Keep chord symbols aligned vertically, even if adjusted horizontally

• Dec 7, 2020 - 10:21
Reported version
3.5
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project

When using a nonzero Maxmium shift above setting (Style → Chord Symbols → Positioning), each chord symbol is aligned vertically with the others in the system - unless its offset is manually adjusted in either X or Y.
This makes sense when I want to override Y manually, but I very often need to adjust the X, but want to keep the vertical alignment,
e.g. when many chords are close together in a measure, or to move out of the way of a volta number:

  1. Without any manual adjustment - chords are aligned with the shifted F chord, but G pushes voltas even higher:
    chordsXY-1-auto.png
  2. Moving G to the right breaks vertical alignment despite leaving Y untouched:
    chordsXY-2-rightbreaks.png
  3. Desired end result:
    chordsXY-3-desired.png
    Achieving this currently requires eyeballing & manually adjusting Y, and will easily break again, e.g. if the high note in the 1st measure is changed.

(Tedious WA to determine the shifted Y position somewhat accurately:
Create another chord with the same letter as a reference. Drag original over it, and release mouse once they overlap as closely as possible. Reset X value to desired shift, keep the matched Y value. Copy Y value to any other horizontally adjusted chords in system...)

Attachment Size
chordXY.mscz 11.65 KB

Comments

Easier workarounds to me are either a) don't adjust horizontally so much, for instance, edit your volta instead so the chord symbol fits under it more naturally, or b) select all chord symbols you want aligned and adjust them together with the Inspector rather than relying completely on the auto-align,

But yeah, it would be nice if the auto-align checked the actual Y component of the offset rather than just checking whether the offset exists. Presumbaly that would be a simple change - as I recall, originally we didn't even check the offset so chords with offsets were affected.

To check the actual Y component instead of checking auto-align is a straightforward change. But the tricky part, should it be implemented for vertical aligned of chord symbols only? Similar problems can be observed with articulations.