OpenMarch

OpenMarch is an open source drill writing software built on web app frameworks. It will be a cross platform desktop app.

What can OpenMarch do?

Check the website for video demos of what OpenMarch can do!

Can:

• Render a navigable canvas of a college football field
• Move a marcher around and see their coordinates printed in relation to yard lines and hashes
  • e.g. "3.25 steps inside 30 S1" or "11 steps behind front sideline"
• Navigate through pages on the canvas
• Have all marcher, page, and coordinate data saved locally to a db
• Save files to the local system
  • Changes are saved automatically as the user makes them
• Undo/redo
  • Undo history stack is baked into the file, so progress is never lost
  • Currently history is unlimited, which could lead to massive files.
  • Likely future revisions will let users define how long they want their history to go.
• Move multiple marchers at once
• Animate marchers in between pages
• Export individual coordinate sheets
• Load audio files and MusicXML files to base the show off of
• Draw a line and distribute marchers
• Support high school, college, and pro football fields

Cannot:

• Mark props or non-marcher objects
• Export the drill into a pdf of the grid

What is OpenMarch's goal?

To be a free and easy drill writing solution for marching bands, indoor programs, and applicable performing ensembles. OpenMarch hopes to be enough for 90% of ensembles with reasonable design needs. We want to make drill writing effortless.

OpenMarch is designed with three principles:

• Stay free
• Stay fast
• Stay simple

There may never be a day where OpenMarch has support for a 3D rendered marching band of 900 with live video feed jumbotron props. OpenMarch's current (and really only) focus is on the drill-writing experience.

Features in the vision for OpenMarch

• Robust support for drawing pre-defined and custom shapes with a quick workflow for putting marchers into them.
  • Integrate open source tools for quick shape detection (e.g. reading a school's logo and translating that to coordinates).
• Two click follow-the-leader drill generation.
• Support for all operating systems (as it's built in web frameworks).
• Have an accompanying lightweight mobile app for sharing drill sheets/details with students.
• Custom fields/floors with the ability to set custom checkpoints for coordinate references.

What does OpenMarch use?

Main packages

• React - active state response and all things frontend
• Electron - container that react app runs in for it to be a desktop app.

Supporting packages

• Tailwind
• Fabric.js - the football field "canvas" GUI with marcher dots
• Zustand - global state management

OpenMarch for developers

Currently only one person is working on this. (notice I said "we" a lot above? makes me feel official). If you would like to help out or learn more, just shoot me an email!

The team that will bring this to life needs to make significant and path-altering decisions about what OpenMarch will be. Currently, we work on this project as often as we can between work and life. We're motivated by a vision of simple, fast, and free drill designing software for band programs and designers across the country.

Onboarding

Look at the wiki and Onbaording for Developers

OpenMarch for users and drill designers

Install 0.0.3

Note that there are bugs and this code is not production-ready. Use at your own risk and have fun!

Check back to OpenMarch.com and this repository periodically for updates. We're looking for some development, help so send your developer friends this way!

License

OpenMarch is written under the GPL-3.0 license. All code written for this project will forever and always be open and accessible.