Hi,
I'm not a specialist of these topics, just replying to one
specific point…
Le 17/10/2022 à 21:11, Alex Harker a écrit :
*In terms of Lilypond.app* - I suspect this would be useful to
maintain - it’s how I was using it until my latest system (at which
point I moved to Frescobaldi to have a GUI - that’s a much nicer
environment). I think the majority of Mac users wouldn’t be
comfortable with a command-line interface, or having to deal with a
separate GUI/environment to be installed onto. Thus, from my view this
is about new adopters - getting people to try Lilypond in the first place.
I saw a branch that looked like it might be the old Mac app - I’d be
happy to take a look once I can get lilypond building. Can someone
confirm where this is?
https://github.com/gperciva/lilypad
I presume the first goal would simply be to resurrect it as is? The
packaging part is trivial - it’s the app itself will require more of
look, but there are also tighter requirements in terms of code signing
etc. these days in terms of getting around Apple’s gatekeeper and that
would be something to think about later down the line, but only once
the app was back up an running locally.
I was actually *glad* to see the LilyPad app disappearing. Here
is my personal experience from initially trying LilyPond -- I
was on macOS at the time: I downloaded LilyPond.app as recommended
on the website, I saw there were GUI recommendations on the website
as well but didn't pay much attention, I used LilyPond in LilyPad
for two years or so, before I had the relief to discover Frescobaldi,
which is a *lot* more usable, and blamed myself for not trying
it earlier.
By default, people will choose whatever has been installed on their
computer, whatever you recommend them. By not providing a GUI, we
force people to install a decent editor, which is a bit more work
to install, but we also make their initial user experience a lot
more friendly. (And there is a gentle installation tutorial,
https://lilypond.org/doc/v2.23/Documentation/learning/graphical-setup-under-macos
on which I spent quite a lot of time ...)
In contrast, I think it would be great to have a way of installing
LilyPond that will look more familiar to macOS users (and thus
reassuring; in my experience people can be very afraid that software
they install might do something bad to their computer). But
*without* a GUI. Or perhaps just something that opens a window
saying that LilyPond has been installed successfully and pointing
to https://lilypond.org/easier-editing.html
Better yet: a .dmg package installing both Frescobaldi and LilyPond
together. The latest release of Frescobaldi is actually missing a
.dmg package, which is something you might want to help with ...
(CCing Davide about this.)
Best,
Jean
