Re: Different staff sizes

[Patrick Karl]

In lilypond-user Digest, Vol 114, Issue 19, on 7 May 2012 Eluze wrote:

> Message: 8
> Date: Mon, 07 May 2012 15:54:57 +0200
> From: Eluze <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: Different staff sizes
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>

> you can override the staff-space of the staffsymbol like that:
> 
>   \layout {
>     #(layout-set-staff-size 30)
>     \context {
>       \Staff
>       \override StaffSymbol #'staff-space = #(magstep 3)
>     }
>   }

I find it difficult to find much documentation on this.  What is a magstep?  
and is the "3" just the layout-set-staff-size value divided by 10?

On 20 Apr 2012 in lilypond-user Digest, Vol 113, Issue 69, David Nalesnik wrote 
to explain what the staff-space should be as follows:

> On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Silvio ARDITO <address@hidden>wrote:
> 
>> I need the following layout:
>> 
>> [image: Immagine in linea 2]
>> The result is a copy and paste from 2 .ly.
>> The little up-right staff uses: *#(set-global-staff-size 11)* ;
>> the rest uses: *#(set-global-staff-size 20)* .
>> The command: *#(layout-set-staff-size 11)*
>> in the \layout section gives a not valid result.
> 
> When you change the staff size like this, you also need to override the
> distance between the lines:
> 
> \override Staff.StaffSymbol #'staff-space = #(/ 11 20)                        
> <==== no mention of magstep here
> 
> Also, take a look at this snippet:
> http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.15/Documentation/snippets/staff-notation

and cited snippet contains code using magstep, again without much explanation 
of how to calculate the value.

And finally, wouldn't it be nice to have all this explained in the Notation 
Manual, say right after the following entry:

        Known issues and warnings

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

but not as nice as having layout-set-staff-size actually set the staff-size 
along with the elimination of the above "Known issues and warnings"?

The best explanation I have found of "magstep" is in section 4.3.3, Length and 
thickness of objects, of the Learning Manual, although I find the explanation 
at first reading to be a little opaque.