I saw the mention of chordpro related to the rendering of lyrics with chords and incorrectly assumed that there was some support for chordpro in the lyrics format :-[
I believe there would be several advantages to adopting the chordpro (http://tenbyten.com/software/songsgen/help/HtmlHelp/files_reference.htm) format:
- Import/export of chordpro would make it easier to share information with other applications that use chordpro
- Several data-fields in the repertoire-list could be populated when importing external chordpro files
- Chords inline, above or none at all could be determined by rendering preferences in the client app
- Chordpro propose standardised ways of handling things such as comments in lyrics
- The format is extensible and developers of a few other applications have agred on a set of extension to handle things such as per-user transposition and capo settings, tempo, beat etc. There is no need to reinvent the wheel if others already have made an effort to establish a standard.
The last section on this page has instructions for importing ChordPro files:
http://www.bandhelper.com/tutorials/importing_songs.html
The supported fields are Title, Artist, Key, Tempo, Time (saved as Time Signature), Pitch, Duration, Keywords/Topic (saved as Tags) and comments (saved as Notes).
This page discusses using brackets to align chords with lyrics in the built-in Lyrics field:
http://www.bandhelper.com/tutorials/adding_lyrics.html
You can also change the display of bracketed chords using Settings > Appearance > Bracketed Chords.
Even if chordpro isn't fully supported shouldn't there at least be an option to have everything between brackets rendered as chords when you support the bracket format. It looks like only strings explicitly recognized as chords are rendered as such, while it is common use of the chordpro-format to denote things such as beats and bars in instrumental parts of songs like this example:
[Em][.][G][.][|][Am][.][C][.]
Here the '.' represent a beat repeating the previous chord, and '|' is the bar separator. Some chordpro-files that are very rich on details even inject beat and bar markers inside the lyrics. Chords will obviously still have to be recognised for transposing, but the rendering of lyrics would be easier if everything in brackets simply renders as chords (above, inline or hidden according to the users preferences).
Every reference I've seen (apparently there is no definitive reference for this format) defines square brackets as delimiters for chords specifically. But I can put this on my wish list.
Quote from: arlo on October 28, 2015, 12:39:04 PM
apparently there is no definitive reference for this format
True. Chordpro never made it to a formal standard. This (http://tenbyten.com/software/songsgen/help/HtmlHelp/files_reference.htm) is the common definition most seem to use. But then there are often extensions like this example (https://linkesoft.com/songbook/chordproformat.html).
I would love to see an implementation like this: http://ukegeeks.com/songeditor
What specifically about that app would you like to see?
option for chord diagrams above words - that one only works for uke - would be great if it was switchable for guitar as well (and banjo even). Maybe asking too much, but would be sweet. Would definitely expand the scope of who might be interested though.
I don't want to get into the business of providing a diagram for every possible chord for multiple instruments ... but I'll put it on my wish list. Meanwhile, you can create lead sheets with chord diagrams in another application, save as PDF and attach the PDFs to your songs in BandHelper.
In the new app version released yesterday, any text placed in square brackets will be positioned and colored like a chord. More info about the new version is here:
http://forum.arlomedia.com/index.php/topic,1785.0.html