Re: A thought on Windows Experience (was: useability, promoting, etc)

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 04/12/13 19:02, Phil Holmes wrote:
> For me, I'd say that we should not install Frescobaldi as a pre-requisite of
> running Lily on Windows.  I'm a heavy Windows user, and would not want another
> program installed by default.  I've not used it, but I do understand that many
> people feel it's excellent - so an option would be to promote it more heavily
> for Windows users?

Yes, but arguably the default configuration should be what is best for new 
users, and installing Frescobaldi does make a certain amount of sense here -- 
it's an excellent dedicated "IDE" for Lilypond that really makes it easier to 
understand the process of creating scores.

The way many Windows installers work is that they present you as a user with a 
list of components to select to be installed, of which some will be selected (or 
not) by default.  There's no reason not to have Frescobaldi bundled with the 
installer but deselectable if you don't want it.

> I am willing to look at improving the Windows experience, although this would
> need to wait until my degree finishes next Summer.  However, there's one thing I
> don't know: what should happen when you double-click a .ly file in Explorer:
> open an editor or compile the file?

Open the file, I'd say.  It'd be pretty intrusive if simply double-clicking on a 
text file in Explorer was to cause the launch of a process that might take a 
very long time, consume a large amount of system resources, and generate a large 
new file to write to disk.

It's also at odds with the way in which source files for other markups and 
languages are treated when opened via the file browser.