High fret numbers/letters in tablatures
I am very pleased with the possibility to directly type in fret numbers higher than 9 by simply pressing the desired digits one after another (e.g. 1+2 for 12th fret) - without having to use the arrow keys. However, it seems that this feature doesn't work when using letters instead of numbers for the tablature.
I know this question is quite special, but this would make working with letter tablatures even more convenient - thanks in advance for your reply!
-----
Using a8e8b7b.
Comments
Well, it is supposed to work with letters from 'a' to 'k' at least. Implementing higher letters ment reserving too many 'simple' key strokes. If you use tablatures with letters, chances are that you use them for historic ones (viol? French lute?), not modern; and in those sources letters above 'l' are quite rare, I think.
It may be worth investigating if occupying 'l' and 'm' too would raise other problems or not.
In the meantime, while etering tablatures, letters and digits are aliases of one another: if you are numerically minded and can remember that 'l'='10', you may enter 'l' by pressing '1' and '0': if the tab is set to show letters, it will show 'l' rather than '10'.
Hoping to have addressed your question correctly,
M.
In reply to Well, it is supposed to work by Miwarre
Thank you for your quick reply! Yes, entering 'a' to 'k' by typing the letters works fine, although with the exception of 'i', which I can only enter by pressing '8' (perhaps conflicting with the shortcut for the instruments dialog?), which is no problem at all for me.
You are right - I can perfectly typeset lute music in french tablature. Indeed, in those historic sources, letters above 'l' are rare if needed at all and I am perfectly happy with the current tablature implementation.
As a guitarist however, I also use a (custom) letter tablature for writing down separately the fingering of the right hand and use the four letters p-i-m-a for this purpose, which is common practice.
Unfortunately, I think what you describe in your second paragraph does not quite work with letter tablatures. When displaying numbers, you can indeed press 1+0 and you will get a 10; if you then switch to displaying letters, it will be correctly shown as 'l'. However, which was my point, this does not seem to work vice versa - when displaying letters, only one number key will be accepted, resulting in our example in an 'a' (or a '0' when displayed as a number). Hence, it is not possible to enter for example a 'p' by pressing 1+4 when displaying letters.
I hope I could make myself clear - thank you for reply!
In reply to Thank you for your quick by jschwalm
I have re-checked the TAB input system and there are several things which need attention. Possibly some recents updates have jeopardized the TAB input.
In fact, 'b' + 'a' for '10' (or 'l') does not wrk. It is supposed to! So, I'll see what is going on.
The 'i' shortcut for fret i/8 has indeed a conflict problem. Would it be acceptable to use 'j' instead? 'j' was not used by historic tablatures, but was seen as a variant for 'i', so it might make sense (currently, 'j' is used for the "enharmonic-up" shortcut, but enharnony makes little sense while working with tablatures).
I'll keep you infomed.
M.
P.S.: about fingering, are the standard 'p', 'i', 'm', 'a' fingering symbols in the Fingering palette not suitable for your use?
In reply to I made yourself very clear! by Miwarre
Thank you very much, that sounds great!
I had the same thought concerning the shortcut conflict - since 'j' is not used in historic sources, using this letter for 'i' seems the obvious alternative. And yes, I also think that 'j' can be used in tablature context, since enharmony seems superfluous here (what would be the enharmonic counterpart of '3' o 'd'?). So I'd support that move.
The standard fingering palette is absolutely sufficient when only noting down a few fingerings, but it is quite sensible sometimes to accurately write down the fingering of the right hand for every single tone, and that can be best realised by a tablature displaying the four letters on the corresponding strings.
Another small thing seems to be wrong in the current github branch: The tablature cursor showing the current string is not correctly updated, so that switching strings is a little confusing at the moment. Is that reproducable?
Great work anyhow, I am delighted and appreciate every single improvement :)
All the points listed above have been fixed, i.e.:
*) the string cursor is correctly updated when the the current string is moved up or down
*) multi-digit has been enabled for TAB using letters too
*) 'I' shortcut for fret 8 changed to 'J'
The relevant pull requests have been pushed to github. At the moment, merging pull requests is stopped because of an issue with tests, but it should resume in a couple of days.
Thanks,
M.
In reply to All fixed by Miwarre
Thank you so much!
In reply to Great! by jschwalm
.. for most OSes, if not all.
M.
In reply to Fixed should be in the nightlies... by Miwarre
Everything working perfectly as described above - thank you!