Re: Paper size

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

Graham Percival wrote:
> On 25-Feb-06, at 3:01 PM, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
>
> > Graham Percival wrote:
> >
> > > In fact, why not simply have
> > > \paper {
> > >   paper-size = "a4"
> > > }
> > > I have nothing against scheme expressions, but I don't see why the 
> > > paper size (and global staff size) need scheme.  If we could define 
> > > them like normal \paper or \layout variables, we could avoid some 
> > > newbie confusion.
> >
> >
> > because setting paper-size implies setting line-width and a number of 
> > other variables. Check out the definition of set-paper-size for details.
>
>
> Yes, it does a bunch of stuff "under the hood", but a user need not be 
> concerned with it.  I'm just wondering if we could do
>
> // pseudocode
> if ( (\paper-option)==(paper-size $1 $2) ) then
>   #(set-default-paper-size $1 $2)
>
>
> I freely admit my lack of experience in programming, but I can't imagine 
> how some syntactic sugar like this would change anything substantive in 
> the way that lily works internally.

Hmmm; it would require a bit of rewiring. I guess that you do want to be 
able  to do

  \paper {
    size = "a4"
    linewidth = 5.0\cm %% override default
  }


So the defaults would have to be moved out of paper-defaults.ly, and the 
scheme code needs to check that it doesn't overwrite anything.

> I have absolutely no objection to requiring explicit scheme expressions 
> for other stuff, but IMO these two items are pretty basic.

agreed.

--
 Han-Wen Nienhuys - address@hidden - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen