Re: GUI

[Robert Ley]

Thanks.

I had found most of that. 

What I had meant is more along the lines of what Tim McNamara said:

IMHO here is where we run into the issue of what LilyPond *is.*  It's a backend with no face, basically.  This is something that most Windows and Mac users will find hard to grasp initially, whereas Unix users will be familiar with such things.  To the extent that we want to reach out to Windows and Mac users, we need to provide them with some way to understand and be comfortable with that- otherwise they will install it, double-click and say "where's the f*****g application?"

Because this is what I did and the 'application' didn't work for my particular configuration. So I wondered if there was some other way to get LilyPond to do its compiling. I went to the command line pages and looked at those. 

Also, please remember that some of us, me included, have little experience writing command lines, so when you put, as part of the first information on command line use:

 Create a directory to store these scripts,

mkdir -p ~/bin
cd ~/bin

Create a file called lilypond which contains

exec DIR/LilyPond.app/Contents/Resources/bin/lilypond "$@"

Note: DIR will generally be /Applications/

Create similar files lilypond-book, convert-ly, and any other scripts you wish to use, by replacing the bin/lilypond with bin/convert-ly (or other program name).

Make the file executable,

chmod u+x lilypond

I have not a clue what you're talking about. Remember I'm on a Mac, so 'create a directory' doesn't mean anything to me. Nor does 'create a file'. I have to create a file within an application, and since LilyPond didn't work in the GUI for me, I had no way to do that. 

To answer the last question of yours, no, the information wasn't  hard to find. You've done a great job of making it easier to find. You just said you wanted your mother to be able to find and use it, or at least be able to decide that she did or didn't want to use it. My suggestion, I guess, is to better separate the GUI use of LilyPond from the Command Line use. "If the application opens for you, here's what to do next."  "If the application doesn't open for you, you will have to use the Command Line method. Here's where to go to find out how to do that."

I think the Mats Bengtsson post at 10:38 today is pretty much saying the same thing that I'm trying to say, if that helps any.

 

Please ignore my comments if you'd like. I have not read through all of the information but stumbled when I started because the GUI didn't work for me initially. I have since solved that problem. Since I haven't read through everything maybe you feel like it's appropriately explained and I would obviously defer to your judgement on that. Just letting you know why/how I stumbled and how the stumbling produced questions that I didn't quickly find answers to. 

Sorry to be confusing. Thank you again for the help on getting going. Very much appreciated.