JotChord logo
Published on

Release Notes

Authors
Table of Contents

Release Notes - What's New with JotChord™

August 25, 2024

  • Improved layout, incl. default small device (e.g., mobile) layout, and responsive layout changes when dragging to resize the window.

August 12, 2024

  • The PDF Preview now includes zoom controls, including a quick way to zoom the PDF to fill the available width.
  • When in dark mode, the PDF Preview now inverts the display of the page with a dark background and white markings.
    • NOTE: This does not affect the downloaded PDF file.

August 11, 2024

  • The PDF Preview now renders at a higher resolution while editing.
    • As a result, editing will typically look better, especially on high-resolution monitors like Apple Retina displays, 4K monitors, etc.
    • A potential tradeoff is slightly higher network download bandwidth, which you may notice on particularly slow internet connections. If this becomes an issue, please let us know.
    • NOTE: NO change was made to PDF downloads, which have always had a high-resolution.
  • Documentation and blog posts now include a link to our Instagram account (@jotchord). Please follow us, and feel free to PM us with questions / suggestions.

June 1, 2024

  • Improvements to layout of symbols that appear above a chord, including fermatas, tick marks, and push marks, both when used individually and (especially) in combination.
    • Previously, tick marks and push marks could collide, and fermatas when used without tick marks or push marks had too much space between the fermata and chord.
    • The layout now considers all combinations of tick marks, push marks and fermatas, and lays them out more optimally.
    • This involved a fairly invasive change to the layout logic. Please let us know if you encounter any new bugs as a result.

May 24, 2024

  • Minor improvements to layout of chart creation experience, incl. better delineation between pages in multi-page charts.

May 21, 2024

  • New Feature: Multi-page charts
    • Previously, JotChord™ only supported a single page chart. If your ChordText™ was too long, JotChord™ would truncate the chart at the end of the first page.
    • Now, you can have arbitrarily long charts, and JotChord™ will automatically paginate the chart for you.
    • This is the first version of this feature. It should work great, but we'd like to hear if anything needs improvement.
    • Future versions might include a footer, auto-generated from the chart title, and including page numbers, in case you print it out and the pages scatter on you.

May 20, 2024

  • New blog post with a downloadable PDF of an NNS Key Reference Chart.

January 18, 2024

  • Improvements to formatting, based on user feedback. This includes:
    • Measure lines that have few measures (as is common with Intros and Turnarounds) now spread more compactly across the page. Previously, they spread evenly across the entire page, which was a bit silly when you have two measures. Essentially, JotChord™ now treats a line as if it had a minimum of 5 measures, even if it has fewer.
    • Push marks are now closer horizontally to the chord they are attached too (almost centered, but not quite). Previously, in dense charts, it could be difficult to tell which chord each push mark was attached to.
      • NOTE: As a side effect, push marks and tick marks now occupy the same space. Use one or the other on any given chord. If you really need to use both simultaneously on a chord, let us know, and we'll make the layout detect the presence of both.
    • Fixed an issue where, if a chord had a flat alteration, the push marks and tick marks would get pushed other than for chords that didn't have flat alterations.
    • Fxed an issue where diamonds on dominant-7th chords were colliding with the superscript 7.
    • Fixed several issues where using "m" instead of "-" to indicate minor caused formatting issues, including:
      • Centering of the chord in the mute triangle
      • Spacing of split bar when first chord was minor
    • Overhauled the underline logic for split bars - they now work more consistently, including hugging the bottom of the shortest-height chord in the split bar; e.g.:
      • If one chord in a split bar has a mute or diamond, but the others don't, the underline will be placed directly under the "normal" chords, with the effect that it will strike through the bottom of the mute or diamond.
    • If you find other formatting problems, please let us know.

