chords

An easily customizable Kotlin multi-platform View to display guitar (and other stringed instrument) chords. Simple to use and beautifully designed.

Building the library

The library is provided through Bintray. Checkout the releases page to get the latest version.

Repository

repositories {
    maven {
        url = uri("https://dl.bintray.com/chrynan/chrynan")
    }
}
Kotlin

Dependencies

Core Kotlin Common:

implementation("com.chrynan.chords:chords-core:VERSION")
Kotlin

Core Kotlin JVM:

implementation("com.chrynan.chords:chords-core-jvm:VERSION")
Kotlin

Core Kotlin JS:

implementation("com.chrynan.chords:chords-core-js:VERSION")
Kotlin

Android Library:

implementation("com.chrynan.chords:chords-android:VERSION")
Kotlin

Using the library

There are a few main components to using the library:

  • ChordWidget is the ChordView implementation that displays the chord.
  • ChordChart is a class that represents information about the chord chart that will be displayed.
  • Chord is a class that represents the markers on a chord that will be displayed.

Creating an instance of ChordWidget

Android:

<!-- Specify an exact size (MATCH_PARENT, MATCH_CONSTRAINTS, DP value). -->
<com.chrynan.chords.widget.ChordWidget
    android:id="@+id/chordWidget"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
XML

Kotlin JS:

val widget = ChordWidget(htmlCanvas)
Kotlin

Assigning a ChordChart to a ChordWidget

chordWidget?.chart = ChordChart(
                         fretStart = FretNumber(1),
                         fretEnd = FretNumber(2),
                         stringCount = 6,
                         stringLabels = setOf(
                             StringLabel(string = StringNumber(1), label = "e"),
                             StringLabel(string = StringNumber(2), label = "B"),
                             StringLabel(string = StringNumber(3), label = "G"),
                             StringLabel(string = StringNumber(4), label = "D"),
                             StringLabel(string = StringNumber(5), label = "A"),
                             StringLabel(string = StringNumber(6), label = "E")))
Kotlin

Creating a Chord using the DSL

val chord = chord("G") {
            +ChordMarker.Note(
                    fret = FretNumber(3),
                    finger = Finger.MIDDLE,
                    string = StringNumber(6)
            )
            +ChordMarker.Note(
                    fret = FretNumber(2),
                    finger = Finger.INDEX,
                    string = StringNumber(5)
            )
            +ChordMarker.Open(string = StringNumber(4))
            +ChordMarker.Open(string = StringNumber(3))
            +ChordMarker.Note(
                    fret = FretNumber(3),
                    finger = Finger.RING,
                    string = StringNumber(2)
            )
            +ChordMarker.Note(
                    fret = FretNumber(3),
                    finger = Finger.PINKY,
                    string = StringNumber(1)
            )
        }
Kotlin

Assigning a Chord to a ChordWidget

chordWidget?.chord = chord
Kotlin

Note: This library doesn't try to coerce values to fit into a chart or exclude values that exceed the chart bounds. If the ChordChart and Chord have inconsistent values, the ChordWidget may look peculiar.
It's important for the user of the library to properly handle coordinating the different components.

Parsing Chords from other formats

The ChordParser interface takes in an input type and outputs a ChordParseResult. This interface can be implemented for different format input types. There are a couple provided ChordParser implementations.

AsciiChordParser:

AsciiChordParser parses a String input of an ASCII Chord Diagram and outputs a ChordParseResult containing a Chord.

val chordDiagram = """
            C
    e |-----0------|
    B |-----1------|
    G |-----0------|
    D |-----2------|
    A |-----3------|
    E |------------|
""".trimIndent()

val parser = AsciiChordParser()

launch {
    // parse() is a suspending function and needs to be called from another suspending
    // function or a coroutine
    val result = parser.parse(chordDiagram)

    val chord: Chord = result.chord
    val stringLabels: Set<StringLabel> = result.stringLabels
    val baseFret: FretNumber? = result.baseFret
}
Kotlin

ChordProParser:

ChordProParser parses a String input of a Chord Pro (Chord or Define) Directive and outputs a ChordParseResult containing a Chord.

val chordDiagram = "{define: Bes base-fret 1 frets 1 1 3 3 3 1 fingers 1 1 2 3 4 1}"

val parser = ChordProParser()

launch {
    // parse() is a suspending function and needs to be called from another suspending
    // function or a coroutine
    val result = parser.parse(chordDiagram)
    
    val chord: Chord = result.chord
    val stringLabels: Set<StringLabel> = result.stringLabels
    val baseFret: FretNumber? = result.baseFret
}
Kotlin

Customizing the appearance

ChordWidget implements the ChordView interface which contains properties to alter the appearance of the view.

ChordView:

interface ChordView {

    ...

    var fitToHeight: Boolean

    var showFretNumbers: Boolean

    var showFingerNumbers: Boolean

    var stringLabelState: StringLabelState

    var mutedStringText: String

    var openStringText: String

    var fretColor: ColorInt

    var fretLabelTextColor: ColorInt

    var stringColor: ColorInt

    var stringLabelTextColor: ColorInt

    var noteColor: ColorInt

    var noteLabelTextColor: ColorInt

    ...
}
Kotlin

Updating properties directly on ChordWidget:

chordWidget?.noteColor = Color.BLUE
chordWidget?.openStringText = "o"
Kotlin

Note: That in Kotlin JS, you have to explicitly call the render() function after updating properties on the ChordWidget.

