Re: Uninstalling Liliypond

[Valentin Villenave]

2008/1/7, Mats Bengtsson <address@hidden>:

> Honestly, would you expect any user to be able to do any real-world
> typesetting
> with LilyPond without reading a single word in the manual?

Not real-world typesetting.
But at least (partially) understand and compile the first-run example file.

When writing EasyLilyPond, I have completely rewritten and expanded
the default windows-lilypad file that normally opens when you just
double-click on the Desktop icon (see attached file for the English
version).

I don't claim that it's a perfect solution; it's full of comments and
is clearly meant to be read through a syntax-coloration editor like
jEdit (my only point was to make sure that the default example file
could be localized in the user's language).

But nevertheless, any user that has just installed the program will be
tempted to run it and see what it can do, and possibly understand the
most basic concept behind it (and you know how particularly important
is this first basic understanding in LilyPond). I think that's what
Bertalan was refering to.

> you have
> done a great job in LilyPondTool, I still think there's a huge step
> compared to using
> a WYSIWYG program like Finale or Sibelius or ...

The first thing you do when discovering such a program is still to
open one of the provided example files. If I might refer to
EasyLilyPond again, in addition to the Launcher I wrote, I made the
installer automatically add a shortcut to "LilyPond Example files", on
the Desktop. (It's a bit intrusive, but the user can still remove it
whenever he wants).

Plus, thanks to the existing Windows installation script, you only
have to double click on a .ly to get a nice PDF.
There again, I agree with Bertalan on the "first feeling" thing: I've
just downloaded and installed LilyPond, Ok, let's see what it can do;
oh, weird no window opens but -- hey, look at this PDF that has just
appeared! Wow, what a nice score! Let's see how it's made...

Then, two possibilities:
-"I just can't get how it's made and how to use it; I'll just
uninstall it and forget it"
-"omg, quite complicated actually. Let's see if there's any Tutorial
somewhere..."

2008/1/7, Bertalan Fodor (LilyPondTool) <address@hidden>:

> Actually we needn't make LilyPond completely usable without reading the
> manual. We just should make users not scared.

That was my whole point. But you're more concise than I am :)

Cheers,
Valentin

welcome.ly
Description: Binary data