[DamoS]

Hi all
For text file rendering: does anyone know if there is a way to select a different colour and/or font size just for the comments text?
EG: I'd like to be able to make the comments text blue and a bit smaller that the rest of the text (chords, lyrics).
Thanks!

[Zubersoft]

While I could add more settings to control the formatting of comments, this actually requires a significant number of code changes, changes to the database, and takes up more room on the settings dialog (which is getting too full and I may need to consider a different design at some point). I think it would be better if you can utilize the pango markup syntax, which gives you full control over the formatting of any text in your file. For example, if you wanted to make the font larger for a comment and change the color, you could do this:

<span color="red" size="18">This is my comment</span>

another variant

<span color="red" size="larger">This is my comment</span>

The larger value maps to a 25% increase over the current font size at that point in the file. You can read more about the pango markup syntax here: https://www.chordpro.org/chordpro/chordpro_markup/

It's going to be a while before I have time to work on it, but I want to integrate the pango markup syntax with the text editor to make it much easier to control the styling.

Mike

[DamoS]

Thanks - this will work well for me.

[itsme]

@Mike: I thought you are reworking the ChordPro features for one of the next 'big updates'? Am I wrong?

[Zubersoft]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm working on. I have chord grids fully implemented and working, I've added support for ABC sections and files, lowercase chords are now accepted (with a setting to control that behavior), and I'm working on the prefined page sizes and chord diagrams. Adding settings specifically for comments wasn't on my list of things to do though. Was that something you previously asked for? I know you talked about reworking some of the settings, but I don't have a concrete design in mind for that at the moment. I'm just going through one thing at a time right now.

Mike

[Zubersoft]

Okay, I found your old post: https://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/f...-8264.html

You did talk about adding separate settings for comments and such. While I could have a popup window to contain additional settings, or split the dialog into multiple parts, my preference is to utilize pango markup instead of having 30-40 different settings (font, color, bold, italic, size, etc) users would have to individually configure. The pango markup syntax already lets you set up all of this, but I recognize that this requires editing files and the editor does not support it well, whereas settings could be configured and applied to many songs at once. I just don't know that I want to add 50+ new database fields to track all this information... I'm going to have to think on this some more.

Mike

[Zubersoft]

So I have some potential ideas for how I would set this up. I think the current approach of having a "simple" mode with slider that changes all the text sizes at once, and provide basic settings for chord colors and such is how I want to leave that. If the user switches to "Advanced", I will no longer use sliders and such, and would just have a button per thing the user can configure, such as

title
subtitle
chorus tab
comment
comment_italic
comment_box

and so on. If a button is tapped, it pops up a floating window with a slider for the size, a font selection, bold, italic, color and any other settings specific to that thing. 

This will mean a significant number of new database fields, reworking the existing dialog almost entirely with a huge number of non-trivial UI changes, and an enormous amount of changes across the entire text file and chord pro functionality. If I had to guess, this will push back the development at least a full month, if not more, to properly support all of this across all three platforms (and the companion app), as I still have to spend around 60% of every day on customer support. So I would really like to hear that this is strongly desired and needed from as many users that care as possible. I'm also still not done with all the existing chord pro work I want to complete for the next update (chord diagrams with all of the necessary UI support and settings, support for as many chord pro directives as possible, and fixed page sizes).

The fewer users that respond to this, the harder it will be for me to gauge it's importance compared to other features such as:

• annotation additions (dynamic tools like a slur tool, single line staff, more stamps, moving annotations between layers, synchronizing annotations with book mode, etc)
  
• song versioning
  
• more custom group fields
  
• groups of setlists and collections
  
• options to copy MIDI commands
  
• turning pages at certain positions in audio playback
  
• the filters rework with the new side panel to allow users to pick which filters to display and in what order
  
• support for multiple monitors
  
• library storage isolation and options to more quickly switch libraries (and see which library is active)
  
• support for tabs of loaded songs/setlists
  
• setlist archiving
  
• song metrics
  
• CSV importing to update metadata and support for CSVs that list multiple PDFs
  
• coloring of library entries
  
• a tuner
  
• an onscreen piano keyboard
  

Those are just a few of things on my list. It's really hard to figure out what is most important to people, because I get so many different requests. Right now, I'm getting very few requests for chord pro changes, so I'm starting to think I may be prioritizing things incorrectly. So I need to hear from more users.

