A C++ tool to convert guitar tabs to sheet music.
Beware: this code was written when I was 16/17, so it's not the best I've ever written(!). The concerns are separatedish though. Feel free to read the code for critique/amusement. Make some GitHub issues if you want :-D
On Ubuntu and derivatives, this command should install the necessary SDL libraries, for both running and compiling (it will pull in the runtime packages as dependencies):
$ sudo apt install libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev
If this fails or you're on a different distro, look through your package manager for libSDL*-dev packages for SDL_image and SDL_ttf. Don't install any libsdl2-* libraries.
Once this is done you should be able to run the fretter binary. I have recompiled it for you for 64-bit computers. Download or clone the repo, and then cd into the directory it is in:
$ chmod +x fretter
$ ./fretter
You should be able to run fretter.exe without installing anything. I haven't tried it since 9 years ago.
I haven't included a MacOS binary. I didn't have a Mac. You will have to try compiling it. Maybe you could try wine, but I didn't have much success with that on Linux. Also, the .exe is most likely 32 bit.
If the .exe or Linux executable file fretter doesn't run as-is:
After installing the package listed above, you can try the compile script:
$ sh compile.sh
If successful, this will create the fretter executable, so then:
$ ./fretter
You could try the Code::Blocks project (the Fretter.cbp file)
Notes:
This project is written for SDL 1.2. I originally learned C++ and SDL over at LazyFoo tutorials. They are updated for SDL 2 now with the originals gone, but you can still read their instructions for installing SDL 1.2 on this 2013 snapshot over at the Wayback Machine. Be careful, you will also need to install the SDL_image and SDL_ttf libraries, these are not included by default with SDL 1.2.
Once you've got it running, click the dashes at the bottom to put a tab value there. Scroll the mouse to adjust the value.
You can also adjust the guitar tuning with your scrollwheel on the notes to the left of the tab.
You can click/scroll on the buttons at the top to turn the note guide on/off(click), transpose by octave(scroll) and swap between displaying sharps and flats(scroll).
There is no save/open facility. Take a screenshot, that's, like, good enough, right?
If you do use it, be sure to convert some tabs of some teenage music, like Green Day or Fall Out Boy.
WTFPL i.e. public domain. Use any of this code as you wish. If you do make use of this code for some reason, including a link to this repo would be nice.