Lyrics Automatic Horizontal Spacing Is Too Tight

Changing the font size for Lyrics Odd Lines in the Edit Text Styles dialog respaces the notes, but the horizontal lyrics spacing seems to stay constant. The same stuff overlaps. I want to make sure my file renders properly for others. I am using FreeSans 11pt as my lyrics font. Hopefully you also have that installed or this renders the same overlapping way for you.

OK, that's a good solution.
My first problem is that recent changes to the code reformatted my lyrics horizontally.
My other problem is that the default setting should not look like this.
Until just last week I did not need to stretch my measures in order to make ordinary looking lyrics space in a reasonable way.
And what happens when I stretch my measures to 1.3 and then someone changes the code again and now my spacing is too wide?
What happened to cause this change? Is is permanent or is it a bug? If it is a bug, it is certainly not minor. IMO it must be a bug, as the default settings are clearly unacceptable.

This cannot be by design. The default settings are bad.

I realize that I'm not on the MuseScore team, but I've been contributing to MuseScore for the past year and a half and I've never made your acquaintance. Who are you and what gives you authority over me in how this bug is categorized?

You have still not answered any of my questions. What is the design change here? What happened and why? This is a negative change to the program that happened very recently. This is not a feature that has been around for a while. If you can't explain to me the purpose of this "design change" I am forced to consider this a bug and elevate my complaints.

Just because something performs consistently doesn't mean it is performing correctly.

Excuse me, but I am one of the developers who has been contributing to MuseScore for the past year and a half. I have been professional software developer and designer for over 20 years. I know what a bug is.

If this is by design, it is a recent design change. You have still failed to provide me with any details of that recent design change. Can you provide me with such details? Are you even sure that there was an intentional change that caused this behavior to change recently?

I know, from the MuseScore developers email list, that recent changes were made to auto placement for lyrics. But the discussion I saw was for vertical alignment, not horizontal spacing. So from what evidence I have seen, this is likely the unintended consequence of another, intentional change to the program's behavior.

I'm sorry to keep editing like this, but you don't seem to grasp my frustration with your non-answers to my questions. I have been actively contributing my time and energy improving MuseScore over a while now, and it adds up to some serious hours. I have made some significant contributions, I have found bugs, and I have fixed bugs, generally very promptly.

I am making a contribution by submitting this bug. I have taken time out from my day to put together a sample file to illustrate the problem. I have downloaded and compiled the latest source code to make sure the issue wasn't fixed yesterday. And you come along and change it into a non-bug without being able to give me a single answer to a single question that I have posed you. It's frustrating and makes me want to contribute less to MuseScore.

...as I said. Thanks for chiming in.

I understand that you need to weed out bogus bug reports, but whatever happened here is not the way to do it.

IMO this should be a "major" bug, as it renders lyrics useless, and lyrics are a major feature. Any changes I make to compensate for this, I will have to undo those changes once the bug is fixed. I'm not reverting the priority to my original post, but I am recommending it. Also, if this is the result of recent changes, it's best to fix it while it's fresh in programmers' minds.

I know. But you can't blame a guy for lobbying on his own behalf. And because this is due to recent changes I'm hoping it will get some attention sooner rather than later. Thanks for listening.

My problem is that I got sucked into 3.0 via fixing bugs in 2.0.3. So now we're stuck with each other. Though in an emergency I could patch up a 2.0.3-based version of my code. 3.0 fixes a lot of 2.0.3 bugs too, unfortunately for that scenario. I recently rebased all my code because of issues in previous builds of 3.0. A lot of previous issues are fixed, and then one or two new ones arise. The other issues have plausible workarounds. This one does not.

The major layout changes have stabilized a lot though, so I'm predicting this and other lingering lyrics auto-placement issues will be resolved soon ;-)

now that I think about it, once 2.0.4 is released a lot of the pressure is off. The change to Qt5.6 is the actual barrier I crossed. 2.0.4 is 5.6 too, right?

That's why I posted my first comment about the specific font I was using. You are clearly using a serif font, while I am using FreeSans. The fact that you are using a different fo0nt might contribute to the difference, though I get the sense you are not using the latest nightly build of MuseScore. What version are you running? When someone posts an issue about 3.0, you need to make sure you have the right build.

What's an OP or an OPs?

"2.0.4 will probably be Qt 5.4 to maximize the compatibility with former 2.0.X release."

So then I really am stuck with 3.0. Oh well...

I just rebased and recompiled. My sample file looks good! I'd call it fixed.

I notice that with this bug fix and last night's merge, the lyrics vertical spacing in my existing scores has increased by a few pixels. I did not change any of my settings, changes in the code caused this. Is this intentional?

This ties into another related issue that you might not have noticed, and is at least conceptually related to this one (user-defined vertical offset is not functioning for lyrics, and auto-placement option behaves erratically):
https://musescore.org/en/node/122141

It really is a very small change. I noticed it because the footprint of my whole score increased and started encroaching on the tight margins. Now that the other issue is fixed and I can successfully change the vertical offset, this should pose no problem.

Yes, the font is set in each user's Text Style settings for lyrics (odd and even). It is not specified in the file itself. That's why I wanted to be clear about it in my original comment. I knew others might be looking at something slightly different than I was.

I understand the need to weed out bogus bug requests, believe me, I've dealt with plenty. But you need to be careful when you get that much push-back from the OP. Careful to make sure what you are saying is appropriate and true. And you need to respond to the specifics of that push-back, or leave the matter to more experienced hands if you don't understand it, instead of doubling down on your position.

And for the record, I usually specify "latest code" or something of that sort in the initial post, but this time I figured that specifying 3.0 was enough. I did specify 3.0 in the drop-down, which generally implies the latest release. There are no previous, stable 3.0 releases anyway.

Thanks for the definition of OP, that's one I haven't seen previously.

Nice, I'll try to do that next time. In this particular case, it's a non-issue, as we're talking about a difference between 2.0.1 and 3.0-yesterday's-build.

btw, @Recorder485, you should be using 2.0.3 for your testing of "stable release" bugs, not 2.0.1.

You can install multiple versions of MuseScore on the same machine and switch between them for different purposes. You can install a 3.0 and a 2.0.3 and still run 2.0.1 when you need to. At least I think you can run 2.0.1 and 2.0.3 independently. You can certainly run 2.0.1 and 3.0 independently. I sometimes run 2.0 and 3.0 both at the same time.