Thanks,
Mike

[itsme]

Well, my request for more text properties is from 2022, my request for a chord chart feature (that that seems to have triggered chord grids to be included into ChordPro by Sciurius) is from 2015 https://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/f...-3124.html - so it won't be too dramatic to wait another month or two ;-)
Pango is a great extension of ChordPro, but it's not a convenient replacement for general text properties. Using lots of Pango directives within a song makes the source file pretty unreadable and breaks the compatibility with other ChordPro programs or websites (like e.g. Ultimate Guitar) that don't support it.
I could imagine that not all properties have to be 'per song' settings. Text size definitely has to be per song, whereas colour or font could be general settings different for e.g. comment, comment italic, lyrics etc. but the same for all ChordPro songs in a library. That would save a number of database changes, but I'm not sure if it really would make the implementation easier.

[RoSong]

I use chordpro files a lot (I use pdfs  Just as much, so I appreciate being able to have so many features for both in one program!)

Many of these I personally would take advantage of, if implemented. I wouldn't use the charts myself, as I play the piano, but I'm glad you're adding them for the many guitarists out there. 

Since Mike added it, I have started using pango markup and it's quite helpful. I have found that the quotes are not necessary. 

I like to use blue text for instructions I want add to a comment line, like change key, repeat, etc. Like:

{c:Chorus - <span color=red>Key Change</span>}

This will result in just the words "Key Change" being red. It will already be italicized because it's inside the comment tag. Nothing else can be on that same line outside of the {c: } as it will be ignored. 

My favorite discovery is the word "oblique." I use it to add an instruction to the lyrics line. Oblique will give the same angle of slant as the italicized comment lines. <i> and </i> will work, but produces a more slanty slant, so I don't like it. <b> and </b> work as expected.

So for a made up example:
[C]He's [G]al - [C]right.    <span style=oblique color=blue>Last time, repeat</span>

Will add blue italicized text at the end of that lyric line, and the slant matches the same slant the comment {c: } lines natuarlly have, instead of be too slanted. (in my opinion)

Or
[C]He's [G]al - [C]right.    (<b><span style=oblique color=blue>Last time, repeat</span>(/b>

If you want the same thing, but the text will also be bold. 

If you want to affect a chord, it's a little awkward. The pango has to be put inside the brackets for each one. 

[<b><span style=oblique color=red background=yellow>C</span></b>]This is a Chord

This will produce a red italicized C with a yellow background. Not necessary, since we have settings for the chords already. But if you want to affect just one chord, or color an instruction that you want on the chord line by using the * this works well.

  [C]This is a Chord    [<span style=oblique color=blue>*Play 3x</span>]

This produces a blue italicized instruction that sits on the chord line instead of the lyric line. Note that I only told it oblique and blue, but it will also automatically be bold if you've chosen for chords to be bold in the settings. 

The word foreground also works in place of color and in addition to the basic color names, you can put in any hex number, #00DBFF for turquoise, for instance. (Be sure to include the #)

Hope this helps.

[spflmf]

Another user eagerly awaiting chordpro enhancements, PDF use almost zero I need to be able to zoom text and have it reflow. Annotations of limited use until they are anchored to the text where they were created so they stay in the same place in the song when zooming, maybe that's another chordpro enhancement? 

With chord diags it would be fabulous to have the option not to display them but to have the corresponding diag pop up when a chord is clicked on. 

Thanks Mike, looking forward to the chordpro enhancements