SongBook 2.0


Installation And Upgrade

SongBook runs on all Palm Powered(R) handhelds with at least Palm OS
3.0. The songbook zip archive contains the application, SongBook.prc,
as well as a comprehensive chord libary with more than 2,700 guitar
chords, Chords.pdb, and a sample song Greensleeves.pdb. You can
install all three files with the standard Palm installation program.

If you find the large number of chords in Chords.pdb intimidating, you
can install a smaller chord database with only 200 commonly used
chords instead.

If you upgrade from a previous SongBook version, just install over the
old version. This way, songs entered in the previous version will be
preserved. Note that when you install the new enhanced chord database,
all changes you've made to the original chord database will be lost.

The SongBook application can be moved into Flash ROM or onto an
expansion card.

Where To Find Songs For SongBook

SongBook understands the widespread chordpro song format that writes
chords in square brackets within the lyrics. While we cannot provide
songs at this site due to copyright restrictions, the Internet has
huge archives of songs in chordpro format. Simply type "chordpro" into
your favorite search engine.

You can also easily create your own songs. Just write the lyrics as
usual and insert the chord names in square brackets at the appropriate
positions as in the following example: [Em]Alas, my [G]love, you [D]do
me [Bm]wrong,

A detailed explanation of the chordpro format is below.

How To Get Songs Into SongBook

Use Windows SongBookImporter or Conduit Download and install our free
SongBook tools for Windows. Drag-and-drop chordpro files onto the
SongBookImporter and click Install. After the next HotSync, the songs
will be available in SongBook. If you're using the SongBook conduit,
you can copy the files into the song directory on your PC, and they
will automatically appear in SongBook after the next HotSync.

Transfer via Memo Copy/paste the songs into the Memo application in
Palm Desktop, perform a HotSync, then open SongBook, go to the song
list, and select menu - Songs - Import Memo.

Copy files on expansion card If you have a card reader, you can copy
your songs as *.pro files into directory /PALM/Programs/SongBook/ or a
sub directory thereof. Open SongBook and select menu - Songs - Card -
Scan Card to update the SongBook card cache.

Song List

The song list displays title and sub title (to the right) of all songs
currently in your SongBook database.

You can filter the song list by category, or sort it by title or sub
title (menu). Entering a letter will jump to the first title
(subtitle) starting with that letter.

Use the menu to beam a category of songs to another handheld, or
import songs from MemoPad.

Tap on a song and hold the stylus for a second to get a pop up menu
that lets you quickly add a song to a playlist, or delete it.

Song View

The song view displays the current song with lyrics and chords. Tap on
a chord to look up the chord definition.

You can switch the display of chords and tabs on or off by tapping
menu - Song - Show/Hide Chords.

You can also transpose the song into a different key by tapping on
menu - Song - Transpose.

Change lyrics, chords, and tab fonts and colors in the Preferences.
Additional small and tiny fonts are available on handhelds with
high-res displays. SongBook supports switching between portrait and
landscape mode, and resizing the virtual Graffiti area of the Cli and
Tungsten T3 models.

Use the menu to beam the currently displayed song, or export the song
to MemoPad. Only the lyrics will be exported if you have switched off
the chord display.

Full Screen Mode

To make maximum use of screen real-estate, SongBook can display a song
in full screen mode where the whole display is used to display the
song. Tap on the small left arrow in the upper right corner or
anywhere in the Graffiti area to end full screen mode.

Tap on the upper/lower half of the screen to scroll up/down by one
page.

 Auto-Scrolling

To start automatic scrolling, tap on menu Song - Auto-Scroll. A small
panel with accelerator (+) and decelerate (-) buttons and the current
tempo will be displayed. You can also increase or decrease speed with
the page up/page down buttons. Tapping on the display will halt
scrolling for approximately one second - useful if you find the song
scrolls just a little bit too fast.

The panel can be switched off in Preferences. You can pre-define a
tempo for a song with the {tempo: } directive.

Song Edit

You can change songs or add new songs. You can also change the
category of a song here. Tap on the Insert... popup to insert
predefined control statements (see chordpro format below).

Expansion Card Support

SongBook transparently supports songs stored on expansion cards. Songs
on expansion cards will appear in the standard song list view and are
indicated with a small card icon. You can hide the card icon by
setting a preference option.

To move all songs in a given category to or from an expansion card, go
to the song list view, and tap on menu Songs - Card... You can also
move individual songs to and from a card in the song view.

For performance reasons, SongBook caches title and sub title of all
card songs in its main database. SongBook will recognize most external
changes to the expansion card, or switching to a different expansion
card. However, in some cases, you may need to perform a manual card
scan to update the song cache. Tap on Scan Card in the Expansion Card
dialog to perform this scan.

On the expansion card, songs are stored in sub directories of
/PALM/Programs/SongBook with the same name as the category they appear
in. Unfiled songs will be stored in the main SongBook directory.

Playlists

Playlists are collections of songs for a special purpose, e.g. a
concert, or training. Playlists contain references to songs
independent of their categories. You can add songs to multiple
playlists, and one song can occur multiple times in one playlist.

