On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Daniel Taupin wrote:
> Here is what I read on a list dedicated to Free Softwares (a subsidiary
> of ATTAC group):
>
> > En édition de partitions et écriture musicale c'est Finale et Encore.
> > Point à la ligne (il y en a d'autres avec des spécificités... mais ce
> > ne sont pas des libres).
>
I have heard similar statements in professional musician newsgroups.
When correcting the information, I heared that musixtex does not count
because it is so difficult to learn that only a few specialists are able
to master it and that the program is not suitable for normal practical
musicians.
For this and several other reasons I recommended earlier
to include in the musixtex documentation the possibility to use preprocessors
and to include in the musixtex package the preprocessors which make
learning musixtex easy. While the mikTeX distribution does include musixtex,
it does not contain musixflex and is thus useless for normal practical work.
The different linux distributions contain musixflex but not the preprocessors.
While I agree that for real professional typesetting
one has to learn musixtex and have to know TeX, preprocessors allow all
what is necessary for the majority of the typesetting jobs of an organist
or a choir conductor. The deterring statement of Hans Kuykens right at the
beginning of the musixtex documentation is thus in my opinion not true anymore.
I described the advantages to colleagues only to learn that they tried to
load musixtex
but had a hard time or failed because they had to download huge files from
several sites; they wanted to have a CD with a installation program and
they wanted an easy introduction. However,
Cataldis instructive introduction is only available in Italian and French,
an English translation has been announced but is still missing. A German
translation would also be of help: many practical musicians are not fluent
in foreign languages.
To say it bluntly: the musixtex program is phantastic as any user will
testify, but there are many -- in my opinion unnecessary -- stumbling
blocks to get a higher practical impact. About a year ago, I contacted
the authors of the
pertaining programs (also you, Daniel) and volunteered to advocate
improving musixtex
installation at the TeX distributors for Windows and linux systems, but got
only the permission from Don Simons to include his preprocessor. I repeat
therefore my proposal:
1) the musixtex packages of the distributors whould contain also the preprocessors
and their documentation and particularly the executables for Windows OSs,
2) in addition to the existing documentation, an instructive introductory
documentation for newcomers is required. An English translation of Luigi's
nice documentation would fill this place.
Greetings,
Christof
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