Public pages for you and your songs
Claim a tag and your published songs get a page at songco.de/@you that plays in any browser. Each song gets its own page too, and both count plays and remixes in the open.
A song you write in Songcode is a text file of ode, and until this week the only way to show it to someone was a link to the track in the app. Now every account can have a public page at songco.de/@ and a tag you pick, and every song on it has a page of its own. Anyone can open both, signed in or not, with or without an invite. The songs play in the page with the same Songcode Audio Engine the Songcode Studio uses, and the ode sits one click away.
This post covers what goes on each page, what stays private, and what every number on them counts.
Claim a tag
Open the settings page, go to public page, and type the tag you want after songco.de/@. Songcode tells you straight away whether it is free, and claim makes it yours.
A tag is 3 to 24 characters of lowercase letters, numbers and single hyphens, and it starts and ends with a letter or a number. Capitals fold to lowercase, so @Night-Bus and @night-bus are the same page. Each account gets one, first come, first served. We keep the app’s own addresses (blog, docs, pricing and the rest) and anything that would read as Songcode or its staff.
You can change your tag once every 30 days. For 30 days after a change, the old address forwards to the new one and nobody else can claim it. If you delete the page, the tag is held for you for 30 days before anyone else can take it.
What shows and what stays private
The page goes public the moment you claim a tag, but it starts empty. When you publish a song, Songcode asks where it goes: on your public page, or only people with the link. Nothing is picked for you. A song on your public page is listed there and gets a song page anyone can find. A link-only song is listed nowhere, and only someone you send its link to can open it. The publish button keeps working after you publish, so you can move a song between the two or copy its links, and publishing a change later keeps the choice you made.
The settings page has a switch per track as well, and a second switch, share all published songs, lists every published track including the ones you publish later. It is off until you turn it on. Drafts never show, and neither do remixes you have not published.
The public page switch at the top takes the whole page off the web. A private page, an unclaimed tag and a deleted page all return the same “not found”, so a visitor cannot tell a private page from one that never existed. While it is private you can still see it when you are signed in, with a note across the top that says only you can.
Your email, your prompts and your plan never appear on the page.
What a visitor sees
Each track is a small player. Press play and the song plays in the browser. A track marked loop goes round until you stop it, and a full song plays once to its end. The bar under the title is the song’s form, one segment per section, lit section by section as it plays, and clicking a lit segment jumps there.
Under the bar is the track’s genre, tempo, key and how many stems it has. With composed by switched on (it starts on), the line under that names the model that composed the song, or for a song Songcode composed, the composition quality it used: fast, balanced, extra or ultra compose. Quality is recorded for songs written from 13 November on, so older Songcode songs just say Songcode.
The ode button opens the song’s code over the page, and the rows light up as they sound, as they do in the studio. Copy ode puts it on your clipboard. View song opens the song’s own page, and remix in Songcode takes the song into your own account as a remix, after you sign in. How remixes are made and tracked is its own post: how remixing works.
The rest is yours to set: a name, a short bio, up to four links (named after the site when it is one we know, such as GitHub, SoundCloud or Bandcamp), an accent colour for the play buttons, a header style, and a list or card layout. You can move tracks into the order you want and feature one, which then goes first with the opening lines of its ode under it.
A page for each song
Every song listed on a public page also has a page of its own at songco.de/@ your tag, a slash and the song’s id. Each title on your public page links to it, and the publish sheet and the settings page both have a button to copy it. The address follows your current tag, so a link made before you changed your tag still lands on the right page.
A song page exists only while the song is listed on your public page. Make it link-only, make the page private or delete it, and the song page returns the same “not found” as an address that never existed. While it is hidden you can still see it when you are signed in, with a note that only you can.
The page plays the song in a large player, with the form lighting section by section, and shows the whole ode under it with follow along and copy ode. It names whoever wrote it, linked to their public page. Under the player sits a short table about the song: its meter, length, form, stems and language. A remix names the song it came from, and a song that others have remixed shows up to six of the remixes they chose to show.
Remix in Songcode opens the song in Songcode as your own copy, with its ode, every stem and the mixer, and the original stays with its writer. Songcode is in early access, so a visitor without an account lands on the early access card instead. When you open your own song page, the button reads open your session.
The session link
Every published song also has a session link, the address of the song in the app. Only its writer opens the session itself. Anyone else who is signed in and opens it gets their own remix, saved under remixes in their library, or the one they already made. A visitor who is not signed in can play the song and read its ode there. A link-only song has only this link, and a listed song has both, each with a copy button on the publish sheet.
What the numbers count
Every number on a public page or a song page is computed when the page loads, from the same records the app keeps. None of them is typed in, and none can be set by hand.
| On the page | What it counts | Shows |
|---|---|---|
| tracks | the tracks you chose to show | always |
| plays | plays started by anyone but you, on the page and in the app | off until you switch it on |
| N remixes | remixes you made of other people’s songs and published | once there is one |
| remixed N times | remixes other people made of the songs on your page, published or still in their drafts | once there is one |
| activity grid | songs you wrote each day over the last year | on until you switch it off |
| joined | the month you made your account | on until you switch it off |
A few details behind those rows.
Plays count each time a song starts. The count leaves out plays made while you are signed in, so playing your own songs in the studio does not add to it. The plays on a public page also count toward the plays on your dashboard overview.
Remixes count by person. A remix you make of your own song does not count toward either number, and remixed N times shows on each track as well as in the total under your name. A remix still sitting in someone’s drafts counts, because they took the song and started working on it. It shows on their page only once they publish it and choose to show it.
The activity grid counts songs written, not songs published. Each square is a day, each column a week starting on Sunday, and the shade steps up at one, two to three, four to six and seven or more songs. It counts every song and loop Songcode finished writing for you, including the ones you never kept. It leaves out stem rewrites and the fix passes Songcode runs on a song that would not play. The caption under it gives the total for the year.
A song page shows the same counts for its one song, with the same switches, plus the date it was published and a composer line, such as “composer: songcode extra”.
With more than one track, visitors can sort the page your way (picked), newest first (recent), most remixed, and most played when plays show. The choice stays in the address, so a sorted page can be shared as it is.
Share cards
A link to a public page or a song page unfurls as a card in chats and on social sites. The card shows your picture, name, tag, up to four of the counts above, and the last 26 weeks of your activity grid in your page’s accent. A song’s card shows its title, kind, genre, tempo, key and length, the form as a bar, its counts, and the start of its ode. Both follow the same rules as the pages: a count you hide or a count of zero stays off the card, and a hidden song or a private page has no card at all. When something on it changes, such as a new picture or a different count, the card’s address changes with it, so the next time someone shares the link they get the new card.