Re: on marketing

[Richard Shann]

On Tue, 2013-12-10 at 15:53 -0500, Carl Peterson wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 3:31 PM, Richard Shann
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>         
>         
>         only some people are interested in "everything", many want
>         just their
>         own bits of interest.
>         Denemo is customizable to a great extent, all menus and
>         palettes can be
>         modified; most users will not do so, but it would be possible
>         to create
>         specialized versions of Denemo for many different areas of
>         interest.
>         
>         Richard
> 
> 
> Agreed. But consider this. One of the things that the Adobe Creative
> Suite programs have is customizable workspaces. They have a number of
> workflow-specific workspaces (for print production or typography,
> etc.), but then they also have workspaces that emulate other Creative
> Suite programs so that you can work in one program similarly to
> another. For instance, when I use Adobe Illustrator, I can use the
> "Like Photoshop" workspace if I'm familiar with that program, or "Like
> InDesign" if I'm familiar with it. The workspaces aren't 100%
> identical, since each has its own set of tools, but it makes it easier
> to use. The workspace customization includes menu options, toolbars
> and palettes (and perhaps a couple of other things I can't think of
> offhand).
> 
> 
> Similarly, you could offer the user a "Like Finale" or "Like Sibelius"
> or "Like MuseScore" environment. While not identical, a similar logic
> to how those palettes/toolbars are constructed could be applied to
> ease the learning curve. This would not require specialized
> "versions," per se, so much as preconfigured preferences, perhaps?

I introduced a "profiles" feature a while back but it is currently
disabled because it requires people familiar with each environment to
actively update each profile as the program develops; the one of
particular interest to the LilyPond users on this list is one that means
that the typing of note-names and durations mimics \relative mode in a
LilyPond editor (with the advantage that you immediately see if you have
gone into the wrong octave, whereon you press , or ' to correct).

The palettes (which are new to Denemo) are entirely customizable by the
user - position, order of elements, aspect ratio, icon, tooltip and even
the command it runs can tweaked by the user to have a different
behavior. So providing "look-alike" palettes would be entirely possible.

Having said that, I imagine a vast amount of stuff in those programs is
just not needed when using Denemo/LilyPond because the typesetting is
done for you. If you *do* need to tweak the typesetting then I think the
departure from familiarity is inevitable at present (is Schicker's List
heading in the direction of visually manipulating LilyPond's grobs?).

Richard