Re: piano centered dynamics

[Neil Puttock]

Hi James,

2008/5/31 James E. Bailey <address@hidden>:
> I think the forced-distance might be a bug, everything else in the
> align-interface between the two branches (2.10 and 2.11) are the same, just
> the user-settable forced-distance is missing :(

AFAIK, the forced-distance property was a hack to get cross-staff
beaming working in a PianoStaff. Since the spacing engine was
rewritten for 2.11, it's no longer required.

If you want fixed distance in 2.11 you'll need to use the
line-break-system-details property and its sub-property
alignment-offsets, which together will determine the relative
positions of staves and spanners. In the case of the centred dynamics
template there are four elements which need aligning, viz. the two
staves, the dynamics spanner and the pedal spanner, so an override
like the following should work:

\context {
      \Score
      \override NonMusicalPaperColumn #'line-break-system-details =
#'((alignment-offsets . (0 -6 -12 -18)))
    }

A word of warning: since the dynamics spanner is inserted between the
staves, it's responsible for keeping them apart, so you must have
dynamics present in at least one bar per system for the forced spacing
to work.

You might like to check Trevor Bača's reply here:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2007-09/msg00239.html),
which explains how it works in a bit more detail (and shows you how to
use the override on the fly).

Regards,
Neil