[MuseScore] Kerning of accidentals

[OCTO]

Very nice. Tried in Finale 2014 and the result is negative.
This one rocks!

Screen Shot 2015-12-01 at 14.58.41.png (24.04 KiB) Viewed 12927 times

[tisimst]

Very nice. Tried in Finale 2014 and the result is negative.
This one rocks!

That's because MS uses the special "cutOutXXX" anchors in the accidental glyphs (as defined by the SMuFL standard) specifically for this purpose.

[OCTO]

You speak for me an alien language, tisimst...
But I guess what you want to say!

[Knut]

You speak for me an alien language, tisimst...
But I guess what you want to say!

Haha, yes, this aspect is definitely not meant for the uninitiated (read: non developers/designers) to worry about.

Basically, for certain glyphs, SMuFL includes specific coordinates that an application may use to consider any 'cut outs' or white space within a glyph's bounding box when kerning glyphs automatically. That way, glyphs like accidentals can be automatically kerned beyond the borders of their bounding box. Here's an illustration:

SMuFL cutOuts.png (211.37 KiB) Viewed 12916 times

[tisimst]

In effect, this changes the accidental kerning from the left group to the right one (this is taken from the SMuFL manual):

accidental-kerning-smufl-example.png (43.3 KiB) Viewed 12898 times

[Knut]

(this is taken from the SMuFL manual)

Just to be clear, so was mine.

[OCTO]

Thanks for that, it is explained very well!

[tisimst]

And just for the record, LilyPond also kerns accidentals (always has,even before SMuFL was born), though it appears to not be quite as tight as the MS one above:

lilypond-accidental-kerning.png (12.17 KiB) Viewed 12875 times

[Knut]

And just for the record, LilyPond also kerns accidentals (always has,even before SMuFL was born), though it appears to not be quite as tight as the MS one above:

lilypond-accidental-kerning.png

How does Lilypond handle this with other fonts than the default. Does it kern each type of accidental by a set amoun, or does it analyze the shape in any way?

[tisimst]

How does Lilypond handle this with other fonts than the default. Does it kern each type of accidental by a set amoun, or does it analyze the shape in any way?

It looks like it actually solves a horizontal skyline problem, in combination with some basic assumptions (e.g., accidentals an octave away shouldn't collide, so no offset is necessary, etc.). In other words, it does take the side contours of the accidental glyphs into account and then pads them.