> Bernhard Lang wrote
>
> > Is it possible to change the general spacing pattern? -> In old music
> >sometimes the whole note is something fast. So the spacing should be
> >shifted e.g. like whole -> 4th, half -> 8th etc.
>
> There is no easy way I can think of right off hand. But I guess I don't
> understand the question. Unless a line becomes very crowded, the basic
> spacing laws make horizontal distances proportional to the square root of
> the time. So the ratio of spacings for wholes to halfs is the same as from
> quarters to eighths, viz., 1.414...
>
Ok, I think, my question was too short. What I would need is a change of
spacing just within a few bars which do not even fill a line. So
"compressing" just by changing the number of bars within that line does
not work. Within these bars whole notes should have approx. the same
spacing as 4th outside, 2th within as 8th outside etc.
> 2. Is it possible to prevent pmx from putting commands into the pre- and
> postamble of the TeX-output which are not compatible with LaTeX (as
> \nopagenumbers, \bye and all sorts of paper size commands etc.) or with
> plain MusiXTeX (like \elemskip1pt, \endmuflex...)?
>
> Again, I cannot think of any easy way. But stay tuned, Werner may weigh in
> with something here. And again, I don't fully understand the question. All
> PMX commands had better be compatible with MusiXTeX. I don't know what you
> mean by "plain MusiXTeX." MusiXTeX is inherently a 3-pass system. The 1-pt
> \elemskip is specified to absolutely guarantee no lines are too long on the
> first pass. On the 2nd pass, musixflx scales it up as required for the 3rd
> pass.
>
> --Don Simons
>
>
By "plain MusiXTeX" I meant using it just as it is without any
preprocessor. When I insert a pmx generated file inbetween such hand
written MusiXTeX files, everyting which comes after the pmx generated one
looks either a) terrible crowded (musixflx tells me that I shouldn't
stress \mulooseness too much, well I think it's not me who does this :-)
or b) even the third MusixTeX pass ends up with an "\inline=" input
message.
a) can be solved by saving and restoring TeX's skip registers being
changed by the pmx output.
b) It looks like the stuff which should go to .mx1 is written to the .log
file after the \endmuflex in the pmx output (why? even an explicit
\startmuflex afterwards does not change this). Afterwards, musixflx
produces no output for this part -> MusiXTeX hangs in the third pass. The
problem can be fixed by deleting the \endmuflex at the very end of the TeX
file written by pmx. But this (and removing the LaTeX incompatible
commands \nopagenumbers, \vsize and \hsize) needs patchwork whenever pmx
has been running over the the pmx-input :-( Ok, this can also be done
automatically by a little program. So the problem is not that serious :-)
Bernhard