January 17, 2024

December 5, 2023

  • New ChordText™ feature: Modulations (mod+2 for up a whole step, or mod-4 for down 4 1/2-steps).
  • ChordText™ now supports implicit meter / time signature changes by using parentheses around a chord and tick marks to indicate the number of beats in that bar: (5..)
    • Previously, parentheses could only be used around muiltiple chords to indicate a split bar.
  • In another attempt to be less strict, ChordText™ now allows an "x" or "X" character when indicating the number of repeats using the :||{4} style repeat ending symbol: :||{4x}

December 2, 2023

  • More bug fixes with formatting of complex combinations of ChordText symbols. Formatting is hard. Noticeable impacts:
    • Vertical spacing between core chord symbols (incl. diamond and muted variations) is more consistent.
    • Horizontal layout of pushes, tick marks and fermatas is more consistent.
    • Tick marks and push symbols are larger - easier to read.

December 1, 2023

  • Quality of life improvement: Downloaded PDF and ChordText filenames are now based on the song title, if provided. Otherwise, "JotChord.pdf" and "JotChord.txt". So, give your song a title and avoid parasitic marketing.
  • Bug fixes with formatting of complex combinations of ChordText symbols on chords, e.g.. pushed slash chord mutes.

November 30, 2023

  • New ChordText™ feature: Inline comments (/* comment here */)
    • ChordText™ already supported a comment line (//) - but it takes up a whole line.
    • Sometimes you need a more compact way to add performance notes inline. Thus: inline comments.
    • Inline comments can be added anywhere in a measure line, either attached to a chord, or between chords.
    • Read more in the ChordText™ Reference Manual > Inline comments
  • New ChordText™ feature: Mutes / cut-offs / marcato (!)
  • Compatibility change in ChordText™: Fermatas now use the tilde character (~) instead of (!)
  • Quality of life improvement: Previously, you would lose any changes you made to the ChordText™ if you refreshed the browser tab/window. Now, changes to your chart will persist, saving your hard work, even if you refresh the page or change pages within the site. Your changes will not persist, however, if you close the tab, or load up JotChord™ in another browser tab. This allows you to work on multiple charts simultaneously in different tabs.
  • Minor updates to the default chart, to include the most common metadata lines, and a few more examples of what ChordText™ can do.
  • Fixed a small bug where the tempo was missing a space between the resolution increment (e.g., 1/4 or dotted 1/8) and the equals sign.

November 29, 2023

  • New ChordText™ feature: Multi-measure repeats (%)
    • A percent sign (%) indicates the performer should repeat the previous measure.
    • Multiple percent signs in a row (up to 8) can be used to notate up to an 8-bar repeat (e.g., %% for 2 bars, %%%% for 4 bars).
    • Read more in the ChordText™ Reference Manual > Multi-measure repeats

November 28, 2023

  • New ChordText™ feature: Measure group separators (*)
  • ChordText™ now allows lower-case letters in section headers, in addition to upper-case letters and numbers.
  • ChordText™ now allows both upper-case and lower-case letter "d" as the shorthand for dominant chord qualities.
  • Reference Manual and Quick Reference Guide now reflect these changes.
  • Added missing documentation for these ChordText™ features:
    • Style: and Feel: metadata
    • X for N.C. ("No Chord"), tacets and rests
    • sus and add chord qualities
    • [3/8] style syntax for inline meter / time signature changes
  • Published Release Notes for the first time

November 27, 2023

  • Ready for limited Beta users!
  • Added Docs links in footer, with direct access to the Reference Manual and Quick Reference Guide.
  • Added custom themes to ChordText™ editor, incl. a dark mode
  • Fixed bug where light/dark mode theme switching icons could overlap when rage clicking

November 26, 2023

  • JotChord™ web application is live! Includes ChordText™ authoring experience and PDF generation, with the ability to download both the ChordText™ and PDF files.
  • Optimizations for JotChord™ authoring experience on mobile devices and smaller screens
  • ChordText™ initially supports the following NNS features:
    • Chart metadata
      • Title
      • Key
      • Meter (time signature)
      • Tempo
      • Style / Feel
      • ${any} - user-created metadata (for details like Artist, Author, Arranger)
    • Song structure
      • Section headers
      • Comment lines
      • Measure lines
        • Measures (incl. split bars)
        • Chords - including:
          • Rich chord extension support
          • Chord qualities: Major (△), minor (-), augmented (+), diminished (o), sus and add
          • X for no-chord / N.C.
        • Repeats
        • Inline meter changes

November 25, 2023

  • jotchord.com is now live!