Hi James, [I moved this to the -user list from -devel, because this kind of discussion is best begun here.]
> add dialogue (particularly long passages of dialogue) over music I do this all the time — in fact, the largest proportion of my engraving is my musicals, operas, and other “theatre of music” > Firstly, the current recommendation as stated in section 2.1.6 of the > notation reference manual, is to enter the dialogue into lyricmode, which > enables the user to specify how long the text should be in relation to the > staff in a way that cannot be done outside of lyricmode I didn’t know that’s the recommendation, but I literally *never* do that. Usually I use a custom context called “TextLine” to hold the dialogue, and build a variable (with skips) to ensure the text is placed where it needs to go; when it’s just a small number of text items, I use the edition-engraver to “inject” it at the correct spot in the score (without need for a whole TextLine context). > This would also make it simpler to keep dialogue above the stave and lyrics > below the stave, which is the typical layout. Well, that can be done with the recommended approach: just ensure that the Lyrics context with the dialogue in it is aligned above the staff in question! > Secondly, an automated system would be extremely useful for breaks in text > markups. This would make it simpler if a user wanted to tweak the dialogue, > and/or include the dialogue in multiple files. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, in the hopes that I could “automagically” synchronize my multiple scores (Piano/Conductor, Piano/Vocal, Choral/Vocal, and band parts) and the libretto. I haven’t taken it much past a very initial brainstorming, but I have a very big engraving project coming up soon (my most recent musical), and maybe this is the time to get that done! > Figure out which of these if rendered separately is shortest in length: the > text itself, or the music within the duration of the markup. Then stretch the > shortest of these by increasing the spacing between words/notes until they > are both aligned. That sub-feature can already be done through wise use of existing functions (\textLengthOn, etc.). I’ll come back to this thread if I make any progress on the auto-sync idea. Cheers, Kieren. __________________________________________________ My work day may look different than your work day. Please do not feel obligated to read or respond to this email outside of your normal working hours.
