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Topic: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line? (Read 15542 times) previous topic - next topic

Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Greetings.  I'm using 1.75c.

I want to put rehearsal numbers (I don't know a way to do that other than with text expressions) above periodic bar lines, or at least between the bar line and the first note of the measure. So far, the best I can do is to get the diamond marker between the bar line and first note, which makes the rehearsal number fall to the right of the first note.

(I know about measure numbers, but in the score I'm copying, they aren't used; it's just the periodic numbers, which don't match the measure numbers.)

I see that I can nudge a text expression a little to the right by using spaces before it, but I need to nudge it a little to the left!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
--APB in northeastern CT

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #1 –
Instead of nudging the item, I would recommend that you use the "at next note/bar" alignment option in the Expression Placement tab.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #2 –

Quote from: Noteworthy Online
I would recommend that you use the "at next note/bar" alignment option in the Expression Placement tab.

You should also look at the "justification" drop-down list on that tab. It allows you to move the expression to the right or left of the diamond, or center the expression on the diamond if you prefer - a lot of extra flexibility there.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #3 –
I recommend placing the text entry at the beginning of a bar instead of the end.  Then if the staff has a line break at the rehearsal marking, it shows up at the beginning of the new line.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #4 –
I agree with David, to the extent that I've even been known to place a hidden barline with the rehearsal mark immediately before it and set to appropriate justification at next note/barline - just to help get the positioning "just right"...

I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #5 –
Thank you all very much!  I hadn't paid attention to the Expression Placement tab enough to learn its possibilities.

For the work I am presently doing, using the Center justification with the diamond right after the bar line actually places the rehearsal number closer to the bar line than does placing the diamond at the end of the previous measure and using At next note/bar. So Centering is it, for now.

--APB, happy camper

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #6 –
Is it just me, or could it be easier, perhaps, to be able to select and move anchors as objects? One for the wish list...
-DAVID COOPER

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #7 –
You can move them, but that doesn't solve the problem of alignment or justification.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #8 –
Point taken. Only a minor annoyance once you get the hang of it. :)
-DAVID COOPER

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #9 –
I align at the next bar line, justify center.  When a rehearsal number/letter lands at the start of a line, I align best fit, justify right.  If I need to repage something, I need to re-do the number.  Not the best method I suppose, but "old dogs..."  [maybe I'll try something like Lawrie's method {can't see it any more, so I'm not sure it is Lawrie's...}]

Quote
APB in northeastern CT
Seems we in The Quiet Corner tend to go by initials.

---KAT in northeastern CT

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: K.A.T. –
I align at the next bar line, justify center.  When a rehearsal number/letter lands at the start of a line, I align best fit, justify right.
That is the method I've used for several years. It works well enough when you only have a few letters.

An Alignment/Placement option of "At Previous Note/Bar" sounds strange, but could be quite useful, especially if it aligned to the left side of the staff when it was before the first note of a measure that started a line.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #11 –
The nice thing about placing the letter at the beginning, rather than the end, of a bar and alignment = right,  is that you never have to adjust for a system break.  In large arrangements that's one less worry at printing time.  I like Rick's idea about one more placement option, though, because occasionally the letter won't sit squarely on the preceding bar line even if it's right aligned. 

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #12 –
Part of the problem with right alignment is when a line is stretched because the last measure gets bumped to the next line, the text items need to be adjusted with more padding.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #13 –
I like the idea of an alignment at previous note/bar, but I would really like an alignment "at start of staff".

I.E to line up at the point where the staff lines commence.  This would make rehearsal marks at the beginning of a staff a real snap - no padding required!
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Lawrie Pardy –
This would make rehearsal marks at the beginning of a staff a real snap - no padding required!
Unlike "At Previous Note/Bar"?

Generally, cutom measure numbers and rehearsal letters are centered over barlines (or slightly to the right) except that, when the system breaks, they start at the opening system bar. Having to reformat them each time the layout changes is not user friendly.

IMO, the Alignment/Placement options need significant overhaul. Too often, just a simple change of an accidental requires me to reformat all the text in that line. Getting a duple "2" to stay centered over a beam is a challenge.  Getting text to align to the left or center of a page is much harder than it should be.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Rick G. –
Unlike "At Previous Note/Bar"?

Maybe, maybe not - the previous bar when entering a text object at the start of a system is the one on the end of the previous system...  If this could also be interpreted as the beginning of the staff if it is a new system then that's fine...

I certainly agree that some page oriented text editing facilities would be extremely welcome, but I'm not sure how simple it would be to implement.  Afterall, NWC is NOT a page oriented editor.  If it were, we'd lose many of the advantages of the UI IMHO.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #16 –
Quote
the previous bar when entering a text object at the start of a system is the one on the end of the previous system...  If this could also be interpreted as the beginning of the staff if it is a new system then that's fine...

Sounds like a good approach.

Hmm.  The text rehearsal markings are really just work-arounds.  Maybe one day we could have a bar line property that included the option to add a rehearsal letter and to name it.  Not that different from a note property where we can turn off the syllable catcher.

It would have to be programmed to accommodate the system wrap, of course.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #17 –

Quote from: David Palmquist
Maybe one day we could have a bar line property that included the option to add a rehearsal letter and to name it.

Brilliant, David. The code has essentially already been written -for measure numbers. Using it for rehearsal letters as well is a great idea.

Bill

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #18 –
Concur!
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: David Palmquist –
The text rehearsal markings are really just work-arounds.
In what sense?

Rehearsal marks are moved around so that they do not collide with other elements. You need the placement/justification flexability of the Text object to do this. It seems to me that the design philosophy of NoteWorthy is that properties of objects are placed by the program with little or no override ability for the user. Making rehearsal marks a property of a bar line would not be an improvement.

