Stefan Haller wrote
>I think it's a bit awkward to specify the indentation
>as a fraction of the line width. I would prefer to specify an absolute
>length value. Might this be added as an option in PMX? If the value is
>followed by "i", "m", or "p", interpret it as a length; otherwise, as a
>fraction as before.
and Dirk Laurie wrote
>What I really would like is for PMX to calculate the indentation to
>be just enough for the labels. This could be done mainly at the pmx.tex
>level.
In defense of specifying indentation as a fraction of line width, I
can only say that it is a relic from the very first working version of
PMTEX, the predecessor of PMX, and has served me well ever since.
However, it should be straightforward to implement Stefan's request
and I'll do so in the next release.
OTOH the automatic indentation would be very difficult. While I
believe I could figure out a way to do it in TeX, the problem
is that PMX must know the width of the indentation from the outset in
order to compute the correct spacing of all the characters in the
indented line. For PMX to compute the width of the staff name it
would have to carry a table of the widths of all characters, etc.
Life is too short.
Stefan wrote
>it is difficult to specify more complicated staff names in
>PMX because of line length restrictions. For example, if I need a
>staff name spanning two lines, such as
>
> Cornetto o
> Violino
>
>, I would have to say something like
>
> \vbox{\hbox to \parindent{\hfill Cornetto o\hfill}%
> \hbox to \parindent{\hfill Violino\hfill}}
>
>(on one line), which PMX truncates without warning. I got around
>this
>by saying
>
> \vbox{\box100\box101}
>
>for the staff name, and then
>
> \\setbox100=\hbox to \parindent{\hfill Cornetto o\hfill}\
> \\setbox101=\hbox to \parindent{\hfill Violino\hfill}\
>
>as inline TeX, which seems a bit messy.
Well, at least there is a way :-) . But I would be willing to
consider two alternate possible enhancements:
1. Allow longer instrument names.
2. Concoct a syntax which would prompt PMX to generate the coding
Stefan suggests. The syntax could involve including some unique
character string in the first line of the instrument name, probably at
the beginning of the input line, and would indicate how many lines are
to be used in the instrument name. The initial character of the string
would have to be something that would never be used in an instrument
name.
Please post your votes. Votes for (2) must be accompanied by
suggestions for the syntax.
Dirk discussed some "features" of "(" and ")". These new symbols are
by no means a panacea, in fact they are simply equivalent to "s",
except that "(" before a note symbol is equivalent to "s" after that
note. So "( ( a b ) c )" , equivalent to "a s s b s c s", is not
acceptable, but "(1 ( a b ) c )1" , equivalent to "a s1 s b s c s1" is
OK.
Dirk also noted that "( d8 d8 ) ) d8 ) ) d8 )" produced the desired
sequence of three continuation slurs. Although it looks wierd, it is
consistent with the intended equivalence " d s d s s d s s d s ", as
would be the sequence "( b8 ( b8 ) ( b8 ) b8 )" which looks slightly
less wierd. To my mind, this example is one in which the original
syntax, wherein both slur starts and endings are indicated after the
note, is more transparent than "("...")" . I cannot see any logical
reason why " ( d8 d8 ) ( d8 ) ( d8 ) " should be expected to give a
sequence of three continued slurs. At the moment I'm not inclined to
introduce any new slur syntax, since all desired combinations can be
handled by the existing machinery.
--Don Simons
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To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Fwd: Re: Staff names with M-Tx (and PMX)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stefan Haller)
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Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 18:46:04 +0200
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