Use the menu in Song view to add or remove songs to/from a playlist.
Alternatively, you can tap-and-hold the stylus on a song in the song
list or playlist to add/remove it to/from a playlist.

To change the order of songs in a playlist, tap on the song, and drag
the stylus up and down the list.

You can beam playlists to other handhelds that also have SongBook
installed. Note that this will not beam the songs referenced in the
playlist.

An exclamation mark (!) indicates playlist songs that are not
available on the handheld.

Chords

SongBook comes with a comprehensive chord library that contains more
than 2,700 chords. Chords are sorted by base pitch and major/minor.
Each chord can have several variations. SongBook knows about identical
pitches (e.g. C# = Db).

For beginners, a smaller chord database with only 200 commonly used
chords is also available.

You can add your own chords or change existing chord definitions.

 Chord View

SongBook can display multiple variations of a chord. If there are more
variations to a chord that fit on one screen, small scroll arrows will
appear in the lower right corner.

Chords that are locally defined in a song will be displayed first and
have a border around it.

Select a chord and tap Edit to modify or delete this chord.

Transposing

SongBook lets you transpose a song to a different key by automatically
adjusting all chords. You can decide if you only want to display the
transposed song, or if you want to change it permanently, or create a
copy.

Note that if the song contains special chord definitions, these will
usually no longer be valid after transposing.

Chord Edit

You can change any chord in the chord database. Select the base fret
in the pulldown to the right, then click on the finger spots. If a
string does not sound (is muted), select the x above the string.

Use menu Chords - Find Matching Chords to find all chords that match
the current finger settings.

Tuning

SongBook contains a simple guitar tuner. You can choose from one of
several predefined tunings or set your own custom tuning by tapping on
the arrows above and below the string labels.

SongBook will try to adjust the chord definitions according to your
tuning. Note that this may sometimes lead to non-optimal fingerings. A
small T in the chord view reminds you of a non-standard tuning.

When you play with others, you may need to adjust the base pitch
(default is 440 Hz). You can adjust the base pitch in quarter-tone
steps. The volume and pitch settings are also used when playing
chords.

 Chordpro Format

SongBook stores songs in the chordpro format, a simple format for
notation of lyrics together with chords. Use your popular Internet
search engine to find huge collections of songs in chordpro format in
the Word Wide Web.

In the chordpro format chords are denoted in square brackets [] in the
text, e.g.

 [Em]Alas, my [G]love, you [D]do me [Bm]wrong,

SongBook will render this as

 Em G D Bm Alas, my love, you do me wrong,

In addition to the chords in square brackets, the chordpro format
defines several control sequences in curly brackets {}. Songbook
understands the following control statements:

{title: ...} or {t: ...} Song title. This is displayed in the song
list screen and in the title bar.
{subtitle: ...} or {st: ...} Song subtitle, typically the interpret or
composer. This is displayed in the song list screen and in the title
bar.
{comment: ...} or {c: ...} Comment, e.g. Repeat 2x or Chorus. Comments
are rendered inverse.
{soc} and {eoc} Start and end of chorus. Chorus is indicated by a
black line to the left.
{sot} and {eot} Start and end of tab. A tab (tablature) section is
rendered in a fixed width font.
{define ...} Used to define a special chord for this song. The chord
format is ..., i.e. G 1 3 2 0 0 0 3
# Lines starting with # are comment lines and are ignored in the song
view.
{tempo: ...} (SongBook specific) Defines scroll speed used for
auto-scrolling.

Windows Tools

If you're on Windows, you can install the SongBook tools, consisting
of a conduit that synchronizes songs and playlists with a directory of
your choice, and an import program that lets you easily add songs in
chordpro and tab format to SongBook.

The conduit will automatically synchronize all SongBook songs with a
directory of your choice. To set the directory, right-click on the
HotSync manager icon in the tasktray, select Custom... - SongBook.

It supports the usual three synchronization options (Synchronize,
Handheld overwrites Desktop, Desktop overwrites Handheld), and can
synchronize with multiple PCs. Note that for technical reasons, songs
are ignored during HotSync if they are stored on an expansion card.

Songs will be stored as -.pro files in sub directories of the song
directory, corresponding to their categories. Songs in the Unfiled
category are stored in the main song directory. Note that Palm OS
supports only 15 categories, so you can't have more than 15 sub
directories.

Playlists will be stored as *.lst files in the song directory. The
first line is the actual playlist name, the following lines contain
the title and sub title of a song, separated by a dash, e.g.
Greensleeves - Traditional

The SongBook importer lets you easily import songs into SongBook.
Simply drop files from explorer onto the SongBook Importer Window and
click Install Song... when you're done. After the next HotSync, the
new songs will appear in the SongBook application.

Alternatively, you can save the converted songs as a Palm database
(PDB), and import them later manually.