It is arguable that NWC should allow the full range of Text options for the text used in other objects instead of forcing e.g., Staff Bold on Tempo and Instrument, Staff Italic on Playing Style, fixed text on MPC, System on dynamics. I don't argue for it since I just make these invisible and use Text instead.


The problem is that when NWC breaks a line, it creates two barlines: one at the right of the page and another at the left of the page in the next system. The user has no control over which of these becomes the anchor for the text. More often than not, NWC chooses the wrong barline as the text anchor.

One solution would be user control.

A better solution, IMO, would be for NWC to anchor the text to the right barline when Justification is "Right" and to use the left barline when when it is "Left" or "Center".

It might be an improvement to add a Text object option of:
  • Plain (default)
  • Boxed
  • Circled
  • Underlined
Circled text might need to be confined to 1 or 2 characters or have some 'more sophisticated' refinement.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #20 –
Quote from: Rick G. –
The problem is that when NWC breaks a line, it creates two barlines: one at the right of the page and another at the left of the page in the next system.

Are you sure?  The ONLY time I see a barline at the left edge is when it's actually a layered staff and the line is part of the system "connecting" line that goes between staves to indicate systems...  And that ain't a barline - or am I missing something?
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #21 –
Thanks, Bill, (blush).

When I made my suggestion, I overlooked the problem of configuring a rehearsal letter to meet one's needs.  We all have different tastes.

Rick is right about avoiding collisions.  The advantage of making the rehearsal marking as a configuration of the bar line is it would save the interminable copying from staff to staff, and the tedium of entering the next letter as well. 

I haven't observed Rick's alignment/two bar line problem, but maybe that's just because I haven't recognized it when it occurred.  The only problem I've had with right alignment is sometimes a key signature or clef in another staff in the corresponding bar causes text to be placed a little too far to the right.  And then it's generally not particularly jolting anyway.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #22 –
Rick is certainly right about avoiding collisions. But David's proposal for making the rehearsal letter an attribute of the barline included an option to turn it on and off and specify which letter it was. This would make it easy to replace it with a text object when needed. However: this presupposes that a couple more of Rick's suggestions are adopted, i.e., that the text in objects created by the program should be under the users' control and that text objects could be optionally boxed, so that hand-entered and program-entered rehearsal letters could be made to match. So the time may not yet be right for David's suggestion to be adopted.

But I still think it's an excellent idea.

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #23 –
If you could specify the font, the letters A to Z in Boxmarks, Boxmark2 and in my suites are all boxed already...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #24 –
Right, Lawrie....and they're very useful. What I was thinking about was the possibility of trying to match a program-set font inside a box. Boxmarks and your suites are good, but thy represent a limited number of the font possibilities available to the program. If the program puts a text object in a box, and you want to match it, the preset fonts in Boxmarks and your suites may not do the job.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #25 –
Ahh, but they will.  At least my suites will if you use the entire package...

I.E.
NWC2SwingDings for the system font (set in staff metrics dialogue)

SwingText for all standard text fonts:
  • Staff Italic
  • Staff Bold
  • Staff Lyric
  • Page Title Text
  • Page Text
  • Page Small Text

SwingDings as a user font for "those special occasions" - including rehearsal letters
and
SwingChord for text chords

All the glyphs match each other in style so it's a perfect (I hope) fit.

The same applies for MusikDingsSerif and for MusikDingsSans.  If you want to use NWC2HiVisLP then use MusikDingsSans for everything else as they are designed to work together too.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #26 –
Quote from: William Ashworth –
the time may not yet be right for David's suggestion to be adopted. But I still think it's an excellent idea.
A useful extension of the concept would be to have Ctrl+G D take you to Section D
Even better if the program got that info from the topmost displayed staff no matter what staff you were on.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #27 –
Good thought.

Hmm.  I was going to suggest something, but I'll turn it into a question instead.  Could the program manage keeping the RLBs (rehearsal letter bars) aligned if we insert notes or bars in other staffs?  I think it might be difficult to program.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #28 –
Quote
A useful extension of the concept would be to have Ctrl+G D take you to Section D
Even better if the program got that info from the topmost displayed staff no matter what staff you were on.
Oh, I LOVE that idea!

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #29 –
Automatic adjustment for bars added in other staves might be difficult to program, but I'm not sure it's needed. We adjust bars with rehearsal letters by hand now. No change if we still have to do it after the rehearsal letter is one of the barline properties.

And I'm with K.A.T. - I LOVE Rick's idea about jumping to rehearsal letters.

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #30 –
I concur
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Text expression at, or just to right of, bar line?

Reply #31 –
It seems to me that every time I justify text as "Center" or "Left" in front of a barline and the system breaks at that barline, the text is placed somewhere that is never useful. It is the proverbial "ill wind that blows nobody good."

If NWC would position text in this circumstance as though it was positioned after the barline, at the least, it would sometimes be what the user wants.

Causing the text to "wrap" like this might be what a new user expects. Chopping it off at the right margin is surely unexpected.

NWC could then do some "intelligent" things with this:
  • At Next Note/Bar could Align to the start of the vertical staff lines.
  • Best Fit could align to the Left Margin.
Currently, it is difficult to align to these points.

NWC would also be improved if it didn't clip the left side of the text at the "non-printable area". Rather, it should shift the text to the right so that it is all visible in Print/Print Prewiew. This might not always be accurate for wacky fonts, but should be possible for most fonts. The code to do this should also be applied to the measure numbering routine so that these don't get clipped.

This would, I think, allow all Rehearsal numbers to use the same Alignment/Placement.

IMO, NWC should not position text outside the "Printable Area." For normal fonts, it should be possible to deterime the extents of the Text object and adjust it to keep it within the page.
Registered user since 1996