Today I announce the first release of my latest software project: Chordious, an open-source chord diagram generator for stringed instruments like the ukulele or guitar.
It’s the secret sauce behind the two sets of ukulele chord charts I’ve released in the past month, for both standard and slack-key tunings. At the moment, Chordious is a small command-line app that takes a config file of desired chord diagrams and generates them in clean, beautiful SVG graphics. Whether you want to make some chord charts of your own, or just spice up your song sheets, Chordious is the app for you.
Chordious isn’t just for ukulele, you can create diagrams for any stringed instrument. By default it produces very nice uke chord charts, but you can tweak and adjust the output to make the chords you want. Here are just some of the features:
- Outputs to clean, scalable SVG images
- Configurable styling, including:
- Diagram height and width
- Font size and family
- Number of frets and strings
- Specify top fret and barres
- Bulk creating from the command line with Chordious.CLI.exe
For download links, check out my Chordious page, or the Chordious project page at Launchpad. You’ll find links for both the binaries and the source. Note that you’ll need at least .NET 4.0 or the latest version of Mono installed to run Chordious.
Happy chording!
/jon
P.S. As of right now the app works, as evidenced by the chord diagrams I’ve already made, but it’s by no means complete. For example I left room in the design for barre chord arcs, but since I didn’t need them personally, they currently don’t do anything. The next big thing I plan to tackle is to a graphical chord designer, to make designing the chords faster and easier. Stay tuned!
Jon Thysell 
can’t start … I install Mono, .NET 4.5 but nothing, just black window open and close… so sad
The app is a command line program. You need to run it from a command prompt. Instructions are in the read me file. If you’re not familiar/comfortable with the command line, you should probably wait for the beta of the graphical chord designer.
C:\Users\d.valat\Chord>Chordious.CLI.exe
Chordious.CLI.exe 0.2.0.0 by Jon Thysell
Invalid command-line arguments.
Use -? to show help.
ok I understand… [infile] … I will wait for your graphical chord designer… 😉
I definitely intend to make it much easier to use than it currently is. The first version was just to get the ball rolling.
HI Jon – I’m struggling to get Chordious working in windows 8. I’ve verified that .NET framework is installed along with mono and Gtk# (sans XSP, as instructed) and the program runs, but instead of seeing a rendered chord, all I see are red X’s. One note – your link to Gtk# for .NET (step 3 for windows install) links to the files found in step 2 – do I need Gtk# for .NET for the graphics to render properly?
Thanks for any help offered – what you are doing is very unique! I really look forward to printing out some customized chord charts.
Yes, Chordious 0.6 also needs Gtk# for .NET for the chords to render properly. The next version of Chordious will not have this requirement as I finally figured out how to render without it.