Re: Force top-system-spacing to be absolute

[Alexander Kobel]

Hi Urs,

On 01/29/2018 02:27 PM, Urs Liska wrote:
> [...]
> I want to have a score start with a defined position of the first staff 
> symbol to match the type area of a surrounding text document. [...]
>
>    #'((basic-distance . 16)
>       (minimum-distance . 0)
>       (padding . 0)
>       (stretchability . 0))
>
> [...] However, when I change the repeat to 150 LilyPond compresses the output 
> pretty much, which is still nice as an engraving but also moves the 
> first system up (see top-margin-compressed.png). You can see that the 
> distance of "16" is still in place, but it doesn't point to the middle 
> staffline anymore.
>
> I assume that it's not the reference point that has changed but the 
> system has been offset vertically from that reference point.
>
> What is the correct way to force the first system to be at an absolute 
> position on the staff, i.e. in the example the center line exactly 16 
> staff spaces below the page border?

IIUC, I think you should set minimum-distance to 16 (and, possibly, 
enforce it with a negative padding).
Note the following remarks for basic-distance and stretchability (from 
NR 4.1.4):

basic-distance – the vertical distance [...] when no collisions would 
result, and no stretching or compressing is in effect. [...]

stretchability – [...] If zero, the distance will not stretch (unless 
collisions would result). [...] Note that the dimension’s propensity to 
compress cannot be directly set by the user and is equal to 
(basic-distance - minimum-distance).


HTH,
Alex

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