3 FAQ - GNU LilyPond FAQs
7 Some questions that have been answered before.
9 =head2 Language: mudela
11 Q: Why can't you type C<#c> in stead of C<cis> ?
13 A: We think that C<#c> looks as if you are entering the symbols to
14 print (which you are not; remember, you're entering the musical
17 We're not sure on leaving out this feature. If you think this is a
18 good idea, please let us know.
20 Be warned we will I<not> allow you to leave out the C<#> if the note
21 already has an accidental. We won't allow
35 to make a few chords, but why do I have to type
38 < { a() e } { c () g } >
44 to generate slurs between the chords?
52 < { a } { c } > < { e } { g } >
54 Slurs have to be confined to `voices', and the a and the e are in
55 different {} blocks, so they are in different voices. You should view
56 the desired construct as a "generalised chord" (two voices stacked
57 vertically). It might help you visualise this by using the following
64 Q: and where do the beams come into this picture?
66 A: Beams are voicegroup-wide, and may be entered in any part of the
69 < { [a () e] } { c () g } >
70 < { [a () e } { c () g] } >
71 < { [a () e] } { [c () g] } >
73 These all give the same result.
75 Q: Why are [] around the notes, and () inbetween?
77 A: [] designate beams, a note can only be in one beam at the same
78 time. () is a slur, which connects notes. You need to be able to
83 Q: Why shouldn't I put all commands (\clef, \meter) inside the music?
85 A: You should do what you like, but at some time we will enable
86 quoting of music ("Stichnoten"). Besides if you are going to type an
87 orchestral score, then you'd probably want to enter most of the meter,
88 repeat commands only once.
90 Q: I want to insert some TeX commands
92 A: You shouldn't: it's against LilyPond philosophy to have typesetting
93 commands in the mudela source. Moreover, this would be difficult. The
94 manner in which Request (the basic building blocks of mudela) are
95 translated into printable items is complex: it is not always possible
96 to associate one Request with one Item or Spanner.
105 Q: Could you implement feature XXXX? It is really easy, just extend
106 the syntax to allow YYYY!
108 A: If it is reasonable, I'll add XXXX to the TODO list. In general
109 finding a cute syntax (such as YYYY) isn't very hard. The complicated
110 issue how to adapt the internals to do XXXX. The parser is really a
111 simple front end to the complicated internals.
113 Q: Why do I need g++ >= 2.7?
115 A: By using g++, GNU LilyPond is portable to all platforms which support
116 g++ (there are quite a few). Not having to support other compilers
117 saves us a I<lot> of trouble. GNU LilyPond and FlowerLib use:
127 64 bit integral type long long
135 operator <?, operator >?
143 class Rational (libg++)
151 can't load library 'libflower.so'
153 A: You are using the dynamically compiled Flower library. Please set
154 LD_LIBRARY_PATH to a directory containing F<libflower.so>
158 Q: I want a DOS/NT/W95 port.
160 A.0: Reconsider. Try Linux. It's fun!
162 A.1: Currently (patchlevel 27), GNU LilyPond (and flowerLib) compiles, links
163 and runs on windhoos-nt, using the cygnus gnu port (release b17.1).
164 I (JCN) only had to make a minor workaround for missing library calls.
165 Have a look at http://www.cygnus.com/gnu-win32. To make GNU LilyPond type
166 C<make $OSTYPE>. (I am not promising to maintain this platform, it is just
167 that when having to use doze, i-m sometimes too lazy to reboot.)
169 A.2: I haven't had time to find a GCC crosscompiler (I<with> g++ and
170 libg++, mind you) to DOS/win (in rpm, please :).
173 Q: I-m dozed enough to run the (sometimes bit stale) .exe-s you distribute.
174 Why do i need cygwin.dll?
176 A: It-s all in this cut-n-paste:
178 Minimalist GNU-Win32 Readme
181 Colin Peters <colin@bird.fu.is.saga-u.ac.jp>
185 0.3 Fixes and Improvements
188 In the "coming soon" category I have a version of the GNU Standard C++
189 library ported to Mingw32. This means you can use iostreams, complex
190 numbers and all those neat STL (Standard Template Library) things
191 without needing the Cygwin DLL. I hope to put this port up for
192 downloading soon (along with the source of course).
198 To add C++ Support to the above the following extra files are required:
200 In C:\cygnus\H-i386-cygwin32\lib\gcc-lib\i386-cygwin32\cygnus-2.7.2-
204 Note that this does not include support for the standard C++ libraries
205 (only the C run time libraries) or for iostreams. That support is still
206 only available with the Cygwin32 API.