Chord Diagram Maker
A simple little program for creating guitar chord diagrams. The program is provided free of
charge to the online jazz guitar community, as a thank you for everything I've learned from
your jazz guitar web sites and newsgroup postings. If you really feel you want to pay me
something, just send me a copy of your CD:
David Moss
Leopoldstrasse 32
D-76275 Ettlingen
GERMANY
Disclaimer
The program is supplied as is. It's been checked for viruses, and I can't imagine any way it
could damage your system, but I'm not offering any guarantees. Use it at your own risk.
Rationale
This program only makes fretboard diagrams - it doesn't identify chords, or suggest scales for
them, or play them through your sound card, or such.
I wrote it as a simple, lightweight program for people who need fretboard diagrams for their
jazz education websites. Since I've been using those resources a lot, I'm happy to repay the
debt by providing a tool to simplify creating those web sites. This is a copy-and-paste
program. You create your diagram, copy it with the Copy button and paste it into the software
you're using - word processor, web authoring or whatever. If you want to save the diagram in
a graphics format like gif, jpeg, etc., just copy and paste it into your favorite graphics program
and save it from there. There are so many different graphics formats out there, and so many
great programs that can create files in all those formats, it just wasn't worthwhile reinventing
the wheel.
Final point - sorry, I can only program in Windows. If any Mac or Linux programmer wants to
port the program, contact me - I'd be more than happy to give you the source code.
Installation
The program was written on Windows NT 4.0, and I’ve used it on 2000 and XP. I assume it
will run on Windows 95/98/ME systems as well. Copy [Link], [Link] and [Link]
into any directory you want.
Removal
Just delete the [Link], [Link] and [Link] files, together with any .crd files you may
have created. There are no system directory files or registry entries to be deleted.
Instructions for use
When you start the program, you see an empty fretboard and a control panel.
Click on a fret to display a dot there, click again to remove it. Click either end of a string to
mark it with an open circle, signifying it is to be played open.
Move the cursor to the bottom-right corner of the fretboard, when you see the cursor change
to a double-headed arrow you can click and drag to resize the grid. Move the cursor to the
top-left corner where a four-way arrow appears, here you can move the entire diagram.
The control panel contains three panes and a row of buttons.
The left-hand pane controls the general appearance of the diagram:
Strings/Tunings: Type in a list of string tunings, from low to high. Each capital letter
from A to G is interpreted as a string, and if the letter is immediately followed by a #
or b symbol this is also taken into account. All other symbols are ignored. The
program automatically displays the number of strings you specify here.
Number of frets: self explanatory
Chord root: used for the display of chord tone (R, 3, 5, etc.)
Frets to show: you can show all frets, or only the region of the fretboard where you've
placed finger position markers. You can also select "at least 2", "at least 3" etc. to
specify a minimum number of frets to be displayed. If there are no position markers
on the diagram, this setting is ignored and all frets are shown. When the nut is
hidden, a fret number appears next to the first fret displayed. When the nut is visible,
it's drawn with a heavier line. When all frets are shown, pale gray fret markers
appear. If you want to see the whole fretboard but without the fret markers, set the
control to show "at least 50 frets" instead of "all frets".
Realistic fret spacing: switch option off to get even-spaced frets
Vertical diagram: self explanatory
The middle pane controls the default appearance of the markers:
Symbol: you can choose dots, notes (A, A#, B, etc.) or chord tones (R, 3, 5, etc.)
relative to the selected chord root. Or you can type up to four characters/symbols
directly into the box. If you choose notes or chord tones, there are alternative
enharmonic representations of some notes (A#/Bb, #9/b3, etc.) You can cycle
through these by repeated clicking. If notes or chord tones are displayed at the nut
end of the string, they refer to the open string note: at the bridge end, they refer to
the currently fingered note.
Color: Click the button to change the color shown.
Font: Click the button to change the font shown. You can also change the color from
the font dialog box. The dots shown on the fretboard are approximately the same
size as the letter O in the chosen typeface: change the pitch to make the dots bigger
or smaller.
Apply changes to: Controls whether or not the changes you make in the symbol, color
and font are immediately applied to any markers already present in the diagram. You
can have the changes applied to all of them, none of them, or to all except the
customized markers.
To customize a marker, right-click on it. You then see a dialog containing duplicates of the
symbol, color and font controls. Changes you make here only apply to the marker you right-
clicked on. You can also check the boxes to re-apply the default symbol, color and/or font.
The right-hand pane controls the additional text in the diagram:
Title: Type the name of your chord, or any other text, and it appears at the top of the
diagram. If you want to set a marker on an open string and the title seems to be in
the way, don't worry, just click. The title will politely step to one side.
Font: Click to change the font or text color for the title
Fret number: Sets the position where the fret number is to be displayed when it's
needed, either next to the highest string (right or top), or next to the lowest (left or
bottom).
Number style: Choose Roman or Arabic numerals for the fret number.
Font: Click to select a font for the fret number. If you want horizontal lines at the top
and bottom of your Roman numerals, choose Times New Roman or similar.
Buttons:
Copy: Puts a copy of the diagram onto the clipboard in both bitmap and metafile
(vector graphic) formats. From there, they can be pasted into any application.
Clear all: self-explanatory
Open/Save: saves your work in a file. The files produced aren't in any standard
graphics format, instead they contain all settings needed to reproduce the diagram in
the Chord Diagram Maker program. If you want to save the diagram in graphics
format, paste it into Paintshop Pro or similar and save it from there. There are no
warnings on quitting without saving, overwriting files, etc. because saving files isn't
a very central feature of this program.
Note that all the program settings are saved in the file, as well as the finger position markers
you define: that means you can save a file without defining any markers, in order to create an
empty template with all settings the way you want them. If you save such a template file
under the name [Link] in the startup working directory (that's usually the directory where
you put the .EXE file), it will be loaded automatically every time you start the program.
[Link] and [Link]:
These two files define the symbols to be displayed in Notes or Chord Tones mode. They
consist of 12 lines, each line gives the symbol for the appropriate tone of the chromatic scale,
starting at A ([Link]) or at the root ([Link]). Each line can contain any number of
enharmonic alternatives, separated by commas. You can edit these as you wish, as long as
provide all 12 definitions. The program won't crash if either of these two files are missing, but
you won't have any enharmonic alternatives available.
That's it. Enjoy the program, and make good music.
David Moss
[Link]@[Link]
22 November 2002
