Re: iOS App Development with MusicXML?

We're using SeeScore in an Android and iOS app with a few million users. It doesn't use the most modern iOS and Android frameworks (Swift/SwiftUI, Kotlin/Compose), unfortunately, but it is native rendering, and it works great once it's set up.

Outside of work, I use Verovio on a music website I maintain. Verovio is well-supported and frequently updated on GitHub, which is a plus, and it's worked well for my use cases. It was pretty easy to get started, too. I haven't used Verovio on iOS, though – only on web so far.

It's been a few years since the last time I looked around at options, so it's probably worth checking through some of the other recommendations in this thread too.

Hope this helps!
– Samuel

> On Apr 17, 2024, at 4:11 AM, Andrew Hankinson <andrew.hankinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> One clarification: You can pass it through a web view, but Verovio is actually a C++ component, and its main function is to transform music notation to SVG. It does have a JavaScript version of the library that you can use in a web view, but if your app can work with SVG then you can use the toolkit as a native library.
> 
> From there you can use available SVG to PDF transformations.
> 
> There is minimal, but existent documentation here: https://book.verovio.org/installing-or-building-from-sources/other-bindings.html
> 
> -Andrew
> 
>> On 17 Apr 2024, at 11:57, Arshia Cont <arshiacont@antescofo.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Joyce,
>> 
>> If you are looking for Open Source solutions, I would recommend:
>> - Verovio (https://www.verovio.org/index.xhtml) : widely used and active community. Downside: currently does not use Native iOS rendering. You’d have to pass through a WebView (as mentioned by Andrew H.).
>> - GuidoLib (https://github.com/grame-cncm/guidolib/ ): old but very robust with support for native rendering. When coupled to LibMusicXML it can render a variety of formats.
>> 
>> Arshia Cont
>> metronautapp.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 15 Apr 2024, at 20:56, Joyce Pan <cajpan@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> I am a violinist/fiddler and software developer interested in creating iOS apps that read and create chord charts and music notation. The baseline of features that I’m looking to implement would be a custom view to display and edit written out music (ranging from a few beats without bar lines to whole pages) as well as the ability to export out to PDF and XML files that can be imported into other music apps. I’ve been reading through MusicXML and feel like it will suit my needs but have mostly just familiarized myself with the XML tags and their mappings to music symbols.
>>> 
>>> I’m looking for advice on where I could start with rendering music to a view and into a PDF. As MusicXML is used in so many public products, I was hoping there might be some libraries, open-source code, tutorials, or documentation that I could use as a jumping off point. In particular, I’m interested in any materials specific to iOS development since there are fewer built-in libraries that support functionality like XML parsing and writing. I’m currently looking at OpenSheetMusicDisplay <https://opensheetmusicdisplay.github.io/classdoc/> and VexFlow <https://www.vexflow.com/> and rendering to a WebView, but I’m working in SwiftUI and would prefer writing a renderer from scratch. I’m also open to looking into other notation formats such as MNX if it would provide compatibility with other composition software (Sibelius, Finale, etc.).
>>> 
>>> Any leads you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
>>> 
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Joyce
>> 
>