manuals page [WAS Re: teaching a university module on engraving with lilypond]

[Federico Bruni]

2015-04-27 17:25 GMT+02:00 Kevin Barry <address@hidden>:

>
> You know http://benlemon.me/blog/music/lilypond/operation-lilypond
>> ?
>
>
> No I didn't know about this, and thank you for linking it. I will take a
> good look.
>

This is listed here under "Other material":
http://www.lilypond.org/website/manuals.html

Kevin probably missed it because he doesn't check that page often. But
anyway it's not that easy to spot.
I took a few seconds to look at that page with critical eyes and found that
it could be improved a lot. As is, it's a kind of strict list which doesn't
really guide a new user through the manuals.

I wonder if Urs already started some work in this area, but I know he has
more compelling tasks at the moment.

Some thoughts:

- remove Regular use vs Infrequent use sections
- move FAQ and Video tutorials in the Introduction section, which could be
renamed to First steps or New users or Introduction for new users
- I'd rather use a conversational approach instead of unordered lists:
"Please be aware that LilyPond is a text-based(link) music engraver and
read the FAQ(link) before...". "You can see LilyPond in action in the
following video tutorials made by Ben Lemon... (a small iframe of youtube
video would be great). Then explain that the first manual to be read should
be Learning and Usage, followed by Notation.
- All other manuals are for regular or advanced users.
- I would put a list of all the manuals at the end (or on the right column)
and the Manual formats section could be an introduction to this list.

So a possible layout could be a 2 column page: on the left two sections
(New users, Advanced users) and on the right the manual list.