Chord Companion Notes and Suggestions

[pough]

I've long been of the opinion that to idiot-proof software you need to consult with idiots. I happen to be one, so here are my notes and suggestions.

NOTES:
1. The default behavior of Chord Companion is to do nothing. Nothing. It has those nice big chord pads and they light up when you press them, but do nothing. It even has a keyboard that also does nothing. So I tried to feed it some MIDI and... nothing.

It isn't immediately obvious that you NEED to drag a little blue button to a pad in order for that pad to actually do something. They don't look like drag-able objects. And there aren't any instructions that I have been able to find. I needed to do a search here on KvR and someone just happened to mention the #1 most important step.

2. Another default behavior is to follow the host key. This is set by a little button down at the bottom right - not obvious. If you (like me) are not aware of it and have set the key of Chord Companion to your desired key and are not planning to use the host key then you will find your key settings blown away every time a looped section starts again.

SUGGESTIONS:
1. The interface is nice and large and could easily have a help overlay with the basics (eg. turn off host key following + set key OR follow host key; drag blue dots) to help us get started.

2. I would rather see the pads pre-filled with chords and have an easy way to clear them than have them empty to start. Maybe with instructions this isn't necessary, but I didn't find it obvious what to do.

3. Follow host key should be off by default, especially if the pads aren't pre-filled. Even more especially if a user sets a different key. If follow host key is on, why allow me to set a different key? And why have a button so powerful and connected to key be so far away from the key setting area?

Apart from that, this is a very cool little plugin.

[mikoatkvr]

Good points especially (1) & (3) . I'm not sure what would be the best way to deal with (2) either. I think tooltips could handle most of this or perhaps an info box ( kind of works like an overlay of the GUI ) opens when we click on the Tracktion logo at the top right of the GUI.