Description
The sheet music library plugin is a framework that leverages WordPress to post sheet music online in a structured way. Using a sheet music custom post type and taxonomies for composers, genres, difficulties, and orchestrations, you can upload, organize, and share sheet music in a native-feeling interface. In addition to the taxonomies, each “piece” object includes PDF-based score and parts upload (with automatically-generated preview images), and audio upload and/or Youtube/Vimeo embeds to showcase recordings. The native WordPress editor facilitates additional information, be it a sentence explaining the arrangement or a multi-paragraph essay describing a work complete with multimedia content.
On the front-end, this plugin provides default styling and filtering to display sheet music content in a way that is compatible with most themes. Customizations ranging from visual tweaks with CSS to custom themes that implement the sheet_music post type directly with custom templates allow for infinite possibilities.
Whether you’re a composer/arranger publishing your works online, a community or school orchestra sharing music with your members, or work with music in any other way, the Sheet Music Library plugin provides an easy, flexible way to manage and share your content.
Note that this plugin was designed with classical music in mind in particular, but it can be used in much broader contexts. It was built for the Cello Expressions Sheet Music Library, which provides a good example of what it can do/how it can look on the front end. The backend UI is just as much of a reason to try this plugin, with its seamless integration with WordPress core features.
Screenshots
Table view display with the Twenty Fifteen theme (as of version 1.1, this includes audio players as well). 
Archive (search, taxonomy, author, date, etc.) view with the Twenty Fifteen theme. 
Single piece view with the Twenty Fifteen theme. 
Taxonomy administration for sheet music posts. 
Custom field administration for sheet music posts. 
Automatic, contextual sheet music audio playlist widget on a taxonomy page (showing an "orchestration" term).
Installation
- Take the easy route and install through the WordPress plugin installer OR
- Download the .zip file and upload the unzipped folder to the
/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- The “Sheet Music” post type is now available and can be used to add content. Plan on taking some time to either look at some different themes to find one tht works well with the default styling, add some custom CSS to clean up the styling, or build a fully custom theme with custom templates for the sheet music post type.
- Install the Front Page Custom Post Type plugin to show sheet music posts on your front page: https://wordpress.org/plugins/front-page-custom-post-type/. Or, add a link to the “Sheet Music” post type archive to your menu via the customizer.
- The [all_sheet_music] and [latest_sheet_music] shortcodes can be used to add a table-style summary of all music on the site, and you can use the standard WordPress archive/taxonomy views to present music as well.
- Add the “Sheet Music Library Playlist” widget to your sidebar to facilitate audio-based music discovery on your site.
FAQ
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Problems with PDF Preview Images
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This plugin has a handy feature that generates images from PDF files that are uploaded. However, it requires a server-side image processing feature called Imagick (or ImageMagick). If image previews of PDFs aren’t working, this feature is likely missing. Contact your host to see whether it can be enabled. In some cases, your best option may even be to switch to a host that supports this feature, if image previews of PDFs are a must-have feature.
Note that WordPress core added a similar feature for all PDF uploads, inspired by this plugin, in version 4.7. The core feature will show PDF thumbnails in the media library for files uploaded after 4.7 was installed. This plugin maintains a separate version of the PDF image, but may utilize the core feature in the future.
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E-Commerce Integration
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Out of the box, the Sheet Music Library doesn’t include E-Commerce functionalities, as it was built for a free sheet music library. However, this functionality could be added on to the plugin with either an add-on plugin or by restricting access to the actual PDF file downloads or by using custom front-end handling with a custom theme or child theme.
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Shortcodes
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To display all sheet music in a table view, write the following on its own line in a post/page content area:
[all_sheet_music]. If you have a lot of sheet music, you could also use[latest_sheet_music number="10"]and specify the number of pieces to display. If you want to get a playlist of the audio files associated with sheet music, use[sheet_music_audio_playlist]. This shortcode also supports a genre argument – give it the slug (URL extension) for the genre you want to display:[sheet_music_audio_playlist genre="classical"]. Generally speaking, it is better to use post type archives and taxonomy views where possible (see the installation instructions for details).
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“Sheet Music Libary” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
“Sheet Music Libary” has been translated into 1 locale. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate “Sheet Music Libary” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.2
- Add the “Sheet Music Audio Playlist” widget, which automatically compiles the sheet music audio present on a given page into a playlist. This is particularly helpful on taxonomy and search views.
- Add the “Sheet Music Recent Audio Playlist” widget, which displays a playlist of the most recent audio posted. The sheet music associated with these posts is not directly available, so this widget is best used alongside a recent posts widget.
- Add a way to display a message in place of the PDF download buttons on a piece-by-piece basis, where some music is not freely and publicly available.
- Introduce the ability to remove attachments from a piece in the post meta box.
- Minor keyboard accessibility improvements in the piece files meta box.
1.1.1
- Fix enqueuing admin assets for custom post meta UI.
- Add missing localized strings for JS.
1.1
- Add audio players to sheet music in the table views from the [all_sheet_music] and [latest_sheet_music] shortcodes.
- Add support for translations via plugin language packs.
1.0
- Initial public release.