Re: Getting back into Lilypond/Frescobaldi

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le lundi 10 avril 2023 à 18:05 +0100, Michael Hendry a écrit :

I’ve started to review my old lead sheets, which use lilyjazz fonts, and find that previously unproblematic files are compiled with no staff, just a long list of chord names.

Going back to basics, with this rudimentary file...

\version "2.24.0"
{ c'4 d' e' f’}

…I get the following log, but the music review is as expected.
**
**
Starting lilypond 2.24.0 [Untitled]...
Fontconfig error: "/Users/michaelhendry/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf", line 2: XML or text declaration not at start of entity
Fontconfig error: "/Users/michaelhendry/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf", line 2: XML or text declaration not at start of entity
Fontconfig error: "/Users/michaelhendry/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf", line 2: XML or text declaration not at start of entity
Processing /var/folders/7z/6v5y7dgj181bb5j44lt_6d2w0000gn/T/frescobaldi-8koxns79/tmpcqdvl9c4/document.ly' Parsing... Interpreting music... Preprocessing graphical objects... Finding the ideal number of pages... Fitting music on 1 page... Drawing systems... Converting to document.pdf'...
Success: compilation successfully completed

Could you send the contents of the /Users/michaelhendry/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf file? It's in a hidden folder (.config, which starts with a dot), so you will likely have to toggle something to show hidden files/directories in the Finder. A Google search suggests "Command Shift Dot". After doing that, you should see ".config" in your home folder and find "fontconfig" then "fonts.conf" inside it. Send that file.

LilyPond uses a library called Fontconfig in order to find fonts on the system. Fontconfig supports configuration files. Apparently yours is corrupted, or maybe only valid with a recent version of Fontconfig that LilyPond 2.24 doesn't have. It would be interesting to test the development release 2.25.4, by the way.

The lead-sheets deliver the same “Fontconfig…” error messages, but also include the following warnings:

interpreting music...
warning: cannot find property type-check for `markFormatter' (translation-type?). perhaps a typing error?
warning: skipping assignment

You should always (yes, always) run convert-ly before trying old scores on new versions.

It will automatically fix the syntax of your file to be compatible with the new version of LilyPond.

Developers (like me) put awful amounts of efforts into making it work well. It's a pity not to use that.

In Frescobaldi, that's in Tools > Update with convert-ly.

Best,

Jean

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