Lime Aloud Annotations

Overview

This page describes the different facets of handling annotations using Lime Aloud. Currently with Lime Aloud there's no absolute way of positioning annotations but there are a few tricks that can help with this problem.

Pieces with Many Annotations

If your piece has many annotations the first thing to do is to make sure that there is plenty of space for your annotations. Start by reading Lime Page Layout.

Annotation Placement

As stated in the overview, currently there is no absolute way of positioning annotations. Normally, Lime will put new annotations in a good place but there are a few situations where more attention is needed to make sure your annotations are placed above the staff when they should be below the staff or vice versa. Here are two common situations:

• Chord Symbols: Lime places chord symbols below the staff but often chord symbols should be placed above the staff.
• Fingerings: Lime places fingerings above the staff but there are times when you want fingerings below the staff.

To force an annotation above or below the staff, select a text category that is in the desired place when creating the annotation, then enter the text for the annotation and finally change the annotation's category to the correct category. This technique takes advantage of the fact that when an annotation is created it is placed in a default position; however, when an annotation's category is chsanged the position is not changed. We recommend the category of Other Text for annotations that need to be forced above the staff and the category of Chord Symbol for annotations that need to be forced below the staff.

Here's an example that forces a fingering annotation to be below notes: - Go to the note that needs the fingering - Start a new annotation using Annotation | Text Category | Chord Symbol (Alt+A, T, S) and enter the fingering. - Alt+left arrow back to the annotation and change the category to Fingering (Alt+A, T, F) and then select Yes to change the text's font, size and style to what's normal for fingerings. - For other fingerings you can use the tab technique (see below Multiple Annotations of the Same Type) or repeat this process if the previous fingering is not near one that you need to add.

Multiple Annotations of the Same Type

Whether or not you used the technique explained in the previous paragraph you can always use the Tab key to advance to the next note in the voice so that you can quickly enter an annotation for the next note and this next annotation will be positioned similarly as the previous one. This is especially useful for entering lyrics and is also useful for entering chord symbols and fingerings. To use the Tab key you must have just created or edited the annotation. You can start this process at any time by selecting an annotation that is properly placed (Alt+arrow) and then pressing Enter to start editing the annotation and finally pressing the Tab key. You can also press the Tab key a few times to skip over notes that don't need an annotation.

For example, to enter the lyric "transistor" you would:

• Select the note that is associated with the first syllable of the word.
• Go to the Annotation menu and select Text Category | Lyric (Alt+A, T, Y)
• Type "tran-" tab
• Type "sis-" tab
• Type "tor" tab

If you make some other edits and then need to add some lyrics after "transistor" you should Alt+left or right arrow to the syllable "tor" of "transistor", press Enter and then use the Tab key to get the note that is associated with the next lyric that you want to add.

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