I. Intro

This is a beta release of niff2ly, a tiny program to convert
NIFF into lilypond. I appreciate all comments and bug reports.
Send them to rutger@cs.vu.nl.

This is a beta release, not a "production" release. The first
notable missing feature is a full-fledged and fool-proof
voicing analysis in the case where there are multiple voices
in a staff. niff2ly has some voice analysis but it is far from
smart. Besides, there is no support at all yet for lyrics, although
both NIFF and lilypond provide lyrics support. Ma~nana...

II. Build

Before building niff2ly, you need two other packages:

1. The NIFF sdk from
   http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/Belkin/NIFF.doc.html
   or cached at http://www.cs.vu.nl/~rutger/software/niff-1.02.tbz2
2. The GNU abritrary precision package gmp from a GNU mirror.
   Start from www.gnu.org.

Install both these packages.

Then, create a directory where you want to install niff2ly.
I call it NIFF2LY from here on. cd into NIFF2LY. Unpack the tar
file with

  tar zxf niff2ly-x-y.tgz

(x = major release number, y = minor release number); it arrives
automatically in NIFF2LY/niff2ly-x.y/. cd into NIFF2LY/niff2ly-x.y/.
Read this file (README).

You must configure niff2ly:

  ./configure --niff-root=<top level dir of your niff sdk install>

Then build niff2ly:

  make

optionally followed by

  make install

Default target directory for make install is /usr/local/bin.
You can specify otherwise at configure time: do configure --help
and follow instructions.

III. Run

Do

  NIFF2LY/niff2ly-x.y/niff2ly bla.nif -o bla.ly

to convert your niff file bla.nif into bla.ly.