LilyPond is a the GNU project music typesetter. It formats sheet music automatically and beautifully. You can find the lilypond homepage at http://lilypond.org/development/ LilyPond 1.7.26 is out! It can be downloaded from ftp.lilypond.org/pub/LilyPond/v1.7/ This release should be considered as a first 1.8 release candidate. Relative to 1.7.25, it contains a few small fixes and an update of the manual. The changes relative to 1.6 are in the NEWS file attached below * Binary packagers are kindly invited to try and package it for their favorite operating system platforms. Binaries for Cygwin are in the works. Binaries for RedHat 9 can be found on ftp.lilypond.org/pub/LilyPond/binaries/RedHat-9/ * Translators are kindly invited to update the translations that are present in the po/ subdirectory of the source archive. If you go ahead, make sure to coordinate things with the translation project at http://www2.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard/po/registry.cgi?domain=lilypond * Experienced users are invited to upgrade to 1.7.26, and check whether their 1.6 files still work as they should on 1.7; don't forget to run them through convert-ly before trying. Please report bugs to bug-lilypond(a)gnu.org. We want to make sure that 1.7.26 is as bug-free as possible. Because we cannot wait forever with releasing it, we have a pretty narrow definition of "bug" during the release: everything that worked in 1.6 should also work in 1.8. If not, then either it's a new feature (documented in NEWS), or it's a bug. Of course, you are free report other problems as well, but they will most likely be fixed by updating the appropriate BUGS section in the notation manual. * Newbie users are invited to read through the manual. All sections from the preface up to the appendices have been revised. Please read the manual, and report any typos, strange sentences, or unclear sections to bug-lilypond(a)gnu.org * If you don't feel qualified to do any of the above, you can help test my new PayPal account by sending money to hanwen(a)xs4all.nl :-) At present I am aware of two problems in this release * Something is broken with drum notation. Rune assured me he would look into it shortly. * The PDF output (generated by texinfo + dvips + ps2pdf) of the manuals has a broken page layout. Suggestions from TeX/DVI/dvips gurus on how to fix this are very much appreciated. Greetings, Han-Wen (hoping to be deluged by bug-reports and patches) **************** New features in 1.8 since 1.6 ============================= ** There chord entry code has been completely rewritten. It is now cleaner and more flexible. ** A new syntax has been added for text entry. This syntax is more friendly than the old mechanism, and it is implemented in a more robust and modular way. ** Deeper integration of the input language and Scheme. You can now use LilyPond identifiers in Scheme, and use Scheme expressions instead of LilyPond identifiers. ** The internal representation of music has been cleaned up completely and converted to Scheme data structures. The representation may be exported as XML. ** A new syntax has been added for chords: << PITCHES >> In version 2.0, this syntax will be changed to < PITCHES > for chords and \simultaneous { .. } for simultaneous music. ** A new uniform postfix syntax for articulation has been introduced. A beamed slurred pair of eighth notes can be entered as c8-[-( d8-]-) In version 2.0, postfix syntax will be the only syntax available, and the dashes will become optional. ** User code may now be executed during interpreting. The syntax for this code is \applycontext #SCHEME-FUNCTION ** User code may now be executed on arbitrary grobs durign interpreting. The syntax for this feature is \applyoutput #SCHEME-FUNCTION SCHEME-FUNCTION takes a single argument, and is called for every grob that is created in the current context. ** New algorithms for chord-name formatting have been installed. They can be tuned and have ergonomic syntax for entering exceptions. ** Texts may now be put on multimeasure rests, eg. R1*20^\markup { "GP" } ** Ancient notation now prints ligatures in Gregorian square neumes notation, roughly following the typographical style of the Liber hymnarius of Solesmes, published in 1983. Ligatures are still printed without the proper line breaking and horizontal spacing. ** Glissandi can now be printed using the zigzag style. ** Clusters may now be printed. The syntax is: \apply #clusters-to-notes { NOTE NOTE .. } ** For irregular meters, beat grouping marks can be printed. The syntax for this is #(set-time-signature 7 8 '(3 2 2)) ** Nested horizontal brackets for music analysis can now be printed. NOTE-\startGroup .. NOTE-\stopGroup ** Ottava brackets are now fully supported as a feature. The syntax is #(set-octavation 1) ** Metronome markings are printed when a \tempo command is processed. ** Fingerings can be put on chords horizontally. ** The appearance of various glyphs has been fine-tuned ** Different types of percent style repeats may now be nested ** The emacs support has been extended. ** The manual has been completely revised and extended. -- Han-Wen Nienhuys | hanwen(a)cs.uu.nl | http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen