Re: lilypond-user Digest, Vol 149, Issue 155

[Flaming Hakama by Elaine]

 

> My problem is that too much of it is written like the following response
> from Elaine, which looks like Pprogrammers Only Need Apply.

There is no getting around the fact that lilypond is a programming language.  I don't see how to bridge that gap except with GUIs.  Even then, the GUI would have different docs than the language.

This is probably no consolation, but it makes me feel frustrated as a professional programmer that after years of using lilypond, I still have very little clue how it works and more often than I care to recognize makes me call my own competence into question.

I would also bet that, if the materials I am looking for were available, they wouldn't be nearly so off-putting as they sound.   Rather, they would be a simple, high-level introduction about how all the pieces and parts are put together, so you could say, "ok, here's where the stuff I'm doing fits in, so here is the type of info that I will need to learn".

 

> I get frustrated when I'm looking for something to answer the question
> "How do I ..."
>

This is exactly why I posed the questions. I keep feeling like it would be
super helpful to have a section (in or out of the official docs) that uses
verbiage like this. Not sure what that would look like and what the
restrictions would be for choosing to put content there or not. Either way,
having something that is sooooo obvious (with as few clicks as possible) to
describe how to do many of the most common tasks seems like a useful thing
for new users. Some examples:

"How do I change the input language to English?"
"How do I add a slur?"
"How do I adjust the page margins?"
"How do I add another voice?"
"How do I change the tempo?"
"How do I add an articulation?"
"How do I add an instrument?"
"How do I change the size of a staff?"
"How do I group instruments together?"
"How do I import a MusicXML file?"
"How do I change the angle of a beam?"
"How do I create a tuplet?"
"How do I add the closing barline?"
etc.

 

I think the questions need to be oriented to the language that GUI users
are used to using (like "How do I add an instrument?", even though LilyPond
doesn't deal with instruments in the same way as the GUI programs). This
should provide a good transition to understanding more how LilyPond thinks
about (and expects) the input syntax.

Just thinking out loud...

- Abraham

Yes, I agree that this is the best starting point for documentation:  Finding out what users need to know.

I started keeping notes on the things I learned on my blog, but have never attempted to share them except when the topics happen to surface on this list:

http://flaminghakama.com/why-lilypond
http://flaminghakama.com/lilypond-lilypond-lilypond
http://flaminghakama.com/to-beam-or-not-to-beam-lilypond
http://flaminghakama.com/adding-a-coda
http://flaminghakama.com/flaming-lilypond-chords
http://flaminghakama.com/slurring-into-alternative-endings

If this is the kind of info that seems useful, I could certainly contribute this material to the scores of beauty. 
But but it hasn't been made clear to me until now that there was an intended repository for this info. 

A complimentary approach would be to tag the sections of documentation according to various topics.  Especially including the things, like "instrument", for which there are no lilypond objects at all.

Then, provide a way to view just the topics you are interested in.  Sort of like when you are reading someone's blog, you can view posts by category.  Or, thinking in the old-fashioned way, a thematic index of the documentation contents.

David Elaine Alt

415 . 341 .4954                                           "Confusion is highly underrated"

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skype: flaming_hakama
Producer ~ Composer ~ Instrumentalist
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