Re: Spacing, padding

[Mats Bengtsson]

> 
> Two different but related questions?
> 
> 1.  How do I get dynamic markings to show up centered --- associated
>     with the music rather than a note?  If I start my piano piece with:
> 
>           \partial 4 b'8-\mp a8
> 
> the mp marking shows up quite close to the b, when I'd really like it
> centered between the two staffs.

The easiest solution is to add some padding:

\property Staff.DynamicLineSpanner \override #'padding = #3

If you want it exactly between the two staffs, it's more tricky.
I seem to recall that someone came up with a clever solution
some months ago, one possibility would be to add a lyrics line
and set the lyrics font style to dynamic.

> 2.  I have a two measure two voice section in the treble clef that
>     looks like:
> 
>           < \context Voice = VA { \stemUp
>             fis8 gis a dis, e4 b
>           \< [gis'8 e\staccato] [b' gis\staccato] \! cis4-\mf b8 a 
>             }
> 
>             \context Voice = VB { \stemDown
>           a,2 gis
>             b8 r e r e
>             }
>           >
> 
> The problem is that the second staccato mark in the upper voice is
> dangerously close to the associated eighth-note rest in the second
> voice.  I've tried playing with Voice.padding, to no avail.  Either
> I'm not using it correctly, or there's a problem here because the rest
> and the stacatto are actually in two different voices?  How do I deal
> with this?

The padding is a Grob property, so you have to specify which 
grob (graphical object) you want to apply it to, for example
\property Voice.Script \override #'padding = #2.0


> The manual suggests that I could change the font size via a command
> such as 

> \include "paper23.ly" 

> Looking at this file, it defines it's own paper block, so I assumed
> I'd just replace my own (empty) paper block with this command?  If I
> do this, I get a parse error:

> /usr/local/share/lilypond/ly/paper23.ly:6:16: error: parse error:
> paperTwentythree
>                  = \paper {

> /usr/local/share/lilypond/ly/paper23.ly:12:26: error: parse error:
> \paper { \paperTwentythree
>                            }

> If, instead, I simply copy out the contents of the file into my own
> paper block, it seems to work:

>   \paper {
>     staffheight = 23.0\pt
>     indent = 0.0mm
>     \stylesheet #(make-style-sheet 'paper23)
>     \include "params.ly"
>   }

> What's going on here?  This isn't urgent, because I have something
> that works, but I'm trying to learn the system well.

> rif 

The \include "paper23.ly" command should appear at the 
top level of the file, not within a \paper{...} section.
There's no need to copy the contents of this file.

   /Mats