Re: where (if anywhere) does lilypond look for locally shared files?

[David Wright]

On Tue 13 Apr 2021 at 10:18:17 (-0500), stefano franchi wrote:
> Thanks to all, I am aware of the various unix tricks you can use (>20 yrs
> linux-only user...), although I didn't know about the Frescobaldi settings.
> I guess I spend so much of my time in LaTeX I was expecting a similar
> solution as the default.

I don't really understand the parallel between your own templates,
functions, snippets, etc (which are just fragments of LP source code),
and texmf/, which can contain a large collection of diverse sorts of
information: fonts, classes, styles, configurations for several
different programs, etc. What's more, [La]TeX has a program, Kpathsea,
specifically for navigating its directory structure, and this alone
takes 145kB of text to describe it.

> Speaking of which, wouldn't it make sense to have it as such? I can't be
> the only one who's expecting to find local /vs/ system-wide locations. Or
> then again I must have been using unix-derivatives for too long and take
> that for granted. I really have no idea how Windows and Mac users deal with
> installation issues.

As I see it, before you can decide where to keep said Local data, you
have to decide whether you're using only the linux distribution's
version of LP, or whether you're going to download versions from the
LP website.

If the latter, then you still have to decide whether to install a
version in your own home directory, or make it available to all by
installing it in /usr/local/. So now you have, potentially, three
different versions to accomodate with your Local tree, even if you
only install one version in ~. Many people install several (as I do).

If you were charged with deciding where the root of this tree should
be, would you be a "bully" (as some might call texlive) and create
~/lilypond, or add several versioned dotfiles, like ~/.lilypond2182,
~/.lilypond2220, etc. Or would you take the ~/.config/lilypond route,
like frescobaldi.

Whatever your choice, it would have to potentially accomodate several
LP versions, and also be a location compatible with several linux
distributions. With a few exceptions, like Python, it's unusual for
systems to simultaneously support more than one version of a program.

> Anyways, I'll shut up now, thanks again to everyone.

Yes, I'd better, too.

> On Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 8:43 AM Jacques Menu wrote:
> > Le 13 avr. 2021 à 06:00, stefano franchi a écrit :
> >
> > So there is no way to indicate a system-wide or user-dependent location.
> > Too bad. I'm sure I'll  forget the --include directive every other time...
> >>
> > You can add this to .bashrc or in a file executed by the latter:
> >
> > alias lilypond=‘PATH/TO/lilypond -include PATH/TO/INCLUDE/DIR’

Cheers,
David.