Glad things have improved somewhat. Soon they'll be perfect. I can't say one way or the other without eexperimenting whether a tab in comment line would cause trouble, but it's safest not to have any tabs at all.
Here's the deal with *.mx?: Starting with a clean working folder, when you run tex the first time, musixtex will generate *.mx1. This serves as input to musixflx, which then generates *.mx2. Then on the second tex pass, musixtex uses *.mx2 as input. So how does musixtex know whether it's the 1st or 2nd pass? By checking for the presence of *.mx1. If not there, it assumes 1st pass; if there, 2nd. So *.mx1 is the only file that you really need to delete when you change something in the pmx source file. But of course that's not to say for good housekeeping you shouldn't delete any other files before recompiling. PMX, working with MusiXTeX, does indeed create proper horizontal spacing, but you have to give it proper guidance. When npages>0, nsystems is the TOTAL number of systems, so the behavior you describe is consistent with your inputting "2 4". To get an AVERAGE of 4 bars per system over 32 bars and 2 pages, you should use "2 8" . However this will only put 4 bars in each system if they all have about the same physical length once PMX works out the proper relative spacings based on note durations. If one bar had many more (and shorter) notes than all the others, then it would wind up in a system with fewer bars, and some other system would have more than 4. You can control individual system breaks with options to the "L" command. This only works if npages>0. Please RTFM on this. --Don >-----Original Message----- >From: [email protected] >[mailto:[email protected]] >On Behalf Of Robert Schmaus >Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 6:26 AM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: [TeX-Music] problem with bar spacing > >hi don & dirk (& everyone else too), > >thanks for the warm welcome and for the help, all of which was very >useful. actually, I've noticed the non-ascii problem before, when I >tried to structure the preamble and the body using tabs. it might well >have been that there was one left in the body (maybe after a % ... does >PMX mind?). also, I've noticed that removing basically all files except >the .pmx file prior to compiling seems to be essential, at least if some >change in the preamble has been made ... which is strange as I assumed, >the .mx# files are reregenerated by musixflx each time ... apparently >not. > >anyway, asciifying and file-purging help with some problems, some >questions remain. like for instance: one of the beautiful things about >TeX is that you don't have to bother with the layout. it's done and >usually, it's perfect, too. so I guess that MusiXTeX/PMX works the same >way. >still, being a jazz bassist, I worry about controlling the number of >bars per system (we can only count to 4, you know). and in the simple >piece I'm using to teach myself PMX, it, too, would make a lot of sense >to have 4 bars per system since the music is structured that way. >Now I've expanded the piece to 32 bars, and as far as I see there are >only the parameters npages and nsystems given to control the layout. >with 32 bars, the parameters 2 4 should give me 4 systems per page with >4 bars each, right? but if I use them, I get 2 pages with 2 systems of 8 >bars at the top of each page, and a half empty page below that. on the >other hand, if I use the parameters 0 4, I get exactly what I want: 4 >systems of 4 bars nicely placed on 2 pages. ... I guess, for now I >should just accept the mystery, but at some point I'd rather know why >this happens. I'm working on it ... > >Ok, now I'm looking forward to typesetting! >Thanks again, best, >Rob > > > > >On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:49 +0200, "Dirk Laurie" <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 10:39:53PM +0200, Don Simons wrote: >> > >> > I wonder if there are some stray non-ascii characters embedded in >your >> > original source. That could confuse PMX. >> > >> I've encountered this. It's usually a null character or tab, or some >> relic from a different system's end-of-line mechanism. Zipping the >file >> and unzipping it in acommand shell with unzip's -a option often >> fixes the problem. And/or requesting one's editor to expand all tabs >> into spaces. >> >> Dirk > > >On Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:39 -0700, "Don Simons" <[email protected]> >wrote: >> Rob, welcome to the PMX/MusiXTeX club! >> >> Your description doesn't match anything I've ever seen or heard of. >> >> The only problem I had with your source was caused by the last two >lines >> having unfolded into a single line (which I've also never seen happen >> before). When I folded it back so there was just one "/" on each line, >it >> compiled just fine. Since you only entered 6 bars, it came out with 2 >> systems of 3 bars each. >> >> I wonder if there are some stray non-ascii characters embedded in your >> original source. That could confuse PMX. >> >> Did you run >> >> pmx >> tex >> musixflx >> tex >> dvips >> >> in sequence? Did you delete *.mx? before each new compilation attempt? >> The >> most common beginner's error is not to run musixflx and the second tex >> pass, >> but with your source this would have led to two systems only, with >> everything on each system squeezed together to the left. >> >> --Don >> >> >-----Original Message----- >> >From: [email protected] >> >[mailto:icking-music-archive.org-tex-music- >[email protected]] >> >On Behalf Of Robert Schmaus >> >Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 1:08 PM >> >To: [email protected] >> >Subject: [TeX-Music] problem with bar spacing >> > >> >hi everyone, >> > >> >I'm just starting to use MusiXTeX & PMX, so my question might appear >> >rather silly to the pros. but it drives me nuts. >> >anyway, here it is: I'm typesetting some sample bars in pmx, and >after >> >compiling it (pmxab, tex, musixflx, tex) the spacing looks just >> >horrible. each first bar in a line stretches the whole width of the >> >page, and there are still 3 bars to the right of that. >> >this doesn't happen with the example given in the PMX documentation, >so >> >it's not a software problem. but I don't see what I'm missing here >... >> > >> >who can help me? my intention was to have 4 bars per line. the PMX >code >> >is pasted below. >> > >> >thanks a lot! >> >rob >> > >> > >> > >> >% Arvo P‰rt, "Spiegel im Spiegel" >> >% >> >% PREAMBLE: >> >% nstaves ninstr >> > 3 -2 2 1 >> >% mtrnuml mtrdenl mtrnump mtrdenp >> > 6 8 6 8 >> >% npickup nkeys >> > 0 -1 >> >% npages nsystems musicsize fracindent >> > 0 4 16 .08 >> >Piano >> >Bass >> >btb >> >.\ >> >Tc >> >Arvo P\"art >> >Tt >> >Spiegel im Spiegel >> >% >> >% Bar 1 >> >% >> >r2d / >> >c85 f a c85 f a / >> >r2d / >> >% >> >% Bar 2 >> >% >> >f22d / >> >c85 f a c85 f a / >> >r2d / >> >% >> >% Bar 3 >> >% >> >f22d / >> >c85 f a c85 f a / >> >r2d / >> >% >> >% Bar 4-6 >> >% >> >r2d f22d f22d / >> >c85 f a c85 f a c85 f a c85 f a c85 f a c85 f a / >> >r2d r2d r2d / >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> >_______________________________________________ >> >[email protected] mailing list >> >If you want to unsubscribe or look at the archives, go to >> >http://mailman.nfit.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/icking-music-archive.org- >tex- >> >music >> >> > > >_______________________________________________ >[email protected] mailing list >If you want to unsubscribe or look at the archives, go to >http://mailman.nfit.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/icking-music-archive.org-tex- >music _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list If you want to unsubscribe or look at the archives, go to http://mailman.nfit.au.dk/mailman/listinfo/icking-music-archive.org-tex-music
