ChordPro Format

[ElleBiba]

Hi there,

Is it really necessary to put square brackets around every chord? 

To save myself some work, I always set chords like this: 
Intro: 
[|Gm      |Cm      |Gm      |A       |] 
[|Gm      |Cm      |Gm      |A       |] 

[|Gm      |Gm      |] 

This also displays properly. But if I want to transpose, these chords don't get transposed. 

However, I do need the bar lines. Do I have to put every bar line in square brackets as well? If I do that, the alignment no longer works correctly. 

Do you have any recommendations?

[arlo]

Since you have some chords embedded into the lyrics with square brackets, then yes, you do need to put every chord in square brackets.

I've never considered mixing ChordPro formatting with a section of bar lines like you're doing. I would recommend leaving the square brackets out of that first section and doing the chord coloring and transposing manually if you need to do that.

Alternatively, you can put sections of just chords in the Chords field as shown in step 8 on this page:

https://www.bandhelper.com/tutorials/adding_lyrics.html

[ElleBiba]

Hi Arlo,

I've never considered mixing ChordPro formatting with a section of bar lines like you're doing. I would recommend leaving the square brackets out of that first section and doing the chord coloring and transposing manually if you need to do that.

I would really welcome exactly that in the ChordPro tools. So using bar lines (pipes) and colons (for repeats) as symbols that are interpreted by ChordPro.

Maybe you'll find the time to program that in as well.

In any case, your suggestion to implement the chords in the chord window is unfortunately not suitable for my project. (I am a keyboardist and singer and have to focus on both the lyrics and the different chords – which can sometimes change completely from verse to chorus.)

[arlo]

I'll put support for a mixture of bracketed and unbracketed chords on my wish list.

Meanwhile, I think using the Chords field for just the Intro chords in your example would work well, because those intro chords are at the top of the lyrics field anyway. The chords field would sit in the same place on top of the lyrics.

[ElleBiba]

It would be much easier to enter if you didn't put every character in brackets, but only at the beginning and end.

In the first line, I have written the line as an example the way I imagine it, the second line is currently the necessary one.

Instrumental
[| A - - - | A - - - | A - - - | E - - - |]
[|][E - - -][|][E - - -][|][E - - -][|][A - - -][|]

In the app view, both lines look the same, but if you want to transpose them, currently only the second one is transposed correctly – the first one just stays the same.

[arlo]

I don't recommend trying to use square brackets in the section of chords that you're also organizing with bar lines. I recommend either leaving that section alone and coloring and transposing it manually if needed, or moving it to the Chords field.

[ElleBiba]

Why shouldn't I use bar lines in the lyrics?

This gives me the opportunity to also have chord charts in the middle of the text.

Would that be an idea for your wish list?

[arlo]

I added it to my wish list, but you can use one of the other approaches I offered in the meantime.

[ElleBiba]

Okay!
Thank you for your quick response and your amazing work!

[arlo]

You're welcome!