The editor interface

When you open a song you land in the editor. Everything you do to a song — writing notes, changing its structure, playing it back, discussing it — happens here. This page names the parts so the rest of the Editing guides can refer to them.

The top bar

Running across the very top:

• The breadcrumb (Bands / Your Band / Song Title) shows where you are and lets you jump back to the band’s song library, or switch bands.
• The song title is editable — click it to rename the song.
• The Comments button opens the comments panel.
• A save indicator shows Saved once your changes are persisted. Tabula saves continuously as you work — there’s no “save” button. (Use Export when you want a downloadable copy.)
• Your account menu is on the far right. When bandmates are in the song with you, their presence avatars appear here too — see Real-time collaboration.

The toolbar

Below the top bar is the main toolbar:

• Tracks opens the track sidebar (instruments, mute/solo, volume, pan).
• Find action (or Ctrl+Shift+P) opens the command palette, a searchable list of every action with its shortcut.
• The duration palette (the row of note icons, Q W E R T Y) arms the rhythmic value for the next note. See Rhythm and durations.
• + Chord, + Lyric, + Bar, and + Track insert those elements.
• View controls layout and display options; the zoom control (100%) and the Song menu (metadata, time signature, key, tempo) sit beside it; Export downloads the song.
• On the right is the transport — the Lead button, play/pause, stop, the position readout, and the tempo (BPM). See Playing your song.

The score

The center of the screen is the rendered score. A track can show standard notation, tablature, or both (drums use a percussion staff) — for a fretted instrument you’ll typically see notation on top and tablature below, and you can toggle the staves on any track. Your cursor is the highlighted beat. Just above the score, a location strip always tells you exactly where the cursor is — for example Bar 1 · Beat 1 · Tab · String 6 (E2) · Pitch E2.

The note-entry pad

At the bottom of the score is an on-screen entry pad that mirrors the keyboard. On a tab staff it shows the fret digits and string selector; on a drum track it shows the kit pieces. It’s handy on a touch screen or when you’re learning the shortcuts — but everything it does is also a keystroke, and most people edit far faster from the keyboard.

The action bar

A floating action bar at the bottom collects the most common actions — Play, Stop, Lead, Undo, Redo, Delete, Note, beat navigation, Comment, Bars, and Follow — so they’re reachable without hunting through menus.

Editing is keyboard-first

Tabula is built to be played like an instrument: your hands stay on the keyboard and notes go down fast. Press ? at any time to open the full keyboard reference (also reproduced in Keyboard shortcuts). The next pages walk through what to type.