Re: [Denemo-devel] Fw: [LAA] Denemo 0.8.22 Release - Free and Open Source Music Notation Editor (Lilypond Frontend & Midi)

[Nils Gey]

Hello Ludo and Welcome!

On Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:30:40 +0100
Ludo Beckers <address@hidden> wrote:

> 2 things newbie:
> 
> Apparently this is not a list for regular users but more for developers, bug
> reports etc, so I'll probably unsubscribe soon
> - So, is there another list that is aimed at "regular" users?

No there is only this one list and we probably should announce it better. This 
is the list for all users, regular and devs, there is no distinction.

> Still unsure what to use along with Lilypond - That's what you get when
> there's too many options ;-)
> Denemo, Frescobaldi, jEdit, Eclipse and more possibilities I found on the
> web.
> - I suppose most users here would recommend Denemo, but should I try out
> different tools to pick the right one for me, are there ones I should avoid
> (for being unsupported eg)?

I try to take a step back from my life as Denemo developer (but only one :))

The first thing is to ask yourself what you want or what you can imagine you 
want in a perfect future: 
a) You want something that displays Notation and Music in a way that is native: 
Notation and something that has decent playback support.        
b) You don't mind thinking "around the corner" and instead of notes writing 
text that resembles notes; I mean Lilypond syntax. And playback doesn't matter. 
But you need a helping hand that closes braces for you and reminds you of how 
that name of \setMarkerSomething was.

In the b), second case you need one of the tools that are basically an enhanced 
texteditor that help you with lilypond functions and bind "Preview PDF" to a 
key. In fact these are all of your examples except Denemo itself are such text 
editors. Frescobaldi makes the most public announcements so it looks like they 
are the most active. But all are texteditor are alike if you know the lilypond 
syntax anyway.

If it is a) you should consider Denemo. I suggest a) anyway because Notation 
needs notation, not text.
There are two graphical notation tools in Linux which, in my opinion are worth 
to consider. The main reason the others are not, despite their achievements and 
maybe promising specs, is that they are not activly developed. For the records 
these are NoteEdit which is officialy halted and several years old, Canorus 
which seemed to stop developing anything without telling anyone and NtEd which 
is a single user project, I don't even know if there is progress because the 
news on the site are without timestamp but there are no big leaps here also. 
There are projects like Rosegarden or Frinika, which are not designed for 
notation at all but have them as "eyecandy". So I am sure they are not offended 
when I express my opinion that they are uncapable of beeing a notation editor. 
I think they never were meant to be.

This leaves Denemo and MuseScore. MuseScore has the most attention currently 
and is there for several years now, developing to its 1.0 ("feature complete") 
release slowly but steady. So you should ask yourself: Denemo or MuseScore. I 
think MuseScore is a bit more rounded, it certainly looks nicer than Denemo and 
it has OSX, which Denemo has not yet officialy but only as third party build. 
But MuseScore is not aimed at professional notation but more like a small tool 
for personal use where limited quality is enough. It also makes use of mousing 
and clicking, which Denemo thinks is slow and to fragile.
Denemo on the other hand is a Lilypond Frontend, mixed with playback features 
and advances note entry and modification possibilities. This is the most 
important point: While the other GUI programs have written "Lilypond Export" on 
their feature list they are not build around Lilypond and therefore, as 
expected and probably intended, are not able to do much in this sector. Denemo 
on the other has concentrates on Lilypond and therefore you can say Denemo is 
the only real Lilypond frontend, currently and in the visible future. As you 
can guess this means superior quality in layout and print/pdf.

To summarise: Go the lilypond road anyway, it means superior quality and this 
is what counts in the end. The choice you have now is to use an (enhanced) 
text-editor or Denemo as the only GUI tool that actually works (and I think 
quite well). 

My personal opinion is that all that talk above is just polite bla bla :) You 
should use Denemo, of couse! :) It means fast note entry, active development, 
good handling and Lilypond output.

have fun!

Nils