
vertical position of a bracket carries no musical intention; unlike how 
the vertical position of a note head relates to pitch.  In my mind, 
LilyPond syntax is largely about communicating the musical content and 
letting the software deal with putting the right ink on the page in the 
right spot.

That is not to say that aesthetics does not matter, and LilyPond should 
strive to meet what is generally considered good and pleasing to the 
eye.  But in order for aesthetics to be codified, one just needs to 
surface all of the important aspects and constraints, and it sounds like 
LilyPond does not yet have that level of information.  As such, you are 
finding it necessary to step in and shift things around.

Side note: I should be clear that I am not "against" the prospect of 
manual tweaking tools.  Even if it were just your life that was made 
easier--and it is clear you are not the only one who would benefit--then 
such tools are justified.  But my view and practice of software 
engineering is largely focused on automation and getting the computer to 
do the heavy lifting.  I dislike manual tweaking, as I have wasted away 
many hours on such details.  For my own sanity and productivity, I have 
to restrain myself.  As such, I very much need LilyPond to be able to 
make the smart decisions on my behalf.  That is why I am trying to 
defend getting the automatic parts working better; but I need to be more 
mindful to not hinder progress on the manual parts.

> 2) move them according to decision 1) and then *tune* their coordinates
> (which is tedious even with WYSIWYG editors, and requires 
> trial-and-error
> even with them!).
> Please note that you can't simply say: "ok, let's move this up and this
> down and all is done". You have to make heavy micro-tuning as a 
> consequence.

I would disagree with the notion that everyone has to do fine tuning.  I 
certainly do nothing of the sort in my work, but I do not work on the 
same type of projects.  My needs and requirements are quite likely much 
less strict.  When it comes to the matter of manual tweaking, my use 
cases are largely irrelevant.  I should, therefore, really bow out of 
this conversation as I am not the target audience and am probably doing 
a better job of muddying the waters.


-- Aaron Hill