Re: A thought on Windows Experience

[Richard Shann]

On Mon, 2013-12-09 at 11:51 +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Richard Shann <address@hidden> writes:
> >
> >> On Mon, 2013-12-09 at 09:52 +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> >>
> >>> Denemo: this is a GUI application for writing music scores that uses
> >>> LilyPond internally for creating its output.  While working with it,
> >>> you will not be exposed to the LilyPond language at all,
> >>
> >> This is incorrect. If you double click on a note, repeat bar ... you
> >> are told the LilyPond syntax that this element has created. If you
> >> switch to the LilyPond view of the Denemo score you see the LilyPond
> >> syntax and can edit it. There are some limitations still in that
> >> editing (e.g.  changing a note to a different note is still not
> >> possible, and there is no syntax highlighting, but you can re-write
> >> entirely the score layout starting from the default).
> >
> > Ok ok, I guess I'll get the Midi-equipped accordion from the storage,
> > see whether any contacts are stuck, install a current version of Denemo
> > and get myself informed.
> 
> _Very_ frustrating and unusable.  Complains about missing libraries when
> starting but those are available in Ubuntu.
> 
> Opens what feels like dozens of overlapping windows you first need to
> cleanup.

Yes, this has annoyed all ponders who have tried the latest Denemo. I
guess they will have to stay closed on the first run. (Once you close
them they stay closed if you quit cleanly). It will then be up to the
user to find the palettes in the View menu and start exploring them.

>   Refuses to compile anything, stating in the print preview

I wonder why - it works for some distros out of the box - otherwise you
have to give the path to LilyPond in Edit->Change Prefs->Externals

> window that LilyPond can't compile stuff (there is a version of LilyPond
> in the path).  One can open the LilyPond source file window (looks like
> it should work in 2.19.0), but Denemo refuses to open the "LilyPond
> error" window.

It does actually open the LilyPond Errors pane, but as Denemo is unable
to run LilyPond that is empty.
The LilyPond Errors item is not a separate window but a pane in the
LilyPond view, it would be better if the toggle for this lived in the
LilyPond window.


>   So it is impossible to figure out _why_ compilation
> fails.  On stderr, there is a flurry of messages like
> 
> ** (denemo:6378): WARNING **: Trying to read the pdf file 
> file:///tmp/DenemoneMNfd/denemoprintA.pdf gave an error: Error opening file: 
> No such file or directory
[,,,]
> 
> which is probably related to the problem in some kind: there is no
> directory DenemooneMNfd anywhere and I don't see why it should.
> 
> This was using the Denemo 1.1 installer for GNU/Linux from the Denemo
> download page, on an Ubuntu 13.10 installation.
> 
> It seems pretty much unusable.

well, it is until it has found LilyPond. 

>   I can enter notes, but I don't get
> anywhere with trying to generate output.  The print preview has several
> buttons labelled things like "Print" and other, and it is totally
> unclear what they will actually do.

If you hover over them the tooltip will tell you. When you get tired of
the tooltips popping up so quickly and obtrusively you cut out the real
newbie ones from the Help menu and alter the time to pop up tooltips
from the Preferences menu.


>   Pressing them does not cause any
> effect (apart from error messages on stderr).

Well as this is a LilyPond output window with no LilyPond executable
found this is not by itself surprising. It should tell you (once only)
that it didn't find LilyPond.

> 
> So much for the binary install.  I am not too enthused about the
> prospect of having to compile from source just to be able to test basic
> functionality and possibly get a better clue about the intended startup
> behavior.

For folk with compilers, autotools and so on already installed building
from source is painless - it is not like running GUB. The list of
packages needed is on the Download page. (Hmm, pretty painless, but
there is some squabble amongst the distros about splitting up one
library into two ...)

I have put in bug reports for the problems you have unearthed - Thank
you!

Richard