Re: Mac OS X LilyPond & Terminal install problems.

[Jonathan Kulp]

comments at bottom...

address@hidden wrote:
> I attempted to follow instruction set C for LilyPond & Terminal install 
> on Mac
> OS X Leopard. I've run into problems.
>
> "Download the latest stable release (2.12.2-1) of LilyPond and put 
> LilyPond.app
> in your Applications folder."
>
> Check.
>
> "Download this shell script and start it using Terminal."
>
> I right-clicked and Saved Link As... lilypondshscript to my Desktop without
> appending any file extension. I wasn't having any success "starting it 
> using
> Terminal" until, eventually, I found instructions online for the syntax for
> running a non-executable sh script.
>
> Upon doing so, a "Drop your LilyPond source file here and press Enter"
> instruction line appeared.
>
> I assume that the instructions online mean this same file when it says: 
> "Drop
> your .ly file into the Terminal window and follow the instructions."
>
> There are no instructions online regarding the location of this .ly 
> source file.
> I right-clicked and selected Show Package Contents on the LilyPond icon 
> in my
> Applications folder. After poking around through it and trying different 
> things,
> I eventually came across an .ly file.
>
> /Applications/LilyPond.app/Contents/Resources/Welcome-to-LilyPond-MacOS.ly
>
> I dragged this file to the terminal window (its path appeared) and hit 
> enter.
> Here is my Terminal printout:
>
> Macintosh:~ kjell$ sh /Users/kjell/Desktop/lilypondshscript
>
> ****************************************************************
> Drop your LilyPond source file here and press Enter
> ****************************************************************
> /Applications/LilyPond.app/Contents/Resources/Welcome-to-LilyPond-MacOS.ly 
> GNU LilyPond 2.12.2
> Changing working directory to: 
> `/Applications/LilyPond.app/Contents/Resources'
> Processing
> `/Applications/LilyPond.app/Contents/Resources/Welcome-to-LilyPond-MacOS.ly' 
>
> Parsing...
> Interpreting music... Preprocessing graphical objects...
> Finding the ideal number of pages...
> Fitting music on 1 page...
> Drawing systems...
> Layout output to `Welcome-to-LilyPond-MacOS.ps'...
> Converting to `./Welcome-to-LilyPond-MacOS.pdf'...
> The file
> /Applications/LilyPond.app/Contents/Resources//Welcome-to-LilyPond-MacOS.midi 
>
> does not exist.
> ****************************************************************
> Continue to work. When finished, save your document and choose :
> ****************************************************************
> Refresh: 1
> Quit: 2
>
> Very encouragingly, a pdf file with "A scale in LilyPond" header and 
> picture of
> an ascending c scale popped up. But then nothing else.
>
> Once I realized I could click on the notes, I tried that. A new window 
> appeared
> with the following content:
>
> %{
> Welcome to LilyPond
> ===================
>
> Congratulations, LilyPond has been installed successfully.
>
> Now to take it for the first test run.
>
>   1. Save this file
>
>   2. Select
>
>        Compile > Typeset file
>
>   from the menu.
>
>   The file is processed, and
>
>   3.  The PDF viewer will pop up. Click one of the noteheads.
>
> That's it.  For more information, visit http://lilypond.org .
>
> %}
>
> \header{
>   title = "A scale in LilyPond"
> }
>
> \relative {
>   c d e f g a b c
> }
>
> \version "2.12.2"  % necessary for upgrading to future LilyPond versions.
>
> But there appears to be no menu, drop down or otherwise, in LilyPond and 
> thus no
> way to save, compile, or do much of anything, besides type pointlessly in a
> blank window (Furthermore, the only way to stop LilyPond from appearing 
> as an
> active program is to Force Quit it).
>
> I closed the Welcome to LilyPond window and decided to see if 
> double-clicking
> the LilyPond icon could accomplish anything new. A blank, Untitled window
> appeared that I was able to type in and save(!), but again, no way to 
> compile it
> and no menu of anything to access.
>
> So what's going on? Please assist.

I had never heard of this method until your email arrived, but I 
tried it out and I understand how it's supposed to work. From what 
you said it seems to be working just right. First question, 
though, is this your first time to use Lilypond?  If so then you 
have to understand that it's a very different program from what 
you may be used to, inasmuch as you create your scores by writing 
source code in plain text files, which are saved with the 
extension .ly (that's why it said to drop your .ly source file 
here). I'm guessing that the blank window that was open was an 
editor window. If not, then you would need to open a text editor 
and write some code in there and save it as something like 
"test.ly".  You can use mac's TextEdit application, but I'd 
recommend something more robust like Smultron, which is free. 
Open up an editor (not a word processor) and save this code with a 
filename of your choice having the .ly extension (best not to put 
spaces in the filename):

%% begin code

\version "2.12.1"

\relative c' { c d e f g a b c }

%% end code

Drop the file into the terminal window like you did before.  The 
way it works is that you keep your text editor window open and 
write your code, then save it using the text editor's save 
command. Then go back to the terminal window and type 1 <return> 
to recompile it or 2 <return> to exit. Lilypond itself won't have 
any menu items or anything, it's all operating in the background. 
  All of your work on the score is done in the text editor.

To get it to work this way on my 10.4 machine I had to hack the 
script a bit, but I could tell from looking at it how it was 
supposed to function.  If you're brand new to Lilypond, then your 
next step would be to go through the Tutorial in the Learning 
Manual and it'll get you going pretty quickly.

Hope that helps,

Jon
--
Jonathan Kulp
http://www.jonathankulp.com