Files ending with .tab or .crd are considered in tab format (chords in
separate lines above the text). The SongBook Importer will try to
convert these songs into chordpro format, by placing chords within the
text. Note that importing a song in tab format usually requires
additional work (e.g. add {title: } and {subtitle: } statements).

You can also import additional chord definitions. Chord definition
files should contain one or more lines in the following format: ...

e.g.  Am 5 7 7 5 5 5

 Shareware License

SongBook is distributed as shareware, i.e. try before you buy. When
you continue to use SongBook after an initial trial, you must purchase
a license. Licensed users will receive free support and information
about program updates.

Registered users of a 1.x version of SongBook can upgrade to SongBook
2.x for a reduced fee.

Feedback

Do you have a song that is not rendered correctly? Is an important
chord missing in the chord database? Please let us know at
info@linkesoft.com.

 Version History

- 2.0 - Playlists (song collections, e.g. for a concert) - Improved
  transpose dialog with preview of current song - Additinal font on
  high-res devices - More alternative tunings, and support for custom
  tuning, more alternative tunings - Support for landscape and
  portrait extended screen of Sony Cli devices - New menu options for
  duplicating songs or removing all songs in a category - Windows
  conduit for synchronizing songs with desktop
- 1.4 (5-Feb-04) - bug fix with chord lookup on certain OS versions
- 1.4 - Auto-scrolling Selectable font for tablatures, color for text,
  chord and tabs Option to set longer auto-off time within SongBook,
  no auto-off during auto-scroll Resizable chord view Recognize chord
  names w/o parentheses, e.g. B7b9 -> B7(b9)
- 1.3 - Support for Tungsten T3 virtual silkscreen and Tungsten
  five-way navigator Ability to export lyrics only to memopad (if song
  view set to lyrics only)
- 1.2 - Better search, search titles/sub titles and memory first, then
  card Improved rendering of chord labels: chords no longer overlap,
  less space after chord, dashes in stretched words Option to
  permanently store transposed songs Support for small and tiny fonts
  on high-res displays Lyrics only mode will also hide tab Preference
  option for not scrolling past end/beginning of song Support for
  Tungsten five-way button in song view Play chord in edit mode
  Non-standard tunings: adjust chords according to current tuning
  Added many chords with bass notes to chord database
- 1.1 - Support for expansion cards, Support for other chordpro
  directives, ignore (don't display) unknown directives, Faster chord
  lookup, Search for text in songs, enter first letter in song list to
  scroll to a song, Improved transposition form, Comprehensive chord
  database with almost 2,000 chords, Support for open strings in
  chords in higher frets Support for virtual Graffiti area of Sony and
  Handera models
- 1.0 - first public version

Special thanks to Kenny Song and Laurence Esterhuizen for their work
on the chord database and numerous valuable suggestions.

Copyright (c) 1998-2004 LinkeSOFT GmbH, Berlin, Germany

License
-------

This license agreement settles the relation between LinkeSOFT GmbH and the 
user concerning the use of the enclosed software product ("program") of
LinkeSOFT in its shareware version and its registered version.

 1
The user obtains through this license by LinkeSOFT the non-exclusive 
right to install and use this program on his PalmPilot.
The program remains the sole property of LinkeSOFT.
The user further obtains the right to make a back-up copy by means of 
the HotSync feature.

 2
The user may distribute the shareware version of this program or copies 
thereof. The shareware version may be published on the Inter- or 
Intranet or on software collections (on CDs etc.).
Each distribution must contain these provisions and the above copyright
notice. Except for publishing on software collections the distribution 
of this program has to be free of charge.
The program name or the name of LinkeSOFT shall not be used for
promotional purposes without prior written consent of LinkeSOFT.
The program may not be modified or tampered with in any way.

 3 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY LINKESOFT GMBH ''AS IS'' AND ANY 
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR 
PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL LinkeSOFT BE LIABLE FOR ANY 
DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, 
STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN 
ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE 
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

 4 For regular use the program has to be registered according to the 
general rules about shareware. Registration is made by payment of the 
registration fee according to the program and web site instructions. 
After registration the user receives a key that entitles him or her to 
unrestricted use of the program according to this license. Registration 
further entitles the user to get support by LinkeSOFT via email.

 5
The user shall in no way make copies of the registered version of this
program, except such as coming under  1. The user shall in no way 
resell or lend the registered program or copies thereof to third persons.
The registered program may not be made available to third persons.

 6
In the event that any provision of this Agreement should be or become 
invalid or if there is a gap in the Agreement, the validity of the other 
provisions shall not be affected. In lieu of the invalid provision or in 
order to complete the Agreement, a reasonable provision shall be 
effective approaching to what parties would have agreed upon if they had 
considered that issue.

 7 This Agreement shall be governed and construed in accordance with 
German law as it applies to German citizens and corporations and the 
parties hereby agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the 
courts of Germany. The place of proceeding will be Berlin.

 8
This software program is protected by international copyright law.

Palm, the Palm logo and Graffiti are registered trademarks,
and HotSync, PalmPilot, Palm OS and the PalmPilot logo are trademarks of
Palm, Inc.
