alphaTab and Request For Native Support for TablEdit's File Format

[SteveMcBill]

Project: alphaTab
Suggested category: Ideas

Dear Daniel and the alphaTab development team,

I would like to suggest adding native support for TablEdit's .tef file format, particularly the latest Version 3 format.

TablEdit is used by guitarists and other musicians to create, edit and play musical scores incorporating tablature. Many of its users have extensive collections of existing .tef files containing musical notation, guitar tablature, fingering, rhythmic information and performance settings.

Currently, alphaTab supports several useful formats, including Guitar Pro and MusicXML, but TablEdit files cannot be loaded directly.

This creates a problem for musicians whose existing scores are held in TablEdit. They must convert their files into another format before using alphaTab, potentially losing information or encountering differences in notation and playback.

I have been investigating alphaTab as the basis of a browser-based guitar practice player for my guitar website. My experiments have demonstrated that alphaTab can render and play Guitar Pro files successfully. However, when working with TablEdit files converted to MusicXML, I have encountered differences in notation and playback, including unusual rests and the loss of swing feel.

I have not yet established precisely where all these differences originate, but they illustrate why direct support for the native format could be valuable.

Ideally, a TablEdit importer would preserve as much of the original score information as possible, including:

Standard musical notation and tablature.
Note durations, triplets and other rhythmic information.
Swing settings and tempo changes.
Repeats, endings and other playback instructions.
String and fret positions, tunings and capo settings.
Relevant articulations and performance markings.

I appreciate that implementing a new importer would require investigation of the file format and its capabilities. In particular, support for the current TablEdit Version 3 format would be important to users with modern TablEdit installations.

Would you consider adding TablEdit support to alphaTab, or discussing whether such an importer might be feasible?

I believe this could make alphaTab useful to a wider community of musicians and developers who want to bring their existing TablEdit scores into web-based applications.

Thank you for developing and maintaining alphaTab.

Best regards,
Steve
Email: steve.mcwilliam@btinternet.com
Website: https://www.stevemcwilliam.co.uk/guitar/tab.htm