Moving to 2.8.4--a nightmare?

[Sebastiano Vigna]

Hi guys. Back from under my stone, I revved up LSR to work with 2.8. So
I decided to rev up also my scores.

It's being very, very difficult. I have insisted in the past and will
insist again on this--if Lilypond continues to be such a moving target,
it will never be a format of choice for storing music. 

I have just a few dozen files and I'm already paralyzed--essentially
none of them compiles after convert-ly (you can get them at
vigna.dsi.unimi.it/music.php). The few scores that compile have bugs in
the output.

A quick tour of the problems, hoping someone can help. BTW, is there an
official guide about the conversion (don't tell me to do convert-ly -s,
please :).



1) All my piano scores produce mighty complaints after conversion:

K517-2.ly:14:7: error: syntax error, unexpected \header

       \header {
K517-2.ly:17:8: error: syntax error, unexpected \context

        \context PianoStaff <<
K517-2.ly:47:14: error: syntax error, unexpected '}'

              }
K517-2.ly:74:11: error: syntax error, unexpected '}'

           }
K517-2.ly:126:8: error: syntax error, unexpected >>

        >>
K517-2.ly:132:0: error: syntax error, unexpected '}'

}




2) convert-ly has a mistaken way of detecting features--I have a score with a 
*commented* line as follows:

        % #(override-auto-beam-setting '(end * * * *) 1 2 'Staff)

convert-ly complains as follows:

Not smart enough to convert auto beam settings

Auto beam settings must now specify each interesting moment in a measure
explicitely; 1/4 is no longer multiplied to cover moments 1/2 and 3/4 too.
Please refer to the manual for details, and update manually.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/convert-ly", line 300, in ?
    main ()
  File "/usr/bin/convert-ly", line 294, in main
    do_one_file (f)
  File "/usr/bin/convert-ly", line 227, in do_one_file
    (last, result) = do_conversion (infile.read (), from_version, to_version)
  File "/usr/bin/convert-ly", line 172, in do_conversion
    str = x[1] (str)
  File "/usr/share/lilypond/2.8.4/python/convertrules.py", line 2477, in conv
    raise FatalConversionError ()
convertrules.FatalConversionError: <convertrules.FatalConversionError instance 
at 0xb7d3298c>


3) My score for "Like Spinning Plates" has a different lyrics placement with 
2.8, and extraneous symbols
overlapping the main division bars. I guess it is because I have 5 Lyrics 
contexts, but it used to work.


4) Previously working tempo indications are not converted and do not work any 
longer:

p-gruppi-2.ly:45:16: error: unknown escaped string: `\tempo4'
        \midi {
                \tempo4=160 }



I guess this is just a start. If anybody can put me on the right track
I will try to fix all files and report more.

Ciao,

                                                        seba