User Guide for Corda

At a Glance

General Navigation

• Tabs: a colored gem per space, animated on hover, filled in when active.
• Bar tint: subtly picks up the background you’ve chosen in Settings.
• Switching tabs: preserves the state of each space (scroll position, selection).
• First launch: a welcome screen offers two starting points, sample chords already filled in or an empty library.

Discover

• Role: a discovery showcase, not a working tool. No card opens, nothing here is editable.
• Empty library: a central panel invites you to “Add a chord” or “Create a collection.”
• Chord of the moment: featured prominently, changes every day.
• Themed rows: for example “To get started,” scrollable horizontally.
• See all: expands the full list for a theme.

Favorites

• Content: only the chords marked with a heart.
• Empty list: a message reminds you how, hover a chord card and click ♡.
• Click a card: opens the detail panel.
• Click empty space: closes the panel.
• Space: removes the selected chord from favorites.
• ⌫: offers to delete it permanently, with confirmation.

My Library

• Role: every chord you’ve saved, centralized here.
• Floating bar: “Add a chord” button, a counter of visible chords, a carousel of 17 root notes, and the Simple / Expert button.
• Click a note: filters the grid to that root note; a second click removes the filter.
• Simple / Expert: finger positions only in Simple mode, harmonic functions overlaid in Expert mode.
• Click a card: opens the detail panel; click empty space or the panel’s arrow to close it.
• Space: toggles the favorite status of the selected chord.
• ⌫: permanent deletion, with confirmation. Works even if the chord is currently placed in the Workshop.
• ⌘N: opens the creation form, inherits the filtered root note if one is active.

Tip. Filter by a root note first, then press ⌘N: the form opens with that note already selected, faster than picking it again by hand.

My Collections

• Role: group your chords by song, project, or theme.
• List: tiles showing name and chord count.
• “New collection” (top right): opens a window to enter a name.
• Trash icon on tile hover: deletes the collection, immediately if empty, after confirmation otherwise. The chords stay in your library.
• Click a tile: opens its contents.
• Pencil icon on title hover: renames the collection (Enter or ✔ to confirm, ✗ or Escape to cancel).
• Adding a chord: through its detail panel, “Add to collection” button.
• Removing a chord: card by card, without deleting it from the library.

Workshop

• Role: your free composition space, on a large canvas.
• Palette (top): every card in your library, or just your favorites, or a specific collection. A chevron collapses it to free up space.
• ⌘N: opens the creation form; if a root note is active in the palette, it is already selected in the form.
• Adding a card: click to place it at the center, or drag it exactly where you want.
• Tuning lock: as soon as a first card is placed, a lock icon shows that only cards of the same tuning stay available; the rest are grayed out in the palette.

Multiple workshops

• Create or switch workshop: the Workshop menu in the macOS menu bar, listing every saved workshop; the display automatically switches to the Workshop tab as soon as the change succeeds. If several workshops share the same title, their last saved date is added to the name to tell them apart.
• “Manage saved workshops…”: renames or deletes a workshop (with confirmation), shows its last saved date.
• Untitled workshop: leaving one, by creating a new workshop or switching to another, triggers a three-way warning: “Save…” (by giving it a name), “Don’t Save,” or Cancel.

Modes

• Exploration: a free canvas to place and compare your cards.
• Progression: a structured space with Sections (Intro, Verse, Chorus…). Double-click a section’s name to rename it, ⌫ to remove it.
• Text block (Progression mode): click Text, next to Section, then click an empty area of the canvas to place the block and start writing. It grows automatically as you type, with no handle to adjust. Double-click to reopen it for editing. Click elsewhere or press Enter to finish editing; Shift+Enter inserts a line break. Escape cancels placement before the block is created. A block left empty when editing ends is removed automatically.

Zoom and export

• Zoom: +/- buttons or a trackpad pinch, from 30% to 250%. Click the displayed percentage to reset to 100%.
• Share (once the canvas isn’t empty): export as an image (PNG) or document (PDF).
• Red trash icon: clears the entire Workshop, an irreversible action confirmed by an alert.

Tip. Create one workshop per song or per style, then export it individually as .cordaw to send it to someone without touching your library. See also Backup, Import, and Export.

Chord Cards

• Content: the chord’s diagram and name, musical extensions shown as superscript (the “7” in Em⁷, for example).
• Heart on hover (top left): adds or removes the chord from favorites.
• Trash icon on hover (depending on location, a collection or the Workshop): removes the card from that specific spot, without affecting the library.

Chord Detail Panel

• Opening it: click a card, anywhere except the Workshop.
• Content: the chord’s name in large type, the bass note if it has one, a detailed diagram, an accessible text description of the finger positions (compatible with screen readers), and your personal notes.
• “Add to collection”: check the collections you want. “Create a collection now” lets you create one even when the list is not empty, then adds the open chord to it immediately.
• “Edit”: opens the editing form.
• Chevron: closes the panel.

Adding or Editing a Chord

• Opening it: “Add a chord,” ⌘N, or “Edit” on an existing chord.
• Preview (left side): the card as it will appear, with its own Simple/Expert button.
• Root note: the carousel of 17 notes below Preview selects the root note. It can remain neutral; click the active note again to clear it. Name suggestions then disappear, while a name typed manually is retained.
• Spelling: selecting G# or Ab preserves that spelling in the name suggestions.
• Name (right side): type the name.
• “Add to collection” (only when creating a chord, if at least one collection exists): optional choice. Leave “No collections” selected or choose the collection that will receive the new chord when you save it.
• Fingering: click the cells of the fretboard grid, each click cycles a string between fretted, open, and muted.
• -/+: number of visible frets, from 3 to 8.
• Name suggestions: clickable pills, with both enharmonic spellings when the bass differs from the root (“D / F#,” “D / Gb”).
• Advanced options (collapsed by default): tuning (Standard, Drop D, DADGAD, Half-Step Down, custom), a fixed starting fret, a free note.
• Trash icon (edit mode only): deletes the chord entirely, with confirmation.
• Save (⌘Return): saves the chord; confirmation is asked for an exact duplicate.
• Cancel: closes the form without saving anything.

Tip. Between “D / F#” and “D / Gb,” pick the spelling that matches the song’s key rather than habit: it keeps your chords visually consistent with the rest of the progression.

Settings

Accessible via ⌘, or the app menu, split into two tabs.

Appearance

General

• Language: System, Français, English, Deutsch, Español, Italiano. The app restarts after a change.
• Sample chords: one-click install.
• Reset (danger zone): first offers a backup, then asks for confirmation before erasing everything, chords, collections, workshops. Your appearance preferences, language, and default tuning stay untouched. See also Workshop for what “workshops” covers.

Backup, Import, and Export

• ⌘E Save Corda: creates a .corda file with all your chords and collections.
• ⌘I Restore a backup: selects a .corda file, then offers:
  • Add to my library: merges with your current library, duplicates skipped (a favorited chord in the file can make an existing non-favorite version favorite, never the other way around).
  • Replace my library: erases everything and replaces it, after a strict confirmation.
• Individual workshop: export or import separately as .cordaw, via the Workshop menu. No keyboard shortcut attached; an imported workshop always creates a new workshop. See also Workshop.

Keyboard Shortcuts