"Matthias Holländer" wrote
>...
> Quoting Don:
> >I can help you most effectively if you could provide a .pmx file that is as
> close to as possible to what you finally want, and then clearly explain what
> you’d >like to change from that.
> I will try to explain myself better. I wanted to know, if there is an
> automatized and thus globally working, and in my view nicer, way to reduce/
> increase equal inter-system space (leaving it still equal), i.e. to achieve:
>
> =======================================
> 2 2 6 4 6 4 1 +1
> 1 5 20 0
>
> tt
> ./
>
> Tc
> Clement Cotterill Scholefield, 1874
> Tt
> Der Tag, mein Gott, ist nun vergangen\\
> Ac4e
> Ki1+14+1
> \\nobarnumbers\
>
> % Bar 1
> \spread{-20}\
> d43 | g22 g43 d23 d4 /
> d44 D"c.f." | ( b44 c4 ) b4 ( d4 b4 ) a4 /
>
> % Bar 2
> e43 a42 c4 d4 d4 oc e4 /
> ( g44 a4 ) e44 g4 f4 oc e4 /
>
> % Bar 3
> \spread{-20}\
> f43 g4 f4 e2 e4 /
> d24 d4 ( g4 a4 ) b4 /
>
> % Bar 4
> a22 a4 d23 oc f4 /
> a24 g4 f2 oc d4 /
>
> % Bar 5
> g23 g4 d2 d4 /
> ( b44 c4 ) b4 ( d4 b4 ) a4 /
>
> % Bar 6
> \spread{-20}\
> e43 a42 c4 d4 d4 oc c4 /
> ( g44 a4 ) e44 g4 f4 oc e4 /
>
> % Bar 7
> b22 d4 e4 b42 c4 /
> ( d44 e4 ) f4 ( g4 b4 ) a4 /
>
> % Ending bar
> m5400
> c43 a4 d4 g22 /
> ( e44 g4 ) f4 g2 /
>
> ============================================
> in contrast to the same document without any \spread command. Be aware
> that I always used the same amount of \interlines for reduction and used it
> for each inter-system space and therefore achieved the same as if Ae.8 or
> Ae1.2 would be a command to use the originally by PMX determined inter-
> system space and multiply it by e.g. 0.8. That was what I meant in my first
> email.
In this message I'm just going to address only the above example, and will
comment on your other items later. I assume you're aware that in your sample
you did NOT apply the inter-system reduction to all the inter-system spaces,
but only to 3 of the 4. Therefore the 3rd space got larger. This still leaves
me somewhat unclear about exactly what your objective is. But I'll provide the
following comments on the general topic of vertical spacing.
1. There is no way I can think of to generate your example using pure PMX. But
as you've demonstrated, you can do it using inline TeX. I've done hundreds of
typesets and occasionally encountered unusual situations which, without
rewriting PMX, could only be solved with inline TeX. Unless it's something I
think will come up routinely, I've just bitten the bullet and used the
necessary inline TeX. Furthermore, it's hard to think of any real music
typesetting task that would require an isolated single inter-system gap like
the one in your example, so I'm not inclined to spend the effort to make it
possible with pure PMX.
2. When you use Ae, there's a law of conservation of vertical space. On each
page, a fixed amount of vertical space must be taken up by inter-system spaces
on one hand, and inter-staff spaces within the systems on the other hand.
Assuming the top and bottom margins stay the same, and that there are more than
one staff per system, then if you want to UNIFORMLY narrow the inter-system
space, the space between staves within each system will have to get bigger, and
vice versa.
3. If you use Ae and only have a single staff per system, it's physically
impossible to change the inter-system spacing (without changing the page height
or number of systems per page).
4. AI directly alters the inter-staff spacing within each system. If Ae is
used, AI therefore indirectly affects the inter-system space, and does so
uniformly.
5. \spread selectively alters the inter-system spacing, but has no effect of
inter-staff spacing within a system. So if you change only one such space, then
(with Ae) all the others will change to compensate. And if you try to \spread
ALL of the inter-system spaces on a page by the same amount, nothing will
change.
6. You could get the same vertical spacing in your sample file by using only a
single \spread{20}\ command before the 4th system. Please don't ask me to
explain why the number is 20 and not 60. Whenever I want to adjust vertical
spacing, I get the numbers for \spread, AI, or the movement break commands by
trial and error, not by calculation.
7. If you have a score with multiple staves per system, and if all systems are
to be spaced equally, and if you want to uniformly change the inter-system
spacing, (which may be what you are asking for, despite the fact it's
inconsistent with your example file), you cannot do it without also changing
the inter-staff spacing within each system. Therefore AI can be used to get
that effect. Because of this fact, at this time I'm not motivated to make any
changes in PMX to globally (and directly) change inter-system spacing.
8. If the unequal system spacing in your example file is REALLY what you want,
and if you really hate using even a single instance of \spread, you could
consider using a movement break command to insert the vertical space. However,
it's a catch-22 because of some extra baggage that comes along: you'd also need
to use a PMX command to change the default double bar to a single bar, and
you'd also need to work out some inline TeX to keep the meter from being
printed right after the movement break, and possibly to close up some
horizontal space right at the start of the new movement. Kind of ugly. All in
all, \spread is a fine solution for this if you really want it (and that's why
I created that macro in the first place).
--Don
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