
          This is the toplevel README to LilyPond

LilyPond  is the GNU Project music typesetter.  This program
can print beautiful sheet  music  from  a  music  definition
file.   It  can  also play mechanical performances to a MIDI
file.  Features  include  multiple  staffs,  meters,  clefs,
keys,  lyrics,  versatile  input  language, cadenzas, beams,
slurs,  triplets,  named  chords,  transposing,   formatting
scores, part extraction.  It includes a nice font of musical
symbols.

1: VERSIONING

LilyPond uses a versioning scheme similar to the Linux  ker-
nel.   In  a  version  "x.y.z",  an  even  second number 'y'
denotes a stable version.  For development versions  'y'  is
odd.  For using straightforward score production, please use
the latest stable version.   Development  versions  may  not
produce good or nice scores.

If you have downloaded a

*.pre*

version,  then  this is version is *not* meant for producing
nice output (but to keep your patchsets  up  to  date).   It
might  not even compile.  The same goes for a version with a
4th version number, eg

1.2.3.mypatch2

It will be safer if you download 1.2.3 or wait for 1.2.4.

2: REQUIREMENTS

For the compilation and running of LilyPond  you  need  some
additional  packages.   Please  refer  to  the  installation
instructions.

NOTE: If you downloaded a binary  (.rpm  or  a  W95/NT  .zip
file), then you don't have to compile LilyPond.

3: INSTALLATION

For  your  convenience,  a  formatted  copy  of  the INSTALL
instructions are in the toplevel directory, as INSTALL.txt

The process is fairly straightforward, but chances are  that
you  have  to specify directories for  to configure: this is
done with the options --enable-tex-dir and --enable-mf-dir

4: DOCUMENTATION

The real documentation is the directory Documentation/

To generate the pretty-printed docs, you have to run config-
ure first, and then do this:

make doc

You  can  also  simply read the .yo sources.  They are ASCII
text.  The complete documentation is accessible in formatted
form  at the website http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/hanwen/lily-
pond/index.html

5: COMMENTS

LilyPond is a long way from finished and  polished.   We  do
appreciate criticism, comments, bugreports, patches, etc.

Please send your e-mail to one of the MAILING LISTS

and  not  to  us personally.  See Documentation/links.yo for
more info.

6: WINDOWS 32

If you have received this file as  part  of  a  DOS/Window32
distribution  (lilypond-*.zip), then it is advisable to also
download the source package, since  it  might  contain  more
documentation ftp://ftp.cs.uu.nl/pub/GNU/LilyPond/

If you decide to build LilyPond from source, please read the
INSTALL.txt document first,  especially  the  Windows  NT/95
section.

7: CAVEATS

*  Please read the file BUGS for some ugly bugs.  This espe-
cially applies Linux-Intel unix users.

* If you have installed  a  previous  version,  be  sure  to
remove old font files, eg

     rm `find /var/lib/texmf/fonts -name 'feta*'`

a  script  to  do  this  for  you  is in buildscripts/clean-
fonts.sh

8: CDROM DISTRIBUTIONS

If you have received LilyPond on a cdrom, chances  are  that
development  has  moved a some patchlevels up.  If possible,
please check the latest version of LilyPond before reporting
bugs.
