[sciurius]

ChoPro has the "comment_italic" (short: ci) directive that is intended to produce comments that stand out. Originally, the text was rendered in italics (hence the name), but modern day technology allows other ways to make it stand out.
I kindly request support for {comment_italic} and {ci} and propose to render the text just like ordinary comments, but with a coloured background.

[itsme]

MS has implemented {highlight:some highlighted text} which is not standard ChordPro. Could that do what you need?

[sciurius]

As you correctly state, {highlightome highlighted text} is not standard ChordPro. I would very much like to keep my ChoPro files standards conformant.

If highlight does the same as comment_italic I wonder why it was implemented instead of the standard comment_italic/ci .

[Zubersoft]

Sure, I can make {comment_italic} act like the current highlight if you would like. I could see some people being confused by this, as the name doesn't reflect what it actually does, but you're the only one to ask for it so far, so I doubt most people will notice.

[sciurius]

I'm the first one to agree that comment_italic is a very unfortunate choice for this. The ChoPro standard has evolved over a looooong time...

[itsme]

The problem with ChordPro is that it is not really a standard. It is rather incomplete and not really evolving. The originators left years ago and there's no officially responsible person or instition any more. 'The complete ChordPro standard' does not exist anywhere, neither as a an implementation nor as a description. This leads to the situation that every ChordPro application is different and has its own individual extensions.

[sciurius]

As the MobileSheetsPro documentation states:

The chord pro specification can be found at the following website:
http://www.vromans.org/johan/projects/Chordii/chordpro/

I am the current maintainer of the original Chord program (now called Chordii) and the ChordPro specification.

Note that I do not blame *any* implementation for inventing its own directives, that's just the way it is. However, if it is possible to adhere (or stay close) to the standard, why not do so?

[itsme]

Hello Johan,
Good to know that there is an official maintainer of the ChordPro format and great that you take part in the discussions that are going on in the MS forum.
Knowing now that Chordie is the 'official reference implementation' I'm going to install it and give it a try. 

[DTownSMR]

Good to know that there is an official maintainer of the ChordPro format and great that you take part in the discussions that are going on in the MS forum.

I'll second the thanks that you have taken over ownership and for your participation here.

As the MobileSheetsPro documentation states:

The chord pro specification can be found at the following website:
http://www.vromans.org/johan/projects/Chordii/chordpro/

I am the current maintainer of the original Chord program (now called Chordii) and the ChordPro specification.

Note that I do not blame *any* implementation for inventing its own directives, that's just the way it is. However, if it is possible to adhere (or stay close)  to the standard, why not do so?

IMHO, if a specification is to survive it needs to be alive. I don't think it's realistic to expect a specification to be static and have folks conform. Things are changing so fast these days. There needs to be a process to manage specification changes. Take for instance the {comment_italic} directive, by your own admission it's lacking in today's environment. So change it. Mark it as a deprecated directive and create a more meaningful one. Develop some standards on how folks should implement both the generation & the digestion of the format.

Perhaps you already have something in place but I suggest that a community of the major consumers of the specification the more likely you'll have a standard and less proprietary directives. The more that participate the better. I know the onSong app has a number of what I would consider highly useful directives. I think an active community would do wonders for the momentum of the specification. Probably a developers mailing list and/or forum on sourceforge or github or something. A place to share files & ideas. 

Just a thought.