Le chansonnier - Android® App.

"Le chansonnier" is also an Android application displaying a songbook with guitar chords.
You can pack hundreds of song texts in your device and have them always at hand. The application show the songs with layout adapted to the device size (tablet or smartphone), it can show guitar chord diagrams and transpose the song chords.

A small demo songbook is included. To produce your own songbook, you need "Le chansonnier" desktop program so you can input, test, manage, print and export songbooks.

"Le chansonnier" Android app is free, works offline, does not show advertising and does not collect any user data.

Note: the Android app is still in beta-testing, no public link is available yet.
(TODO: put a 'get it on play store' widget here.)

<i>Le Chansonnier - Android App</i>

Install the App

Browse with your device to the correct page of the Google play store, and follow instructions.

Note: the Android app is still in beta-testing, no public link is available yet.
(TODO: link)

Required permissions

"Le chansonnier" Android app will ask for two user permissions:

  • Read external storage: obviously to read the Android-songbook.zip file containing all your songs.
  • Write external storage: If no Android-songbook.zip, the application will write a small one on your storage. This 'demo' file contains few traditional songs and is put there to give an example of what the file should look like and where it should be. It allows you to test the application with some 'free' content. When you are ready with your own songbook, you can happily replace this one by your own production.

Export your songbook

From the desktop program, follow steps explained in the end-to-end use-case to create and export the Android-songbook.zip file containing all your songs.

Then copy it on your android device in the "/sdcard/Music" or "/Music" directory (prefer to put it on the SD card, also called "external storage", if you have the choice).
If you have already started the Android application to give it a try, it had created a 'demo' Android-songbook.zip in the "Music" folder. If you see this file, it means that you are in the correct folder. In this case, you can erase the existing file and replace it by yours (just after this action, you may need to reload the song list in the application with the "Reload list" menu option)

As the Android-songbook.zip file contains only compressed text, it is very small and won't bloat you device storage card. For example: 1000 songs will, on average, fit in a one mega-byte file which is only a fraction of the size of one single mp3 file.

The song list screen

<i>Le Chansonnier - Song List Screen</i>

This is the application start screen.

When you start the app, you see the list of available songs. Scroll in the list, then click on a song to open it.

Application bar Menu:

  • Search: When you song list is very big (the application can easily manage more than 500 songs) the 'search' helps you to jump into the desired place in the list. Type few letters matching the start of an interpret name (case insensitive). For example, type 'bea' for "Beatles" and hit "Show in list" to scroll in the list to the Beatles' songs. If you hit "Show song", the first song of this interpret is automatically open. You can then browse between the song by swiping left & right.
  • Reload List: force the reload of the content of the Android-songbook.zip file. This is useful only if you just updated the file but your modifications are not showing (because the Android system can keep old data in an internal cache)
  • About: show a dialog with info's about the App.

The Song view screen

<i>Le Chansonnier - Song View Screen</i>

From this screen you see the selected song text with chords in full screen.

You can swipe left and right to go to the previous/next song in the list.

A simple tap makes the application bar (with menu options) visible/invisible. For devices with 'soft navigation buttons' it can also show/hide the navigation buttons (back / home / switch application)

A double tap brings you back to the "song list" screen.

If you rotate your device, the song layout will be adapted to fit the new width.

Application bar Menu:

  • Back: Go back to the "song list" screen.
  • Transpose: Allow you to transpose the chords of the song in another tone.
  • Settings: show the song display settings allowing to change the ways songs are displayed (title info, chords diagrams, chord language).
  • About: show a dialog with info's about the App.