I have so many questions and a gig tonight. Looks like transferring my charts into gig performer isn’t goiing to the the straightforward option I’d hoped for.
So, it appears that the chart editor uses chord pro format, and won’t really display stuff unless you use the corrent language (so you have to learn scripting just to enter a simple chart or some reminder notes for a tune). Really, you can’t just put text in and save it snd then have it reliably appear? Wow. Way to overcomplcate a function.
beyond that, I’ve delved into the chord pro format a little, and it appears that gig performer can’t render any of the modifiers {textsize: x} etc. It just prints the out put of those commands as text. Whats going on here excactly? is the format only half implemented? Wouldn’t it be easier just to have a simple text tool or a way of loading pdfs or something?
Can anyone clarify for me which bits of the format I have to use to make it work and which bits of the format don’t function in GP
Also, is this getting fixed in version 4? Having charts linked to my set list/sound settings was one of the major sells of GP for me. Finding out that it’s this opaque is something of a dissapointment
Also, If I make a file in the editor in GP, then save it, GP just saves it’s original holding pattern text into the file and ditches all my edits. The only way I can get anything into the program is to save the file out, then open it in sublime text, do all my editing in there. Then It loads in GP. What a mess. Why even implement a feature like this if it’s going to work this badly?
@manhippo the ChordPro format text modifiers are not supported currently. They’re somewhat new to the ChordPro format and as ChordPro format changes we may implement more features into our ChordPro viewer.
We think we fixed some issues around file handling in GP4 and will continue to improve things.
Your tone, however is not something that is appreciated in these forums where people get together and try to find answers, solutions and advice. While things may not work exactly as you expected them to work - we do listen to reasonable suggestions, bug reports etc… and typically integrate them into the product.
I’ll add some of the things you reported into our system so we can evaluate and possibly implement/fix this for some future update.
Apologies if my tone offends. I’m under time pressure and stressed. Not my intention to come off radgy in an innappriate context. Just seems like a bafflingly semi functional part of an otherwise really intuitive and stable program.
I’d thought this would be straightforward (as things have been generally on the audio handling end of the spectrum using GP). I guess I’ll just ditch it for today and come back to it when I have time to figure out the kinks in the system. GP has already lost my work several times and checking my gear and sound rig is more important than trying to make charts work neatly, I’ll just take the old paper folder and music stand. Solid tech.
Yeah - trying to change things a day before the gig can be stressful… I already submitted your suggestions to our feature tracking system so they don’t get lost.
Is the failing to save stuff entered into the editor thing a known bug though? I couldn’t find any reference to that when I searched the forum before posting, but maybe it’s already in the system?
As a matter of course, I never try to change anything within three weeks of a show…that means, not updating plugins, not updating your OS, not even installing other applications (particularly in windows where a bad installer might replace a critical library that a plugin was using) not trying to use new features, etc.
Even when GP4 is released, I would strongly encourage people not to use it on a gig until they have been able to spend a few weeks getting comfortable with it. Who knows if someone might have the one plugin in the world that worked fine with GP3 but blows up GP4. Not saying that will happen (like all our previous versions, GP4 has had a ton of strenuous testing, and PA does their own testing as well) but waiting until the day of a gig is not the way to reduce stress.
DHJ Thanks, yes. For sure, fair advice. I got the sound stuff all tuned up a while ago for this project, I just assumed that text entry wouldn’t be that challenging, and I quite often sort out my charts on the morning of a gig, to get my head into that project space. Also, while it’s sound advice, it’s not always an option when you are on tour, especially working someone else’s project. Last minute rehearsals, new material, arrangement tweaks and the subsequent need to create fast charts are all very much part of the life of a working musician. Sure, totally not going to just throw a random plugin into the mix on the fly, but being able to create charts in a fast and intuitive way while rehearsing and under time pressure is absolutely key in many scenarios.
Aharry Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out!
For anyone who’se having similar issues to me, and in the spirit of contribution, everything else was in order, so I ended up with a bit of time to figure this out. Here’s where I got to, should it be useful to anyone. Gonna try it tonight, but I’ll take paper backup just in case I’ve missed anything.
So, Editing in the editor within GP and then saving the files just doesn’t work at my end. The saved file ends up just being the boilerplate text that you see when you open a blank song document in the editor. However, saving the file like this gives you a template with the basic syntax that you need to make GP display text at all, so I saved my whole setlist track by track out to a folder from the GP editor, then opened them all in a text editor, inserted appropriate names and musical information/notes. Now all loads. bit of a fiddle, but functional.
That’s how I generally do my songs. If I’m including full lyrics I just copy text lyrics off Google or whatever, paste them into Notepad, then manually add the appropriate ChordPro tags with chord changes or whatever.
Well that all worked delightfully, so that’s good.
Had a look at the chord pro app you mentioned Aharry. It looks great, but it requires native java. I’ve found java to cause instability issues in the past, and also to be hella bloaty over time, so I prefer not to have it installed.
However, Having my chord pro files in folders and then opening the folder in sublime text means I can have an entire repertoire set out in tabs, edit the text quickly and then save to update to GP. That’ll work for me as a system for now.
Cheers all. Apologies again if my tone was off yesterday.
Thanks dude. I’d found that one. Trouble I was having is that the editing and saving behaviour described in this article just doesn’t work at all for me in GP. Maybe it’s a bug or a glitch with my install, but as described above it’s non functional at my end. Only option is to use an external editor.