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Configuration (.net)

Now with alphaTab being part of your project it is time for customization. alphaTab has quite a list of settings, events and API methods to interact with.

Setup​

On the installation guide you already saw that the setup of alphaTab depends on the UI framework you're using.

Console​

For non-UI usage there is not much more to say than: Use the classes available. This usage might be a bit more complicated than relying on the pre-built UI components and will need some reading. Feel free to contact us if you need assistance on getting certain things to run. Beside that, it might be the easiest to check on how alphaTab is used to build the controls provided.

WPF​

For WPF we provide a control with the main functionality out of the box. Just embed the control to your XAML and hook it up via code or via bindings.

<Window x:Class="AlphaTab.Samples.Wpf.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:wpf="clr-namespace:AlphaTab.Wpf;assembly=AlphaTab.Windows"
        Title="AlphaTab" Height="800" Width="600" WindowState="Maximized">
    <wpf:AlphaTab Tracks="{Binding TracksToDisplay}">
    </wpf:AlphaTab>
</Window>

WinForms​

For WinForms we provide a similar control like for WPF, although it has a bit of a reduced feature set. WinForms lacks some capabilities to provide all features. The lack of proper transparency support makes it hardly possible to show semi-transparent cursors during playback. When it comes to the available features of display and actual playback, everything is there out of the box.

Just drag an instance of the alphaTab control into your UI via the designer or set it up manually with code.

var control = new AlphaTab.WinForms.AlphaTabControl();
control.Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill;
this.Controls.Add(control);
control.Tracks = new []{ score.Tracks[0] };

Settings​

The settings are important to configure the display of alphaTab as you prefer it.

For the console setup you will need to manually create a new instance of the Settings class and pass it on wherever it is needed.

For the WPF and WinForms controls they expose a Settings property which can be used to change any desired configuration. Changes on the settings object itself are not automatically detected. It is required to call control.Api.UpdateSettings() to trigger an update of alphaTab.

Additionally, both controllers expose a Tracks property which can be filled to change the tracks being rendered by alphaTab.

Events​

Event registration happens on the alphaTab classes. For the console variant you would hook up to the events of the ScoreRenderer, while for the UI controls you would hook up to the events of the Api property.

Events are subscribed and unsubscribed to via EventName.On(handler) and EventName.Off(handler). AlphaTab is not using the C# event features in favor of consistency with the web version.

control.Api.PlayedBeatChanged.On(beat=> {
    UpdateFretboard(beat);
});

API​

The main alphaTab API is available only on the UI controls via the Api property. It provides a handy set of methods, properties and events to control alphaTab.

cs.Api.Tex("\\title \"Hello AlphaTab\" . 3.3*4");