Songsdown

Markdown-like syntax for LaTeX songs.

While the Songs package is awesome for writing songbooks with chords, I didn't want to teach non-tech friends how to use it. So, I've created a Markdown-like syntax for songs. You can have all the awesomeness of LaTeX/Songs typesetting with user-friendly syntax.

Features:

• human-friendly (Markdown-like) syntax
• optionally sorts (locale-aware) songs alphabetically
• runs spellcheck (In a nutshell, it passes text without chords to Hunspell.)
• optionally removes space for chords in chord-less verses
• chord transposition (limited by Songs package)

Web-based editor

You can try web-based editor live. Note that it has several limitations:

• It requires a browser with PDF support. With mobile browsers, you are probably out of luck.
• Hyphenation might be wrong, there is no language specified.
• Forced line breaks work incorrectly.
• It is designed for trial and song editing, not for final typesetting.

Example input

/// spellcheck-whitelist: somenewword
Some Artist
Lorem Ipsum Song | Alternative song title for index

[F]Lorem [A]ipsum [C]dolor sit amet,
consectetuer [G]adi[C]pis[A]cing elit.
Nullam [F]feugiat,
turpis at [E]pulvinar [G]vulputate,
erat libero tristique [A]tellus,
nec bibendum [F]odio risus sit amet ante.

R: [F]Phasellus [E]faucibus molestie nisl.
Suspendisse sagittis [F]ultrices augue.
Quis autem vel [A]eum iure reprehenderit
qui in ea [G]voluptate velit esse
quam nihil [C]molestiae consequatur,
vel illum [E]qui dolorem eum fugiat
quo voluptas [F]nulla pariatur?

Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis,
debitis aut rerum necessitatibus
saepe eveniet ut et voluptates | repudiandae
sint et molestiae non recusandae.
Duis viverra diam non justo.

R:

Example LaTeX output

$ docker run -i ghcr.io/v6ak/songsdown-tiny latex -o /dev/stdout '--no-chords-line-prefix=\nc' /dev/stdin < lorem-ipsum.txt
\beginsong{Lorem Ipsum Song}[by={Some Artist},ititle={Alternative song title for index}]\transpose{0}
\beginverse
\[F]Lorem \[A]ipsum \[C]dolor sit amet,
consectetuer \[G]adi\[C]pis\[A]cing elit.
Nullam \[F]feugiat,
turpis at \[E]pulvinar \[G]vulputate,
erat libero tristique \[A]tellus,
nec bibendum \[F]odio risus sit amet ante.
\endverse
\beginchorus
\[F]Phasellus \[E]faucibus molestie nisl.
Suspendisse sagittis \[F]ultrices augue.
Quis autem vel \[A]eum iure reprehenderit
qui in ea \[G]voluptate velit esse
quam nihil \[C]molestiae consequatur,
vel illum \[E]qui dolorem eum fugiat
quo voluptas \[F]nulla pariatur?
\endchorus
\beginverse
\nc Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis,
\nc debitis aut rerum necessitatibus
\nc saepe eveniet ut et voluptates \nc\brk  repudiandae
\nc sint et molestiae non recusandae.
\nc Duis viverra diam non justo.
\endverse
\textnote{R:}
\endsong

Removal of space for chords in chord-less verses

The Songs package allows you to render the song either with verses or completely without them. However, one might want compact output with chords – the first verse contains chords, other verses have no explicit chords (and no space for them). There is probably no clean way to do that with Songs package without any modification.

Songsdown has a little hack for you. It can insert negative vertical spaces before any line in an unchorded verse. When you use '--no-chords-line-prefix={\nc}', it inserts \nc command, you can define it like this:

\newcommand{\nc}{\ifchorded\vspace{-10pt}\fi}

Remember, this doesn't work well with automatic line-breaking. If you have a line which is too long, you need to wrap it manually by |.

Transposition

You can set chords transposition by adding a line with number after the song title, e.g.:

Some Artist
Lorem Ipsum Song
+1

However, the implementation of transposition in the Songs package seems to be very limited.

Distribution

Currently, it is distributed just as a Docker image. Native image allows us to make the Docker image tiny. You can chose between several packages:

https://github.com/v6ak/songsdown/pkgs/container/songsdown-tiny

• ghcr.io/v6ak/songsdown-tiny — tiny image (no spellcheck support)
• ghcr.io/v6ak/songsdown-hunspell — Alpine-based image with Hunspell (for spellcheck), but no dictionary. You need to add a dicrionary yourself.
• ghcr.io/v6ak/songsdown-hunspell-cs – Alpine-based image with Hunspell (for spellcheck) and Czech dictionary.

When you build it, it should run in any recent JRE (when compiled to JVM bytecode) and probably in a JS engine (when compiled to Javscript using Scala.js).