Text Formatting ⇒ Specific Paragraph Spacing in Parts of a Document

[heavytull]

I have two commands in a .sty file as following:

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\newcommand{\tabitem}[3][.25em]{%
  \begin{tabular}{@{}p{2em}@{\hspace{.2em}}p{\textwidth}@{}}%
    \ifthenelse{\equal{#2}{}}{}{\raggedleft\hintstyle{#2}} & {#3}%
  \end{tabular}%
  \par\addvspace{#1}}

\newcommand{\entrydefinition}[2]{\tabitem{}{\bfseries{#1}\newline#2}}

In the .tex file when the command is used while the first argument is a short title the second argument can eat pages. So It will be structured into paragraphs. But I would like the vertical space value between paragraphs to be set in the command definition in the .sty file. I tried something like that:

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\newcommand{\entrydefinition}[2]{\bfseries{#1}\newline{\parskip{6pt}#2}}

or

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\newcommand{\entrydefinition}[2]{\bfseries{#1}\newline{\setlength{\parskip}{6pt}#2}}

but no one works (certainly because of the tabular environment).

[heavytull]

I forgot that the \newcommand macro I was actually using was the starred one. The starred one won't allow the use of '\par' in its argument.

[heavytull]

I would like some portions of my document to have different paragraphs spacing. For that I put those portions into brackets (some people say groups) and add at the beginning of each portion \setlength{\parskip}{XXpt}. When paragraphs are ended with \par this technique works almost. It indeed adjust the spacing as set in the group but even for the last spacing before the group. And amazingly the spacing after the last paragraph into the group is not adjusted. Below is a compilable example.

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\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{ifthen}
     
\newcommand*{\tabitem}[3][.25em]{%
  \begin{tabular}{@{}p{2em}@{\hspace{.2em}}p{\textwidth}@{}}%
        \ifthenelse{\equal{#2}{}}{}{\raggedleft\textit{#2}} & {#3}%
  \end{tabular}%
  \par\addvspace{#1}%
}
     
\newcommand*{\entrydescription}[2][.25em]{\tabitem[#1]{}{%
  {\bfseries#2}}}
     
\begin{document}
  \noindent{%
  This\par is\par a\par}
  \noindent
  \entrydescription{TEST}
  {\setlength{\parskip}{10pt}%
  This\par is\par a\par test}
\end{document}

[localghost]

Just for information to other users to be aware of possibly already existing solutions. The question has also been posted to comp.text.tex (ctt).