Tablature

From StickiWiki

Tablature is a mechanism for creating song tablature diagrams from simple text in the Wiki. It can be used for any number of strings. It can be imbedded in any Wiki page on this site. It is not ususally a good tool for chord diagrams because it does not display symbols for finger placement.

Basics

Tablature uses the "-" (dash) and "=" (equal sign) characters to represent strings (thin and thick, respectively), and the "|" (vertical bar) character to represent bar lines (or, alternatively, frets). Other than these characters, any printable characters you include will be printed.

To tell the Wiki that the information should be interpreted as tablature, rather than text, you need to sandwich it between a <tablature> and a </tablature> tag. Below is the Wiki text for a short Stick tablature diagram:

<tablature>
|---------------9-11-12-|-12--------|
|-------9-11-12---------|-12--------| 
|-10-12-----------------|-14--------|
|-----------------------|-----------|
|-----------------------|-----------|
</tablature>

Below is the diagram produced by this text:

You can also use this to produce custom fretboard charts. Here is the source text for one:

<tablature>
|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
|-Ma7-|-Oct-|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
|-TT--|-p6--|-mi6-|-Ma6-|-mi7-|-Ma7-|-Oct-|-----|-----|-----|-----|
|-mi2-|-Ma2-|-mi3-|-Ma3-|-p4--|-TT--|-p5--|-mi6-|-Ma6-|-----|-----|
|-----|-----|-----|-----|--R--|-mi2-|-Ma2-|-mi3-|-Ma3-|-p4--|-----|
</tablature>

And here is the diagram:

You can also put braces and text under the diagram, for example here is some source text:

<tablature>
|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
|-5th-|-----|-----|-----|-----|--R--|-----|
|-----|-3rd-|-----|-----|-----|-5th-|-----|
|-----|-----|-----|--R--|-----|-----|-3rd-|
|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
[       1st             ]     [    2nd    ]
</tablature>

and here is the diagram:

Important Information

• You must not have any leading white space on the tab lines.
• The second character of the line determines the how and whether the string is drawn. It should be "-" (dash) for a normal string, or "=" (equal sign) for a thick string, or " " (space) for no string.
• All lines should have the same number of characters.

Where did this come from?

Vance Gloster developed the Tablature application for the StickiWiki site, and Matt Perry got it wired into the Wiki.