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Configuration (Android)

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.

Background Workers or Custom Controls​

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.

Android Control​

For normal Android UIs we provide a control with the main functionality out of the box. Just embed the control to your Layout XMLs and get hold of a reference to it.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:id="@+id/main_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context="net.alphatab.android.MainActivity"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <alphaTab.AlphaTabView
        android:id="@+id/alphatab_view"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="parent"/>

</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>

In your activity code you can then interact with alphaTab by obtaining the reference to this control:

class MainActivity : ComponentActivity() {
    private lateinit var _alphaTabView: AlphaTabView

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)

        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)
        _alphaTabView = findViewById(R.id.alphatab_view)

        val api = _alphaTabView.api;
        // use alphaTab
    }
}

Settings​

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

The UI control exposes 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 _alphaTabView.api.updateSettings() to trigger an update of alphaTab.

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

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.

_alphaTabView.api.tex("\\title \"Hello AlphaTab\" . 3.3*4");

Events​

Event registration happens on the alphaTab classes. You can get an access to the main AlphaTabApi object via the Api property. From there you use any APIs and methods exposed by alphaTab.

Events are subscribed and unsubscribed to via eventName.on(handler) and eventName.off(handler).

_alphaTabView.api.playedBeatChanged.on { beat -> {
    updateFretboard(beat)
}