Gnometab

Gnometab aims to be a WYSIWYG guitar tablature editor. Its features include copying and pasting of tablature passages, a chord library (which the user must fill), the ability to create a variety of tablature symbols specific to the guitar, and clean-looking printed output. It does not attempt to be "smart", i.e. it does not know how many beats are in a measure, nor does it know an E chord from an Am chord. Instead, the emphasis exists on the appearance of the output.

Features:

• Gnometab's features include copying and pasting of tablature passages, a chord library (which the user must fill with chords), professional-looking rhythm notation (not perfect yet), the ability to create a variety of tablature symbols specific to the guitar -- bends, slurs (hammer-ons, pull-offs, etc.), etc. -- and, of course, clean-looking printed output, given any postscript-compatible printer. Gnometab does not attempt to be "smart", i.e., it does not know how many beats are in a measure, nor does it know an E chord from an Am chord. Instead, the emphasis has been on the appearance of the output.
• Gnometab was designed by me, for me. Consequently, it reflects the kind of guitar player that I am. It has a heavy emphasis on fingerstyle guitar. Note that chords can be printed directly on the staff rather than over it. This may prove helpful for teaching -- the student's progress across the staff is interrupted by the chord, making overlooked chord changes less frequent. Gnometab lacks some features peculiar to "rock" guitar, most especially a method for creating complex bends or for notating wild whammy-bar pyrotechnics.... Please feel free to add these features and send me a patch!
• Gnometab is released under the GNU General Public License.

Requirements:

• Gnometab requires GNOME2, an open-source desktop environment for UNIX-like systems. Gnometab is written for the GNOME2 libraries, and depends on libgnomeprint for printing.
• Gnometab uses an xml file format, and requires libxml2. These should be included with any GNOME2 installation. A sample file for use with Gnometab can be found here.
• Binary RPM packages are available for x86 RedHat 8.0. To build source packages, you will need a C compiler and all associated GNOME2 "devel" packages. Feel free to contribute binary packages for your platform by contacting me at the address belo