3 FAQ - GNU LilyPond FAQs
7 Some questions that have been answered before.
11 Q: I get all kinds of errors while compiling parser.cc
13 A: LilyPond uses features of bison version 1.25. Please confirm that
14 you are using a version 1.25 or better, that is B<GNU> bison
15 B<1.25>. Don't forget to do "make clean" after installing it. Don't
16 forget to remove the stale F<bison.simple> as well.
18 If the problem persists, then please mail me.
20 Q: Some of your neat scripts fail, what directories do you use:
28 lilypond/ # the directory as unpacked from the tarball
29 releases/ # directory for .tar.gz releases
30 patches/ # directory for patches between different releases
33 ~/something/lilypond/bin is in the PATH, and contains symlinks to the
36 If you don't use patches, you'd probably want to symlink
38 lilypond -> lilypond-x.y.z
40 =head2 Language: mudela
42 Q: Why can't you type C<#c> in stead of C<cis> ?
44 A: We think that C<#c> looks as if you are entering the symbols to
45 print (which you are not; remember, you're entering the musical
48 We're not sure on leaving out this feature. If you think this is a
49 good idea, please let us know.
51 Be warned we will I<not> allow you to leave out the C<#> if the note
52 already has an accidental. We won't allow
61 Why, you might ask? Because independently of how it was written, you
62 would say that you are playing and reading "two C-sharp" notes.
65 Q: What is C<cis> anyway
67 A: C<cis> is the dutch naming for C-sharp. The notes are named
68 a, b,.., g. The suffix -is means sharp, and -es flat. This system is
69 common in a number of languages (such as swedish, dutch, german.)
70 Certain other languages (such as English, French and Italian) just add
71 the word for "sharp" to the notename.
73 We chose the Dutch system, because we're dutch. You are free to chose
74 whatever names you like; they are user definable.
80 to make a few chords, but why do I have to type
83 < { a~ e } { c ~ g } >
89 to generate ties between the chords?
97 < { a } { c } > < { e } { g } >
99 Ties have to be confined to `voices', and the a and the e are in
100 different {} blocks, so they are in different voices. You should view
101 the desired construct as a "generalised chord" (two voices stacked
102 vertically). It might help you visualise this by using the following
109 Q: and where do the beams come into this picture?
111 A: Beams are voicegroup-wide, and may be entered in any part of the
114 < { [a ~ e] } { c ~ g } >
115 < { [a ~ e } { c ~ g] } >
116 < { [a ~ e] } { [c ~ g] } >
118 These all give the same result.
120 Q: Why are [] around the notes, and () inbetween?
122 A: [] designate beams, a note can only be in one beam at the same
123 time. () is a slur, which connects notes. You need to be able to
128 Q: I want to insert some TeX commands
130 A: You shouldn't: it's against LilyPond philosophy to have typesetting
131 commands in the mudela source. Moreover, this would be difficult. The
132 manner in which Request (the basic building blocks of mudela) are
133 translated into printable items is complex: it is not always possible
134 to associate one Request with one Item or Spanner.
136 As a further notice, we want to move away from TeX (and perhaps
137 output PostScript or render to an X window too)
141 Q: Do you support pop songs (chords, single staff, lyrics)?
143 A: Yes, see the twinkle-pop example
145 Q: Do you support guitar chord diagrams?
147 A: No, not yet. We ourselves don't play guitar, and don't know the
148 fine points of this notation. We would welcome anyone who could give
151 Q: Do you support TAB notation
153 A: No. The same as for the previous question goes, but TAB is a lot
154 more work than diagrams (TAB needs modification of Parser, Lexer,
155 Notehead, Stem, and stem-code. )
157 Q: How do I change the TeX layout?
159 A: See lilyponddefs.tex, it has some comments.
161 Q: How do I learn the C++ code?
163 A: The entry point is in main(). Good luck. :-)
165 Seriously, read, reread and reread lilygut and CodingStyle, and
168 Anywhere? Well, most of the comment doco are in the header files, so
169 your best bet would be C<less lily/include/*.hh>. Some of the most
170 important data-structures are to be found in:
189 Q: Could you implement feature XXXX? It is really easy, just extend
190 the syntax to allow YYYY!
192 A: If it is reasonable, I'll add XXXX to the TODO list. In general
193 finding a cute syntax (such as YYYY) isn't very hard. The complicated
194 issue how to adapt the internals to do XXXX. The parser is really a
195 simple front end to the complicated internals.
197 Q: Why do I need g++ >= 2.7?
199 A: By using g++, GNU LilyPond is portable to all platforms which support
200 g++ (there are quite a few). Not having to support other compilers
201 saves us a I<lot> of trouble.
207 can't load library 'libflower.so'
209 A: You are using the dynamically compiled Flower library. Please set
210 LD_LIBRARY_PATH to a directory containing F<libflower.so>
214 Q: I want a DOS/NT/W95 port.
216 A.0: Reconsider. Try Linux. It's fun!
218 A.1: Currently (patchlevel 27), GNU LilyPond (and flowerLib) compiles,
219 links and runs on Windows-nt, using Cygnus' gnu port (release b17.1).
220 I (JCN) only had to make a minor workaround for missing library calls.
221 Have a look at http://www.cygnus.com/gnu-win32. To make GNU LilyPond
222 type C<make>. (I am not promising to maintain this platform, it is just
223 that when forced into doze, i'm sometimes too lazy to reboot.)
225 A.2: I haven't had time to find a GCC crosscompiler (I<with> g++ and
226 libg++, mind you) to DOS/Windows (in rpm, please :-)
229 Q: I just love to blindly run the (sometimes bit stale) .exe's you distribute.
230 Why do i need cygwin.dll?
232 A: It's all in this cut-n-paste:
234 Minimalist GNU-Win32 Readme
237 Colin Peters <colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp>
241 0.3 Fixes and Improvements
244 In the "coming soon" category I have a version of the GNU Standard C++
245 library ported to Mingw32. This means you can use iostreams, complex
246 numbers and all those neat STL (Standard Template Library) things
247 without needing the Cygwin DLL. I hope to put this port up for
248 downloading soon (along with the source of course).
254 To add C++ Support to the above the following extra files are required:
256 In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-
260 Note that this does not include support for the standard C++ libraries
261 (only the C run time libraries) or for iostreams. That support is still
262 only available with the Cygwin32 API.