Re: volunteering and other questions

[Valentin Villenave]

2008/1/7, Tim Reeves <address@hidden>:


> 2. The advanced layout and titling stylesheet example in the LSR
> (http://lsr.dsi.unimi.it/LSR/Item?id=368) makes no sense to
> me at all.

Well, it's just the first try in what could become a quite exciting
whole new way of using the LSR: it is a collection of keywords and
shortcuts that are easy to use and to type, while they actually
involve very advanced formatting tricks under the hood.

Basically, you could write a whole book (music, but text as well)
using these commands (plus the few other commands that Nicolas will
post soon).

> It says, "Below is just a temporary dummy example to ensure LSR
> compatibility. Remember to remove it when using the actual code."

You said you were running the development lilypond version, well, the
problem is, the LSR is not.

The LSR has always been running only *stable* lilypond versions.
However, as I told you, this particular snippet involves lots of
advanced things that have recently been implemented (this summer,
IIRC). So, I had basically two choices: either I wouldn't bother
adding this snippet and just would say: "let's do this in a year",
either I had to cheat and comment the whole code so the LSR can accept
it...



> Where do I get "the actual code"?

...But you can't post a fully commented snippet, you have to put some
notes, or some text in it. So did I, with my "dummy" line. If you
click on this image, you'll see the *actual* code.

> (The description makes it sound like it will do something like what Nicolas'
> framwork in his Couperin book will do, but I can't figure out how to use
> Nicolas' code. It seems I need Linux, but I'm running WinXP. I surmise that
> the "makefile" is key to his framework, and to use it I need Linux, right?)

Not at all! First of all, you can perfectly use a makefile on Windows,
you just have to install a program named MSYS. But that's not the
point.

You don't need the makefile at all. Nicolas uses it for his very
advanced framework, to allow some complicated options to be passed to
lilypond. But you can actually, and that's what's great with this
snippet, use the same shortcuts than Nicolas, without having to even
*understand* how it works!

> 3. Suggestions for change to LM:
>
> Chapter 2.1.1:
> Under "Windows", replace "To get an empty file to start from, run the editor
> as described above and use "New" in the "File" menu."
> with
> "To get an empty file to start from, run the editor as described above and
> use "New" in the "File" menu, or right-click on the desktop and select
> New...Text Document, and change the extension to .ly."
>
> Chapter 2.1.3
> "a comment is a remark for the human reader of the music input; it is
> ignored while parsing, so it has no effect on the printed output. There are
> two types of comments. The percent symbol % introduces a line comment;
> anything after % on that line is ignored. A block comment marks a whole
> section of music input as a comment. Anything that is enclosed in %{ and %}
> is ignored. (Comments do not nest.) "
>
> What does " Comments do not nest" mean? Does it mean I can't put a comment
> within a comment? I tried it and it seemed to be no problem.

Yes you will have problems: if you write

%{
  this is a first comment block

     %{
          This is a second comment block
     %}

   this line should be commented as well, but it's not.
%}


> 4. What is a .ily file?

It is basically, as far as I can understand, a programmer's use: you
can't give the same extension to a file that is meant to be compiled
as is, than to another file that is only meant to be included in
another.

(actually, you perfectly can, but it's just inelegant I guess)

So Nicolas has this very elegant solution, that is to name all his
files something.ily, then include them all in a master file, and only
give the .ly extension to the master file that has to be compiled.

I assume the "i" in "ily" stands fot "inclusion" or whatever. This is
a personal choice AFAICT, however consider it as a good habit
(Actually, this goes for every line in Nicolas code :)

Hope this is more clear this way; you can also refer to the other
discussion about this snippet on
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-01/msg00191.html

By the way, if you can think of a more self-explanatory way to present
it in the LSR, I'm your man ;)

Cheers,
Valentin