[smufl-discuss] Re: Registration of articulation glyphs

[dspreadbury]

Maurizio wrote:

> Also, SMuFL is striving to be a platform-agnostic and legacy-agnostic
> standard (or at least it seems to me it is) and to be bound by habits
rather
> than looking for the most logic solution isn't perhaps a bit too
> conservative?

I have been mulling this email over and I am certainly willing to reopen
the discussion about registration for articulations.  To review your
original proposal:

1. Articulations should be centered vertically on the baseline (y=0). This
would, you argue, simplify their placement within the staff (for e.g.
tenuto and staccato): you would in theory be able to position the origin
of the glyph precisely in the middle of the staff space and the
articulation would be correctly centered between the staff lines.

I think this contradicts your second proposal (below), or at the least
requires a different approach for those articulations that do not require
separate above/below glyphs. For that reason I'm not too keen.

2. For those single articulations that require different forms when drawn
above/below the note/chord (e.g. staccatissimo, marcato), and for
combinations of articulations whose order needs to be inverted when drawn
above/below the note/chord (e.g. marcato-staccato): the "above" version
should be registered such that it proceeds upwards from the baseline
(y=0), and the "below" version should proceed downwards from the baseline
(y=0).

I can see how this might help: in order to position an articulation the
same distance above one note and below another, you wouldn't need to worry
about positioning the articulation below the note offset by the measured
height of the glyph itself: you could simply place the glyph at the same
distance above or below the note, and the result would be optically
balanced.

3. Articulations should be centered about x=0, according to their optical
center (if different from their actual center). This would, you argue,
simplify the positioning of articulations relative to noteheads (or stems,
in some cases), since they are typically centered over the notehead.

However, I'm not sure about this: the articulation glyphs would end up
with zero width, which would moderately complicate things. Consuming
applications would then have to perform a special calculation to measure
the size of the glyph rather than being able to rely on the metrics of the
glyph (i.e. the side bearing values). So I don't think I would be in
favour of this change, and furthermore I don't think any of the
articulations (even the accent, which you specifically mention) have an
optical center that is different from their actual center.

On balance, then, I think it would potentially be a beneficial change to
register the above/below versions of the articulations such that they sit
on or hang from the baseline (y=0), as you suggest. Perhaps it would also
be worth, for consistency, adding above/below versions for those
articulations that do not typically require different forms when shown
above/below (i.e. accent, staccato, tenuto), which adds only three glyphs.
This would be an acceptable compromise, as far as I am concerned.

Does anybody in the community have any further thoughts on this topic?

Daniel

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