Re: What is the difference between \paper and \layout blocks?

[David Kastrup]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> Jean Abou Samra <jean@abou-samra.fr> writes:
>
>> Le 14/01/2023 à 22:10, David Kastrup a écrit :
>>> What should it be?
>>
>>
>> I have no idea. My own gut feeling is that output defs need a redesign
>> and reimplementation from scratch anyway. In an ideal world, we wouldn't
>> even have the paper/layout/midi distinction.
>
> I don't see that.  layout/midi are different output media.  paper has
> some overarching information (like base file names).  It also contains
> some information pertinent to typesetting a whole document as opposed to
> single scores, like paper dimensions.  Things like staff sizes are a
> whole lot murkier, and developers have been scratching their head about
> making things like layout-set-staff-size work in a sensible manner, if
> at all.

Adding a bit more info: layout blocks inherit from the corresponding
paper block, books and bookparts have their own paper block, bookparts
inherit the paper block of the surrounding book.  There is only
provision for single inheritance.

Markups outside of scores are called with a paper block as "layout"
parameter, but a global

\markup \score { \layout { ...

does not accept a paper block in its \layout definition, and a score can
only encompass a \layout syntactic construct.

Books and bookparts cannot contain layout blocks of their own.

Maybe the scaled paper block created by the Paper_book constructor
should be relabeled as a layout block?

This is such a mess.

-- 
David Kastrup