Few problems with making lyric sheets

Lishy

jhipple86 what do you mean the line isn’t getting highlighted correctly?
In regards to the brackets you need to put 3-4 spaces after the chord but before the closed bracket and a couple separating the bracketed chords too.

jhipple86

Lishy what about changing the color of words?

jhipple86

Lishy

In “say your prayers” line, it shows its in bold in the editing screen, but when you go to play, its not in bold

Lishy

John the fact it’s showing the asterisks in song mode suggests it not right it the lyrics editor. It also looks like there’s a space in between the asterisk and the first word in song mode but weirdly it’s still showing as bold and having no space in the lyrics editor, which it wouldn’t if it was incorrect.

jhipple86

Lishy
Yeah, seems like a bug...

Lishy

jhipple86 just replicated it on mine and it was as it should be. Assume you’re all up to date version wise?

jhipple86

Lishy yep. Up to date

Lishy

jhipple86 just noticed in your first screen shot it is highlighted without the asterisks but in the 2nd one it isn’t. You sure you haven’t put a space in after the asterisk by accident?

AnthonyB

Lishy You sure you haven’t put a space in after the asterisk by accident?

Exactly that.

My main collaborator builds our lyric sheets and when I first import them into ST, and review a render, stray asterisks are the first thing to fix. They are always due to a space between the asterisk and the start/end of whatever text you are trying to bold.

Also make sure you haven't accidently double-asterisk'd (search and replace type error) or are trying to treat an asterisk as actual text.
Depending on what you are building your lyrics in originally, the other gotcha I run into is because we use Microsoft Word as our source (which I then transfer to TXT file and import into ST). It is easy for a stray TAB to sneak in, and in Word and Notepad is is easy to miss. I always do a quick review lyric sheets in Word with the 'Show Paragraph Marks" enabled to catch these.

AnthonyB

Oh, and just flagging this in case you like it..

I notice you are using bold tabs on section headers (e.g. Verse, Chorus, etc.). Don't forget there are also actual Header tags available - https://stagetraxx.com/user-guide/lyrics/#text-formatting

This is entirely personal preference of course, but I use a Level 1 Heading tag for the song title and the Level 2 Heading for those section headers.

jhipple86

AnthonyB

Ok, what am i doing wrong with this color stuff? I really need to get a physical keyboard and mouse for my ipad, its so tedious on touch. Lol

jhipple86

jhipple86
Nevermind, im an adiot.

AnthonyB

jhipple86 I really need to get a physical keyboard and mouse for my ipad, its so tedious on touch. Lol

100% agree. That is why I do all of my lyric editing and timestamping outside of ST.
It becomes a bit more of a convaluted (especially going from edit to render mode) process, but I just find editing lyrics on an iPad, even with a BT keyboard, painful (might be something I'd get used to over time). Plus, by doing all the work outside of ST, I have multiple copies as backups, and find it easier to collaborate with bandmates on lyric sheet edits.

I'd love:

An external IDE type app that has all the ST lyric editor logic, and
An external lyric renderer app/Word plugin/browser plugin using the same engine that ST uses, so that I can edit (if it included point 1. above) and review on my Windows PC!

That would be a productivity booster in my case!

AnthonyB

I can't tell you how many times I've been in the same position 😀

jhipple86

As much as i want to be able to make these in stagetraxx… its way too frustrating, too many things go wrong. I havent figured out how to make them in word yet where the chords are above or between words without it being very tedious, idk what to do.

Lishy

jhipple86 as I’ve said previously, you need to put 3 spaces after the chord but before the closed bracket on those tight lines.
I.e. exit light. This will spread it out accordingly.
Remove the brackets around the number 1 and 2 in your verses and enter the first line of the verses down so it is on a separate line. That is what is causing your colour syntax to show up wrong in your lyrics.
If you let us know what else it is you’re trying to achieve we can help out.

AnthonyB

If you are going to use 'above the line' chords (i.e. chords in square brackets) you do not want to be using square brackets for other stuff. You have these markers - [1] and [2] - you will only confuse the renderer (and yourself) as anything in square brackets will be checked as something that qualifies as a chord. That doesn't mean everything in square brackets is rendered as a chord, but if you change your 'process' you'll be a lot safer.
The ChordPro notation render logic is documented here - https://stagetraxx.com/user-guide/lyrics/#adding-chords

Fix - for whatever non-chord, non-lyric things you want to put in your lyric sheet, use some other way to distinguish them, e.g. pick a specific colour, put them in round brackets, etc.

peter

Square bracket always contain commands to the lyrics renderer as far as Stage Traxx is concerned. Use something else to structure your lyrics.