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Installation (.NET)

alphaTab on .NET runs in console applications, servers, and Windows desktop UIs. It ships as two NuGet packages depending on where you need it.

Install​

Two packages cover every .NET scenario:

  • AlphaTab targets .NET Standard 2.0. Use it for console tools, servers, and headless rendering.
  • AlphaTab.Windows targets .NET 8.0 and adds WPF and WinForms UI controls. It brings in the base package as a dependency.

Install through the .NET CLI:

dotnet add package AlphaTab
# or, for WPF / WinForms:
dotnet add package AlphaTab.Windows

Or add the reference directly to your .csproj:

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="AlphaTab" Version="1.6.1" />
</ItemGroup>

Render from a console app​

Console applications skip the UI controls and drive alphaTab through its low-level classes — ScoreLoader for parsing files, ScoreRenderer for producing images. This example loads a score, renders it to Skia images, and reports the total canvas size:

using AlphaTab;
using AlphaTab.Importer;
using AlphaTab.Rendering;
using SkiaSharp;

var score = ScoreLoader.LoadScoreFromBytes(File.ReadAllBytes(args[0]));

var settings = new Settings();
settings.Core.Engine = "skia";

var renderer = new ScoreRenderer(settings)
{
    Width = 970
};

var partialImages = new List<SKImage>();
var totalWidth = 0;
var totalHeight = 0;

renderer.PartialRenderFinished.On(r =>
{
    partialImages.Add((SKImage)r.RenderResult);
});

renderer.RenderFinished.On(r =>
{
    totalWidth = (int)r.TotalWidth;
    totalHeight = (int)r.TotalHeight;
});

renderer.RenderScore(score, new double[] { 0 });

More console samples live at github.com/CoderLine/alphaTabSamplesDotNet.

Render in WPF​

The AlphaTab.Windows package ships a WPF control with the main functionality out of the box. Drop it into any XAML:

<Window x:Class="AlphaTab.Samples.Wpf.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:wpf="clr-namespace:AlphaTab.Wpf;assembly=AlphaTab.Windows"
        Title="alphaTab" Height="800" Width="600" WindowState="Maximized">
    <wpf:AlphaTab Tracks="{Binding TracksToDisplay}" />
</Window>

Expose the tracks to render from your view model:

public IEnumerable<AlphaTab.Model.Track> TracksToDisplay { get; }

Render in WinForms​

The WinForms control is the counterpart for classic Windows Forms UIs. Instantiate it in code and add it to a form:

using AlphaTab.WinForms;

var control = new AlphaTabControl
{
    Dock = System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle.Fill
};
Controls.Add(control);
control.Tracks = new[] { score.Tracks[0] };

The WinForms control has a slightly reduced feature set compared to WPF. It cannot render semi-transparent cursors during playback because WinForms lacks proper transparency support. Display and audio playback themselves work identically.

Dependencies​

alphaTab on .NET carries a small number of third-party dependencies:

  • Rendering. Either the built-in GDI+ graphics or alphaSkia, which wraps the Skia engine used by Chrome. alphaSkia is the recommended engine and is significantly faster and more consistent across platforms than GDI+.
  • Audio. NAudio drives audio playback of the synthesised MIDI output.

Reach out on GitHub if you need alphaTab wired to a different UI framework or audio backend.