I did a quick check on backports.org and lilypond.org, and the situation seems to be as bad as I remember it:
- there is no Lilypond for Lenny on backports.org
- Lilypond still comes with the installer for "all" Debian platforms, but since I have already ruined my server installation once with that package, I am a bit wary of this.
- compiling Lilypond still looks very involved - tons of dependencies, and I am not sure all of those are already part of Lenny with the required versions.

If any Lenny and/or Lilypond expert reads this: I would be grateful for advice on how to best provide a more recent Lilypond version without ruining the Lenny installation!

- Rainer

rt,
thanks for your speedy reply.
2007? Yeah, that starts making sense :)
Well, I have very little experience with Debian, so in order not to give some silly "tips", I'd better leave that to the experienced Debian guys :-(

BTW, as we are here:
\include "gregorian.ly" does not work either.

If anyone comes along and wants to enter something really ancient (using neums and all that jazz), he will fail, because \including this file gives an error. Hell knows why.

Could be. It is the version that comes with the current stable Debian distribution (Lenny), thus 2.10.33, apparently from 2007.

Do you maybe know if there is some backport that I could install on the Lenny server without breaking other things or otherwise incurring too much pain?
I believe to remember that compiling Lilypond from source is not for the faint of heart.

I too have a question to this:

Could it be that this site uses a somewhat ANCIENT version of Lilypond?

I've delved thru the documentation (RTFM, you know =))

http://kainhofer.com/~lilypond/ajax/Documentation/notation/writing-parts.html#index-_005ctempo

but this does not yet work on Musipedia:

\tempo \markup { \italic Faster } 4 = 132
a8-. r8 b-. r gis-. r a-. r

Namely it's the "\tempo \markup" combination which is not accepted by the old versions.
I get nothing but syntax errors. :/

Now the old Lilypond converter is resuscitated:
http://www.musipedia.org/lilypond.html
There you can experiment with Lilypond as much as you want, and even download the results as nice-looking PDF files (and as MIDI files as well).

I agree, that should be added.
Where would you find it more natural - as a global property of the whole theme, and therefore underneath the grid (together with properties such as the time signature), or as something inside the pop-up window for notes? I guess you would need the latter for clef changes.
This reminds me - there should also be an easier way of entering the upbeat duration - I was thinking about a drop-down box with typical durations such as 1 quarter, 2 quarters, 3 eighth notes etc., plus a free-text field for atypical durations.



There was such a thing at http://lilypond.musipedia.org, but it appears to be broken at the moment. I'll try to fix it and post something here when it is ready again.

Would there by any way that a clef feature could be added to the simplified Lilypond editor for those of us (assuming I'm not the only one) that don't know Lilypond well enough to just enter Lilypond source code.

Or, maybe a way to preview what's in the text area?

If not, is there a website I could use to preview the code before I try and paste it here? Thanks in advance for your help.

The new editor is online.

Now there are 3 possibilities of entering music:
1. abc (known to Folk music fans)
2. "simplified Lilypond": a grid where one can either click on the pen icon to get a pop-up window that makes it possible to enter music just by pointing and clicking. Once one is familiar enough with Lilypond, one can also simply directly enter notes and lyrics into the grid, which is much faster than using the popup window. This grid editor is nice for Lilypond novices.
3. free text area for complete Lilypond files.

Once one has decided on one of the three possibilities, an entry's format can no longer be switched to a different format.

Migration of the old data:
abc -> abc
Lilypond -> 3. (free text area)

So, only new entries can use the grid editor.

Thank you for this answer!

Currently, there is no way of tweaking this.
But I hope to improve the editor soon.
This is what I am planning:
- a spreadsheet-like grid of double cells; each cell can hold a note in its upper half and, optionally, lyrics in the lower half. Seasoned Lilypond users can simply enter the notes in Lilypond syntax and move from cell to cell with the tab key or cursor keys, while for less experienced users, each cell will have a link to a pop-up window that can help fill the cell in a syntactically correct way (simply by clicking at the desired pitch on a piano keyboard and the desired note shape etc.). It will also be possible to easily insert or delete cells. Since one can directly edit the cell contents, it should be possible to enter music quickly and painlessly, but with the optional pop-up window, one will always have help at one's fingertips in case one has forgotten how to add a slur, tie, rest, or how to specify the octave or duration correctly.
- a text area for true Lilypond experts where one can simply paste Lilypond source code which won't be modified very much, or not at all, by the server. This mode will offer almost all or all features of Lilypond.

Since the two modes will be incompatible (with the free text, one could easily enter things that are not parseable for the spreadsheet editor), it will be impossible to switch from one to the other once something has been entered.