Updating properties using a ViewModel and Binder:

val binder = ChordViewBinder(chordWidget)
        
val viewModel = ChordViewModel(
                    fretColor = Color.BLACK,
                    fretLabelTextColor = Color.WHITE,
                    stringLabelTextColor = Color.BLACK,
                    stringColor = Color.BLACK,
                    noteColor = Color.BLACK,
                    noteLabelTextColor = Color.WHITE)

binder.bind(viewModel)
Kotlin

Note: That in Kotlin JS, there is a convenience function ChordViewBinder.bindAndRender() which will bind the properties from the ChordViewModel to the ChordWidget and call render().

Updating properties in Android XML:

<com.chrynan.chords.widget.ChordWidget
        android:id="@+id/chordWidget"
        android:layout_width="200dp"
        android:layout_height="300dp"
        app:stringLabelState="label"
        app:showFretNumbers="false"/>
XML

Available Android XML Attributes:

<attr name="fretColor" format="color"/>
<attr name="fretLabelTextColor" format="color"/>
<attr name="stringColor" format="color"/>
<attr name="stringLabelTextColor" format="color"/>
<attr name="noteColor" format="color"/>
<attr name="noteLabelTextColor" format="color"/>
<attr name="mutedStringText" format="string"/>
<attr name="openStringText" format="string"/>
<attr name="showFingerNumbers" format="boolean"/>
<attr name="showFretNumbers" format="boolean"/>
<attr name="stringLabelState" format="enum">
    <enum name="number" value="0"/>
    <enum name="label" value="1"/>
    <enum name="hide" value="2"/>
</attr>
<attr name="fitToHeight" format="boolean"/>
<attr name="fretLabelTypeface" format="reference"/>
<attr name="noteLabelTypeface" format="reference"/>
<attr name="stringLabelTypeface" format="reference"/>
XML

Selectable Chord names in Text using Android Spans

The library comes with a ChordSpan which allows the pairing of text with a Chord. And when the ChordSpan is selected, a listener is alerted with the Chord.

Adding a ChordSpan to a TextView:

val text = SpannableString("G")
val span = ChordSpan(chord, this) // "this" refers to the listener

text.setSpan(span, 0, 1, Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE)

textView?.text = text
// Need to specify LinkTouchMovementMethod as the movement method for clicks to work
textView?.movementMethod = LinkTouchMovementMethod()
Kotlin

Using DSL functions to add a ChordSpan to a TextView:

val textBuilder = buildSpannableString {
        +chordSpan(chord, listener)

        +chordSpan("G", chord) {
            // Handle click event
        }

        +styledChordSpan(chord, listener) {
            this.backgroundColor = Color.BLUE
        }
}

textView?.text = textBuilder
// Need to specify LinkTouchMovementMethod as the movement method for clicks to work
textView?.movementMethod = LinkTouchMovementMethod()
Kotlin

Listening to Chord selected events:

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity(),
    ChordSpan.ChordSelectedListener {

    override fun onChordSpanSelected(chord: Chord) {
        // Perform action with chord
    }
}
Kotlin

Customizing the ChordSpan appearance:

ChordSpan extends from TouchableSpan which inherits from TouchableSpanView and has the following customizable properties:

var backgroundColor = Color.TRANSPARENT
var selectedBackgroundColor = Color.TRANSPARENT
var textColor = Color.BLUE
var selectedTextColor = Color.BLUE
var isUnderlined = false
var isUnderlinedWhenSelected = false
var textTypeface = Typeface.DEFAULT
var selectedTextTypeface = Typeface.DEFAULT
Kotlin

These properties can be changed on the span:

span.textColor = Color.RED
Kotlin

Passing Chords between Android components

The model classes are not Parcelable because they are in a Kotlin multi-platform module and don't have access to Android Framework classes. But the Android library module does have wrapper classes that handle the serialization and de-serialization of the Chord and ChordChart models.

These classes are ParcelableChordWrapper and ParcelableChartWrapper. To pass Chord and ChordChart between components, such as, in a Bundle, just wrap them with their respective wrapper models.

arguments = 
    Bundle().apply {
        putParcelable(KEY_CHORD, ParcelableChordWrapper(chord))
        putParcelable(KEY_CHART, ParcelableChartWrapper(chart))
    }
Kotlin

Then retrieve the wrappers just as you would with any other Parcelable object.

arguments?.getParcelable<ParcelableChordWrapper>(KEY_CHORD)
arguments?.getParcelable<ParcelableChartWrapper>(KEY_CHART)
Kotlin

For convenience, there are extension functions on the Bundle and Intent objects which handle the wrapping and unwrapping of the Chord and ChordChart objects.

Bundle:

arguments =
    Bundle().apply {
        putChord(KEY_CHORD, chord)
        putChordChart(KEY_CHART, chart)
    }

val chord = arguments?.getChord(KEY_CHORD)
val chart = arguments?.getChordChart(KEY_CHART)
Kotlin

Intent:

intent.putChord(KEY_CHORD, chord)
intent.putChordChart(KEY_CHART, chart)

val chord = intent.getChordExtra(KEY_CHORD)
val chart = intent.getChordChartExtra(KEY_CHART)
Kotlin

There is also a convenience ChordAndChart class (with similar Parcelable extension functions) for when both a Chord and a ChordChart need to be passed between Android components together.

val chordAndChart = ChordAndChart(chord = chord, chart = chordChart)

// Bundle
arguments = bundle.putChordAndChart(KEY_CHORD_AND_CHART, chordAndChart)
arguments?.getChordAndChart(KEY_CHORD_AND_CHART)

// Intent
intent.putChordAndChartExtra(KEY_CHORD_AND_CHART, chordAndChart)
intent.getChordAndChartExtra(KEY_CHORD_AND_CHART)
Kotlin

Samples

Checkout the sample modules for examples on using the library.

GitHub