Thanks to all the suggestions from list members, I've hacked an option (Ae)
into PMX to enforce equal vertical spacing between the bottom of every
system and the top of the next. The idea I used has two steps: (1) put one
blank character far above and below each system, thereby making every system
look very tall and the same as all the others; and (2) redefine the glue
between staves to allow essentially infinite vertical overlap. One detail I
had to deal with was to be sure not to insert these "struts" above the first
system and below the last system on a page. I also included in pmx.tex a
\spread macro that lets you insert a \vskip (which still works!) if you do
want a gap wider than the default.
The new option has the advantage that it makes it impossible to have systems
spill from one page to another. If there isn't enough vertical space to fit
them all, they'll come out overlapping. And that's the disadvantage...you
have to look at avery inter-system gap to be sure there are no crashes.
All in all I'm very pleased with the results. Soon I'll post the revised
code. Meanwhile, here's a 2-page pdf with a "before-and-after" example of
the case that really got me going on this. It's from an upcoming
publication of Nicola Matteis' "Ayres for the Violin: The Third Part."
(apologies for the large size of the file and the crummy appearance due to a
well-known Acrobat deficiency...it's much better if you print it out. Also,
if you should get a blank screen when clicking on the link, try hitting
"reload")
http://www.dslnorthwest.net/~dons/musixtex/Vert_Example.pdf
--Don Simons
