[Draft version]
[Draft version]

CALL FOR HACKERS: LilyPond, the Music Typesetter

[Sorry if this is a bit off-topic; I want to announce this software to
small crowd, because it is still test-stage]

Hi net!

this is to announce the availability of the first public release
(v0.1) of my music typesetter.

WHAT IS LILYPOND

Technically it is a preprocessor which generates TeX
(or LaTeX) output which contains information to typeset a musical
score. Practically it is a typesetter, which only uses TeX as an
output medium. (this is handy because there exist music fonts for TeX)

As a bonus, you can also output a MIDI file of what you typed.

HOW DOES IT WORK

The input is a script file (example appended) which is read. The
script file is a "music definition", ie, you type the melody as if it
is read out loud

LilyPond interprets this melody and generates appropriate output items
(balls, stems, beams), and calculates where they should be put. Then
it outputs a TeX file. Warning: this said calculations is *slow* (a full
page of music typically takes 1 minute on my 486/66)

WHY IS THIS A TEST VERSION

There a lot of advanced features (grace notes, piano staffs) which are
VapourFeatures (tm). We're not sure about the language. It may change;
having a large user base is a burden then.

WHY A CALL FOR HACKERS

Currently, the development team has three people. I'd this project to
have more people working on it (there is a lot of work to be done) I
think this program is pretty original, so join in if you know anything
about music and computers!

As an aside, I really like the anarchist approach of linux development.

WHAT HAS TO BE DONE

LilyPond is written in Gnu C++, and it is (if I say so myself) written
very cleanly (Lots of classes, lots of comments, small files/small
functions) and with extensions in mind.

	- Coding. For this time, there won't any biggish (global)
source hackings. There are a lot of small projects which could use
some work.

	- Some TeX hacking. I know little about TeX

	- Documentation. I don't have time for this

I WANT MORE INFO!

You can download it at:

	ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond

or visit the incredibly lousy webpage at:

	http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen/lilypond/index.html


EXAMPLE INPUT

	% twinkle twinkle little star
	melody = music {
		$\clef\violin
		c c | g g | a a | g g |
		f f | e e | d d8.( e16 | )c2 |

		g g | f f | e e | d d |
		g g | f f | e( e8. f16 | e )d |

		c c | g g | a a | g g |
		f f | e e | d d8.( e16 | )c2 
		$
	}

	text2 = music {
		@
		\textstyle "roman"
		When the bla- zing sun is gone,2
		When he no- thing shines up- on,2
		Then you show your lit- tle light,2
		Twin- kle, twin- kle, all the night.2
		Twin- kle, twin- kle, lit- tle star,2
		How I won- der what you are!2
		@
	}

	english_staf = staff {
		lyric 
		music { text2 }
	}

	score {
		staff { melodic music { melody }  }
		staff { english_staf }
		paper {
			unitspace 2.5cm
		}
		commands {
			meter {2 * 4}
			skip {24*2}
			bar "||"
		}
	}