Multi tracks aren't displayed

[tbreuss]

I can't get even the simplest multi-track sheet to work, meaning that only the first track is ever displayed.

My expectation would be that both tracks are displayed as in this example from the documentation: https://alphatab.net/docs/alphatex/structural-metadata#track

What am I doing wrong?

[Danielku15]

I highly recommend you work your way through the general alphaTab tutorial to learn how alphaTab generally works.

There, (specifically the track selector chapter) you will learn how alphaTab internally separates the songs into tracks and how you can/need-to tell alphaTab which tracks to display.

alphaTex is a input format to describe the data model. Many aspects of the display and playback are part of the general alphaTab API.

tl;dr: You specify which tracks to display through "settings.core.tracks", "api.renderScore" or "api.renderTracks"

[tbreuss]

🙏 Thank you for your detailed reply. I will read through the documentation.

Nevertheless, I can imagine that others will have the same problems because the examples raise the expectation that you can simply copy and paste the alphaTex examples and the score will then look as shown in the example.

This is a bit confusing, but to be honest, I don't know how it could be improved.

[Danielku15]

This is a bit confusing

Depends on how detailed people read the docs. It's like skipping the tutorial in a game and then wonder how to play it 😆

The alphaTex intro page explicitly mention how alphaTex can be loaded. Jumping to the tex() docs from there you will also see clearly how it accepts a list of tracks that should be rendered and that only the first one will be rendered if not provided.

The tutorial is meant to exactly address the onboarding of people using alphaTab. It aims to communicate the base principles and usage of the library and how things like settings, API and the data model come together.

but to be honest, I don't know how it could be improved.

Thinking about this deeper I see two potential improvements at docs but at some point I need to rely that people read what's stated in the docs 🤔 :

1. I could add some more details on the Getting Started pages emphasizing even on more on how the settings and API control on what you will see. I could also additionally cross-link to the tutorial to make the transition smoother.
2. If the alphaTex samples use special settings and options, I could try to show tabs with both the alphaTex code and the custom settings used for this example (I added Show additional details for alphaTex samples alphaTabWebsite#164 to potentially address this in future).

[tbreuss]

Depends on how detailed people read the docs. It's like skipping the tutorial in a game and then wonder how to play it 😆

That's exactly me :-)

Let's be honest: that was classic RTFM. At the same time, I think it could be made easier for newbies.

Thinking about this deeper I see two potential improvements at docs but at some point I need to rely that people read what's stated in the docs 🤔 :

I would prefer the second option, mainly because the combination of AlphaTex and SettingOptions carries the risk of overlooking something. This also ensures that people coming from Google etc. who don't have the full context know what's going on.