Frettler Settings

While each fretboard has controls within it which determine the characteristics of just that fretboard, and each document has document wide configuration (instrument, tuning and handedness) which apply to all of the fretboards within it, Frettler has application wide settings, found in menubar item “Frettler” -> “Settings”.

Settings are divided into tabs:

• General - Miscellaneous settings
• Documents - Settings which affect document level functionality
• Instruments - Settings for Frettlers supported instruments
• Fretboards - Settings which affect fretboard level functionality
• Support - Help related

• General

  • On first installation, Frettler presents an introductory welcome page, offering to create a new document, open an existing one, or open the inbuilt example document. That welcome page can be set to not re-appear on future application launch, but should you wish to have it re-appear, the option is here.

  

• Documents

  • When creating a new document, you are prompted for instrument, tuning and handedness , with the latter defaulting to right-handed, favouring the majority of players. If you are in the minority, set the default to be left-handed here.
  • The play mode when clicking fretboard notes has three settings, sustained, single or pattern run. The default mode for new documents can be set in this tab. The play mode can be changed within the document at any time once it has at least one fretboard.

  

• Instruments

  • This section gives you control over the default maximum number of frets Frettler uses for each instrument type. That means fretboards can better reflect the instruments you actually play, whether your guitar stops at 22 frets, your mandolin has a shorter fingerboard, or your ukulele has a more compact range.
  • Use the sliders to choose the fret limit that best matches each of your own instruments. Frettler will then use those values whenever it display a fretboard in a document of that instrument type. Sliders shown in grey indicate instruments using Frettler’s built-in defaults, while blue sliders indicate an instrument is using a default override.

  

• Fretboards

  • Background - choose here which wood graphic you would like for all fretboards in all documents. The choice you make is seen immediately in any open documents, so you can see the effect straight away if you have open documents, but a preview is also shown in the dialog.
  • Note colours - depending on the background you choose, you may like to choose darker/lighter or subdued/vibrant colours for the notes and intervals shown in fretboards. Again, your selection is instantly applied to open documents and a preview is provided in the settings dialog.

    The two Mono themes provide monochrome colouring for those who prefer uniform note colouring.

  

• Chords

  • Voicing depth - when Frettler calculates the chord voicings for diagrams in chord organisers, it calculates a number of options at each fret position. Those options are then ranked based on how likely they are to be playable, and the navigation controls within the diagram allow you to cycle through the alternative voicings. The number of alternatives is controlled by the voicing depth here. The higher the number, the more alternatives you may get, but the longer it will take to navigate through them.
  • Strum speed - when you press the space key with a chord voicing diagram selected, or if you click it, Frettler will play that voicing, string by string as a strum. The speed of that strum is set here.
  • Always right handed - the chord voicing diagrams will by default display their strings using the orientation of the document instruments handedness. So if the instrument is right handed, string six will be on the far left, but if left handed, it will be on the right. If as a left handed player you prefer to see these chord diagrams in a right handed orientation, set the option here.
  • Include muted interior strings - Frettler will filter out chord voicings having interior muted strings, regarding them as not ideal. If you want to see those alternative voicings, set this option, but depending on the voicing depth above, voicings with no interior muted strings will be pushed down the ranking and possibly sacrificed.

  

• Support

  • A link to this website is provided within this tab.