So I know a hymnal publisher who is wanting to give churches the option of setting a hymn text to different tunes with the same meter (and of creating "composite" hymns with verses from different texts set to the same tune). They used Finale for the actual hymnal (and that isn't likely to change), but I've suggested using LilyPond to facilitate the preparation of these composite settings because the text-based nature of LP allows a new source file to be created programmatically from a repository of texts and tunes (using variables). The main editor is intrigued by the idea and the possibilities, so I'd like to be able to show him a mock-up of the system I have envisioned.
There are a couple of hurdles for me on this. I've suggested a website as the ideal medium for the system. There are advantages to this, as it allows for use tracking and easy error correction, if necessary. What I'd like to do is have the user select some combination of tune and text, hit "generate," and receive either a PDF or (more likely) a collection of EPS files to insert into PowerPoint (for which we could write a VBA add-in). Point of clarification: we would be generating slides for projection, not loose sheets for adding to hymnals.
I know that there are a number of sites that have some kind of "live" or "on-the-fly" LP compiling capabilities, and there is a little bit of information about web server considerations in the Usage manual, but does anyone have a more step-by-step process anywhere for setting up a web server to run Lilypond and serve LP output? Is this something that could potentially done on a hosted server or (as I'm suspecting) is this something that would pretty much require one's own server? My two main computers are Mac and Windows machines, but I have an old desktop that (if I remember correctly) has some kind of Linux (Ubuntu, perhaps) set up on it, if that's what it's going to take.
Cheers and thanks,
Carl