You must have Python 2.5, 2.6 or 2.7 installed to run Abjad.
Abjad does not yet support the Python 3.x series of releases.
To check the version of Python installed on your computer type the following:
python --version
You can download different versions of Python at http://www.python.org.
You must have LilyPond 2.12 or greater installed for Abjad to work properly.
You can download LilyPond at http://www.lilypond.org.
After you have installed LilyPond you should type the following to see if LilyPond is callable from your commandline:
lilypond --version
If LilyPond is not callable from your commandline you should add the location of the LilyPond executable to your PATH environment variable.
If you are new to working with the commandline you should use Google to get a basic introduction to editing your profile and setting environment variables.
There are different ways to install Python packages on your computer. One of the most direct ways is with easy_install.
If you have easy_install installed on your computer then you can install Abjad with this command:
sudo easy_install -U abjad
Python will install Abjad in the site packages directory on your computer and you’ll be ready to start using the system.
If you do not have easy_install installed on your computer then you should follow the instructions below to install the current packaged version of Abjad from the Python Package Index.
If you do not have easy_install installed on your computer you should follow these steps to install the current packaged version of Abjad from the Python Package Index:
Download the current release of Abjad from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Abjad.
Unarchive the downloaded file. Under MacOS and Windows you can double click the archived file.
Under Linux execute the following command with x.y replaced by the current release of Abjad:
tar xzvf Abjad-x.y.tar.gz
Change into the directory created in step 2:
cd Abjad-x.y
Run the following under MacOS or Linux:
sudo python setup.py install
Or run this command under Windows after starting up a command shell with administrator privileges:
setup.py install
These commands will cause Python to install Abjad in your site packages directory. You’ll then be ready to start using Abjad.
When first run, Abjad creates an .abjad directory in your own $HOME directory. In $HOME/.abjad you will find the Abjad configuration file: config.py. Here you can tell Abjad about your preferred PDF file viewer, MIDI player, your preferred LilyPond language, etc. All relevant variables have defaults that you can change to suit your needs. In Linux, for example, you might want to set your pdfviewer to evince and your MIDIplayer to tiMIDIty.
config.py is a regular Python file, so you should make sure the file follows Python syntax.
Abjad defaults to xdg-open to display PDF files using your default PDF viewer. Most Linux distributions now come with xdg-utils installed.
If you do not have xdg-utils installed, you can download it from http://www.portland.freedsektop.org.
Alternatively you can set the pdfviewer variable in $HOME/.abjad/config to your favorite PDF viewer.