lilyglyphs 0.2 - First 'official' release

[Urs Liska]

Hi all,

I'm happy (and also proud) to be able to announce a new release of my lilyglyphs LaTeX package.
While I label it version 0.2 I am convinced that it is the first release that is really useable, so I consider this the initial 'public' release.

The package provides (Xe)LaTeX access to notational elements from LilyPond.
Anything that can be created with LilyPond can now be included in the continuous text of LaTeX documents. All glyphs from the Emmentaler font can be printed directly, anything else (e.g. Notes with stems and flags, which aren't available as glyphs but are drawn explicitely by LilyPond) through the detour of LilyPond's 'preview' output.

This isn't a competitor for lilypond-book but a completely different approach, and both will complement very well. While lilypond-book is there for including complete staves as musical examples, lilyglyphs includes the notational elements at the level of characters within the textual line. If you use both you can have the same LilyPond style in the continuous text and in musical examples.

There are two major leaps since version 0.1:

• I managed to include LilyPond's preview pdfs as commands.
  The most interesting feature is that the images are automatically scaled with the current text size.
• I wrote some Python scripts that considerably streamline the creation of new commands to extend the library of predefined commands. Now it really is an issue of minutes to create new elements.
  You can write an input document with one or more LilyPond definitions, the script will take care of generating compilable LilyPond source files, compiling them to the pdf images and generating the LaTeX commands.
  All you then have to do is fine-tuning the appearance of the new commands

I would be happy if the package is of use for many people writing (about) music.
But I would also be very happy about any feedback and contribution. The package is already useable and useful without restrictions, but I think it will be more attractive (especially for new users) with a more comprehensive set of predefined commands.

lilyglyphs is available from https://github.com/lilyglyphs/lilyglyphs (new address!), the direct link to the current manual is https://github.com/downloads/lilyglyphs/lilyglyphs/lilyglyphs-v0.2.0.pdf

The recommended way to get it is to clone it from GitHub (or even better: fork it and clone the fork in order to be able to directly contribute), but there is also a downloadable archive available.

Best wishes
Urs

PS: I'd appreciate any hints about a LaTeX group where I can expect musically inclined users to be around in considerable numbers