Music Notation Software for Linux: a Progress Report, Part 1 (Linux Journal) [LWN.net]

Dave Phillips looks at the status of the five most active notation software projects. "The essential requirements for all music notation programs include various score layout functions, data entry methods, music symbol palettes, audio output support modes and options for printing the finished score. Basic programs may include only a limited subset of the possible features, while more professional software offers more features for greater control over the details of a work. Of course, with greater control comes greater complexity. The designers of music notation programs work hard to balance ease of operation with the proliferation of features."

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Music Notation Software for Linux: a Progress Report, Part 1 (Linux Journal)

Posted Apr 1, 2009 10:23 UTC (Wed) by sean.hunter (guest, #7920) [Link]

"With greater control comes greater complexity". See? That's the problem. Sibelius can typeset anything, the output looks amazing, and yet it's a complete doddle to use. There's no reason just because something is free software it has to be a complete pain in the ass and/or look horrible, and yet all of these do look totally horrible and are also a pain in the ass to use.

Consider also the ultimate in music typesetting control: a pen. When I used to copy scores by hand with a pen I had total and complete control. And yet, a pen is incredibly simple to use.

Music Notation Software for Linux: a Progress Report, Part 1 (Linux Journal)

Posted Apr 1, 2009 15:12 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

Making a good UI takes more than programming skills. And the developers often don't see the UI defects because they spend so much time with the software that they can learn and get used to any quirk, whereas new users would face a steep learning curve.

Music Notation Software for Linux: a Progress Report, Part 1 (Linux Journal)

Posted Apr 1, 2009 15:27 UTC (Wed) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

Not the most informative of rants, Sean...

And I remember Sibelius as an extraordinarily complicated tool, way back, though not as
completely, utterly, totally ungrokkable as the insanely expensive touted-as-standard closed-
source Finale. Maybe they have improved in more than a decade of user involvement...

But for easy integration of notes and text -- turn to KOffice 2.0 (soon to be released) -- it contains
a nice, simple-to-use note editor plugin.

Music Notation Software for Linux: a Progress Report, Part 1 (Linux Journal)

Posted Apr 1, 2009 16:40 UTC (Wed) by sean.hunter (guest, #7920) [Link]

Well it has certainly improved from the days when it was just written by the two brothers. Finale is (and always has been) bonkers. But it's nowhere near as bonkers as (say) Lilypond.