The following list of things do not add any typesetting capabilities to PMX but simplify the input. I'm putting them into M-Tx at present in the hope that they go into PMX later. :-) Since M-Tx 0.40 has not yet been released, there is still room for debate about the usefulness and syntax of these features. 1. Multi-bar rests: In multi-stave music, a block in which only the first voice is non-empty, containing no notes or rests except a multi-bar rest, produces that same multi-bar rest on all staves. E.g. when there are four staves, the block could be 2/4 rm6 / / / / [ The M-Tx implementation of course depends on Don's code recently posted -- thanks Don!] 2. Sticky attributes on notes and rests: For any attribute denoted by a lower-case letter, the corresponding upper-case letter may be used instead, This has the effect of making the attribute "sticky", i.e. all following notes in the same line of music will have that attribute. E.g. 'rB' instead of 'r' makes that rest and all later ones blank. (This in fact is the case I first needed, since in homophonic music with two lines of music per stave the duplicate rests are annoying.) To un-stick, use the lower-case letter on the last note or rest that should have that attribute. Other cases where this may be useful are dotted notes, where one could then write in 12/8 time 'c4D d e f g a b g c0d' instead of 'c4d dd ed fd gd ad bd gd c0d', and stem direction in the presence of lyrics, where one might want all stems to point upwards. Rather than implement this feature only for cases thought to be useful, I find it easier to use this more general formulation. The M-Tx implementation works by adding the attribute when it has been made sticky. 3. Forced non-blank rests [ This has been asked for by someone on the list, but I can't find the post. ] The attribute 'v' on a rest makes that rest visible, even though it otherwise would not be so. In one important case this feature would need to be implemented at the PMX level, namely that a whole bar of rests in a stave containing two music lines would then not be suppressed, Dirk
