Importing 1.3 scores into 2.0, systems don't always fill the page
This is something I'm running into now that I'm converting my scores from 1.3 to 2.0. When importing 1.3 scores into 2.0, some/most systems don't automatically fill the page. This is likely more prevalent with multi-stave (3 or more) systems where spacing between systems is larger. This is a result of removing the page fill threshold value used in 1.3. The only way to fix this is to adjust the "Max system distance" value under Style/General/Page, hardly a well-named or user-friendly option.
Can the "max system distance" value be increased when importing 1.3 scores with the page fill threshold set higher? Or just set it larger by default to cover most cases?
Comments
Seems maybe it's more appropriate to increase the max system distance (which seems clearly labeled to me given what it actually does and its relationshiopship to *min* system distance; do you have an alternate suggestion?) if the 1.3 score has an unusually *low* page fill threshold. For 1.3 score with relatively *high* values, only page nthat were close to full would be filled, and thus, the distance between staves would not be much larger than "normal".
Can you post a specific score where you see an issue? I think in general systems more than 15sp apart look bad, and in fact I normally *decrease*, not *increase*, this setting in my own scores. But it probably depends some on how big your systems are, how many of them there are on the page, etc. Coming up with an adjustment that allows your systems to fil the page without introducing unacceptably large gaps between systems in other scores is probably going to be tricky, and since the decision is personal, it may be impossible.
In reply to Seems maybe it's more by Marc Sabatella
I've gotten used to the 1.3 "feature" where it auto-fills the page most of the time, and the option was easier to find. Don't really no why this option was removed. Maybe normal scores don't have all their systems aligned along the bottom of the page but to me it looks nice rather than willy-nilly varying heights up from the bottom.
As I said, this typically happens with scores I am working with, 3-4 staves per system. I don't have one handy right at this moment.
In reply to I've gotten used to the 1.3 by schepers
I'd say the option was removed because for most purposes, it really didn't do nearly as good a job as the current system. Having auto fill be all-or-nothing as it used to be meant an uncomfortable choice between there being too little or too much space between systems in many cases, or else having to resort to kludges like adding spacers to the bottom systems of pages to get to only "partially" fill. With 2.0, this is easy and automatic. It's a far more flexible system. But it does indeed mean that some 1.3 scores might need settings tweaked to mimic the all-or-nothing approach of 1.3 - just crnk up the max value. Seems a small price to pay for the greater flexibility and ease of use of the 2.0 system.
In reply to I've gotten used to the 1.3 by schepers
BTW, one reason why I'm curious to see an example is to understand why you have uneven page lengths in the first place. If most scores don't have ragged bottoms, it's because they have consistent systems sizes and spacing and thus consistent number of systems per page, so the only question is about whether to fill the *last* page. And that's where my comment about having to make an uncomfortable choice between too little or too much space applies. If you have, say, 5 systems per page everywhere else, and they are "filled" to the page margin, but only 3 systems on the last page, you woudn't normally want that last page filled, but nor do you want the *minimum* space between those systems either, because then they would be closer together than the other pages, which is illogical and was a problem very often in 1.3. The current scheme does the right thing here automatically, no user invention required. Page close to full are filled completely, pages not close to full are filled partially so they don't look too tight nor are they they spread out inappropriately.
Cases where you have inconsistent system size or spacing from page to page even before the last page can happen too of course, but even so, in the cases I personally see, it still does what I expect by default most of the time. Pages close to full are filled. Pages *not* close to full but where an extra system doesn't fit - and this pretty much means systems that are pretty large compared to page size, meaning only a small number of systems per page (say, 2-3) - are not filled, because filling the page would require awkwardly large gaps between the few systems that *are* present. But if you are OK with those large gaps, simply up the max distance. Or maybe you have a score that somehow is different from I am picturing. But still, it seems this must be a relatively unusual case in the gran scheme of things, and as far as I can tell, you still get the result you want by simply increasing the max system distance setting.