Document window overview

Frettler is built around the macOS document model — similar to Pages. Rather than showing a single fretboard that resets each time the app is opened, Frettler lets you create documents and collect your chosen fretboards inside them.

These document files become your notebooks for learning, projects, and discovery: collect the blues scales you want to learn, the minor chords you want to practise, and so on. Because Frettler uses documents, they can be moved, duplicated, shared, and even reverted using Time Machine.

If you create two documents — one for guitar and the other for bass — you can switch between them and Frettler will play notes using each document’s configured instrument. Don’t forget to explore the macOS menu bar’s File menu.

• Document level controls

  The controls in the top-right of a document window affect Frettler’s overall behaviour and display throughout the current document, while fretboard controls are shown per fretboard.

  

  From left to right, the highlighted controls are described below.

• Play mode

  Frettler has three different ways of playing notes you click within fretboards:

  • Sustained play — each clicked note plays for a few seconds before fading. Multiple notes can be played in quick succession to get a feel for how they sound together, helping you hear the relationship between intervals.
  • Single play — click and hold to hear a note; on release, the note stops. This mode lets you train your ear to a single note or interval without other notes ringing.
  • Pattern play — click the root note of a pattern and Frettler plays the notes in that fretboard’s pattern along the string. For a scale, you will hear seven notes (assuming you have not hidden any — see the fretboard help for hiding notes). For a chord, Frettler plays the chord tones in sequence (again, assuming none are hidden), then finishes with a strum of all notes. So assuming the chord is Emaj and you click the E on the nut of string 6, the sequence you hear will start with that E, followed by the G# on fret 4 and B on fret 7, of the same string, followed by a strum of those three together.
    The strum is not intended to represent a specific chord voicing/fingering, as no fingering is determined. To hear actual voicings strummed, see chord organisers.

• Jump to current panel

  When you click the title of a panel, it becomes the currently focused one. The Up and Down arrow keys move that focus up and down, one panel at a time. Focus is primarily a navigational aid: controls (and notes) across all fretboards and chord organisers remain usable, regardless of which one is currently focused.

  Focus can be especially useful in documents with many panels. For example, you might keep focus on a “primary” scale and quickly return to it from anywhere in the document. “Jump to current panel” takes you straight back to the last panel you selected.

• Arrange panels

  The “Arrange panels” button opens a dialog where you can manage panel order and navigation. You will notice that in the document, each panel has a number in its title area. After moving a panel, its number will change as the numbering is always sequential within the document. Those numbers show you a panel's relative position in the document.

  

  Reorder panels: you can rearrange the order of panels in one of two ways within the dialog: either drag and drop the row representing a panel, or use the Up/Down chevron buttons. The order you choose becomes effective when you click “Save”. The list of panels will show the current numeric position of each in the document, even after a panel is moved. It's new position does not come into effect until you select “Save”.

  Set focus: each row has a radio button selector. Choose one and, when you click “Apply”, that panel becomes the focused panel and is brought into view.

  Preview panels: you can also sample fretboard panels quickly using “Pattern play”, without needing to scroll to each one in the document.

  An alternative to using the “Arrange panels” dialog to re-arrange panels, is to drag a panel in the document using its title area, showing a three bar drag handle to remind you.

  

  Click and hold anywhere in the title area and drag it into its intended position (while dragging you should see a snaphot of just the title being dragged). A blue highlight line will appear while dragging to show you where the dropped panel will be inserted.

• Add Panel

  Mentioned in the “Getting started” section of this site, the “Add panel” button opens an inline menu offering the choice of “Add Fretboard” and “Add Chord Organiser”. When adding a chord organiser you will simply be prompted for the title of that new panel only, but on adding a fretboard panel you will be presented with a dialog where you choose a content type (scale/mode/chord), a root note, and a pattern for the new fretboard panel. A fretboard panel's title will always describe those choices and is not editable.

  

• Help

  The Help button opens Frettler’s lightweight in-app help dialog. The macOS menu bar “Help” → “Frettler Help” opens the content you are reading right now in your browser.