Them wrote:
Michal Seta wrote:
I'm sorry but I don't think Finale or any
clone of it should exist in
linux. It became a de facto standard because it used to be the only
decent quality consummer desktop music publishing app. Just because
most of linux users/developers come from Windows background does not
mean we should all go for the same kinds of solutions. A lot of
them are bad. I understand that users have certain work habits so
some middle ground needs be found... sometimes.
LilyPond lends itself quite well to being the backend for a more user
friendly interface, much like LaTeX does (i.e., LyX). The idea behind
LyX is that the writer can focus on her content rather than having to
deal with formatting, layout, etc (which LaTeX does very well), and
LyX hides some of the 'housekeeping' stuff you need to know to use
LaTeX or TeX directly.
Having something like LyX for LilyPond would be a great idea... and in
fact, Rosegarden provides a lot of this. It's not perfect (but
neither is Finale -- it's pissed me off royally a few times), but in
just a couple of years it has come a long way since that ancient
Athena widget version. I think we should focus more on what's already
being developed and helping that along rather than starting up yet
another project.
I've held off making any comment up until now...
Look, I'm a composition student and most of my work is jazz and
orchestral related stuff. I like a tool that I can see music as I see
music on a stave, write music as if I'm writing music on a stave, and
have something able to play it back to me so I know what type of crazy
sounds I've concocted. It's also a bonus to be able to hammer a midi
keyboard and see the crazy jazz chord come up on screen.
Time is of the essence when writing. Lilypond is all good and well when
you're keen to rewrite your 12 minute full orchesral score into a text
pad so that you can have pretty typesetted music, but it's more
practical to compose and type set it at the same time using a graphical
tool because in the traditionl comopsitional world, music is written to
a stave. A graphical frontend IS the easiest way to do it. You see what
you would see if you were composing away from the computer. I can't see
how this can possibly be debated. Ask anyobe at the music school,
students AND lecturers and they will share the same thoughts as I.
Glenn.