Re: MacOS X native packaged (was Re: lilypond install mac os x)

[David Rogers]

(Apologies to the moderator; I sent this from the wrong address at 
first.)

On Feb 25, 2005, at 04:22, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:

> BTW, the description of getting Lilypond up and running on a pristine
> MacOS X (getting XCode, lots of compilation) seems rather involved. I
> wonder whether there would be any interest in a "native" MacOS X
> binary of Lilypond, with a pretty installer. An binary which is up and
> running in a minutes, and Just Works out-of-box.
>
> And: if you think that is cool idea, what would be a reasonable price?

IMO the price is much less important than the implementation, because 
an ordinary Mac user's idea of Just Works is very different from yours. 
Here is my idea of the installation:

When the user downloads your new installer, he should see an icon with 
a note beside it, "Double-click here to install Lilypond". And when he 
does so, there should be no questions, no choices to make, and the 
installer should not exit until it has processed "test.ly", displayed 
the corresponding PDF, and opened the documentation to the 
Introduction, all without user intervention. In addition, it would be 
good to install a clickable Lilypond icon in /Applications, even if its 
only function is to open whatever tools you include. (Which I assume 
would be something like the jEdit-with-plugins setup. Nobody who needs 
this possible new installer is going to have any idea what to do with 
Emacs, and conversely, anybody comfortable with Emacs won't be rushing 
to buy a new installer. Even jEdit is pretty weird if you're only used 
to OS X's TextEdit app.)

If that kind of sophistication is possible, then I think it would make 
a significant difference to a lot of people who would otherwise never 
touch Lilypond, and a number of them might pay good money for it.
If not, then the current setup works for people who are already 
comfortable with Fink, a terminal, etc.

David