Re: Staff sizing

[Alexander Kobel]

Valentin Villenave wrote:
> 2009/8/25 Didi & MiMi Kanjahn <address@hidden>:
> > I am trying to resize a score from A4 to A5.
> > Using
> >
> >   \layout {
> >   #(layout-set-staff-size 14)...
> >
> > most things bound to the staff scaled down nicely, but the distance of staff 
> > lines (for me unexpectedly) did not.

Unexpectedly for almost everyone, I guess. It just contradicts the 
intuition one has about it, especially since the global-set-staff-size 
does this "the Right way".
But it fulfills the "specifications", as it is explicitly mentioned in 
NR 4.2.1, "Setting the staff size" under "Known issues and warnings":

"layout-set-staff-size does not change the distance between the staff 
lines. "

(More precisely, #'staff-space is not changed along, and it internally 
refers to global staff-spaces as units, which aren't affected by the 
layout-set-staff-size command as well; see IR 3.2.96 
"staff-symbol-interface".)

> > I tried
> >
> >  \score{
> >  <<
> >        \new Staff << \override StaffSymbol #'staff-space = #0.7 \global  \new 
> > Voice  { \one }...
> >
> > but that did nothing.

I didn't test it, but my guess is the following: StaffSymbol is a 
property of the Staff, but if you don't explicitly declare the context 
in the override command, Voice is always assumed, and there 
#'staff-space has no meaning.
So you should try one of the following:

\score { <<
  \new Staff { <<
    \override Staff.StaffSymbol #'staff-space = #0.7    % note "Staff."
    ...
  >> }
>> }

or my preferred variants (cleaner/more understandable and obvious, if 
you don't want to change this very property throughout the piece):

\score { <<
  \new Staff \with {
    \override StaffSymbol #'staff-space = #0.7
    % "Staff." not needed here, since the context is uniquely defined
    % to be this very Staff the \with {} section belongs to.
  } { <<
    ...
  >> }
>> }

or even better (since you'll probably want to do this for all staves in 
the score):

\score {
  <<
    \new Staff { << ... >> }
  >>
  \layout {
    \context {
      \Staff
      \override StaffSymbol #'staff-space = #0.7
      % "Staff." not needed here, since the context is uniquely defined
      % to be all Staves.
    }
  }
}

HTH.

Cheers,
Alexander