Re: Several problems with 2.5.27 version on Windows ME

[Jan Nieuwenhuizen]

Brynne and Russ Jorgensen writes:

> I am brand new to lilypond

Welcome.

> Initially I didn't realize that 2.5.27 is in development, and that 2.4
> is the stable release.

Good point, where did you get LilyPond?  I guess we should mention
this on the dowload page too instead of only on the front page.  Would
that help?

> I'm running Windows ME.  A few of the issues may be peculiar to this
> OS, but others are not.

The may well be.  The native windows releases are brand new, 2.5.27-1
is the second native windows release ever.  We have not yet had a
success or bug report from a Windows ME user.

> 1) If you install into C:\Program Files\LilyPond, the supplied
>    lilypond.bat file does not work correctly - the line that does 'set
>    PATH=C:\Program Files\LilyPond\usr\bin;%PATH%' throws out a 'too
>    many parameters' error.

If you can supply a fixed version, with proper quoting, that works for
you, I'll gladly include it.

>    PATH, so the funky msdoss-ey type path (C:\PROGRA~1 or whatever it
>    is) is the way around.

This is probably not the right fix, msdos paths are only for 16 bit
legacy software, AFAIK.

> 2) The start menu and desktop get shortcuts to lilypond.bat, but when
>    you run them, you get a bunch of 'out of environment space'
>    errors. Again, this may be peculiar to WindowsME.  The way around
>    for me was to go into the shortcut properties, and change the
>    memory/initial environment setting from 'auto' to 4096.

Ok.  Glad to hear that fixed it.  We had a similar report from a
windows98.  After googling around a bit, I suggested this solution,
but I did not receive any feedback on that yet.

I also wrote a test function for the installer to warn the user about
this.  Can you test if it works (ie: pops up a warning window before
you increase the environment space, and pops up a 'Environment space
is fine' window after globally increasing the environment space), see

    http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2005-06/msg00043.html

> 3) About the lilypond.bat shortcuts, I don't really get the point -

The point is that windows users expect to be able to click a program.
I think that's a must.

> since lilypond is not a GUI program, all that happens when you double
> click on the shortcut is that it briefly shows a command window and
> then exits.

On Windows XP, an editor pops up, with a lilypond example that
explains what to do.

> 4) There's a typo in lilypond.bat - the 'goto cdw' should be 'goto
>    cwd' (doesn't match the label).

Oops, thanks.  Will be fixed in the next release.

> 5) All the documentation I've found says that lilypond converts to
>    PDF, but all I ever got were PS files.  Even the logfile explicitly
>    said it was creating a PDF, but if it did, it wasn't in the folder
>    with the .ly file, and I could never find where the PDF went.

The path to PDF is through PS.  Ghostscript converts the PS to PDF.
If you run lilypond with the --verbose switch (lilypond --verbose
foo.ly), it will log the full GS command line.  You can then run the
GS command by hand, and catch the error.  Please do so and send a full
bug report.

You may have to globally set a bigger environment and reboot for GS to
work, see

    http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2005-06/msg00008.html

> 6) When you run lilypad on a .ly file, you never even get a window -
>    it just immediately exits.

Hmm.  Lilypad works fine on Windows XP and Wine.  It's a simple
notepad clone, so you don't really need it.  I have uploaded a version
with debugging symbols

    http://lilypond.org/people/janneke/lilypad-debug.exe
    http://lilypond.org/people/janneke/lilypad-0.0.3.tar.gz (source)

can you send me a backtrace using Cygwin's gdb?  A patch is also fine,
of course :-)

> So, a few things to chew on for the 2.5.28 version...

Please help chewing.  If you don't, 2.6 will most probably be broken
for your platform.

Greetings,
Jan.

-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien       | http://www.lilypond.org