Graham Percival wrote:
A couple of comments on the text at
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.13/Documentation/web/text-input#Text-input:
You never mention that you need a text editor.
Well, the windows and OSX lilyponds come with their own text
editor. I admit that I'm just assuming that linux users will be
able to draw the inference that they need a text editor, which is
no longer a safe assumption.
Looking at the download page for Windows, I notice that you say "If
you are happy with the GUI", but don't say anything else about how to
find this GUI. Perhaps the installation instructions should end with
a link to the Learning manual 1.1.3. Actually, the current
installation instructions are almost over-emphasized on the current
web page. These steps are the same as for almost any other Windows
application so I'm not convinced we need to comment on them. It's
much more important to focus on the things that are not common to a
Windows user, namely how to use the program. Once you add command
line instructions, the focus of the web page will be even less on the
important stuff.
Answering your earlier question "Pretend that you've never heard of
lilypond. Does the webpage answer the questions, or present the
information, that you wanted to know before you got involved?", I
would say: definitely no!
Think of a Windows user who wants to try LilyPond. She will click on
Download, quickly locate the Windows logo and click on that and
probably miss the "Note: ..." at the top of this intermediate page.
Then, she directly finds the link to the installer since it's nicely
located at the top of the column, perhaps takes a quick look at the
rest of the text while the download is going on, just enough to see
that it looks exactly like all other installation instructions and
then runs the installer. Now is the moment that she might end up as a
"where's the application" question mark and there's no information at
all on the download page that's open in the browser. What's the next
logical step? Try to click on "Introduction". Again, no information
on how to run the program, unless you happen to look below the title
"Why *not* to use LilyPond?" where you have to click on "Text input"
-> "Learning" -> "Learning manual" -> "Tutorial" -> Compiling a file"
(what is "compiling"?) -> ...
Seriously, how can you expect anybody to find this crucial information?
At the Windows download page, I would propose to remove all the
current information, except the link to the installer, and replace it
by the nice introduction with screen-shots. At the bottom of the
page, you can add links to a separate page with the current detailed
installation instructions and command line instructions.
Similar comments apply also to the Mac page.
I have not followed all emails of this thread, so I apologize if all
this has already been said earlier.
/Mats
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