The Basics of Editing?

[mknoll]

I'm trying to enter my first song into the editor on my Mac and I can't find any information for rank beginners like myself. The "Help for Mac" section explains the various program options, but doesn't (as far as I can tell) provide the conceptual basics that I'm missing.

Here's what I'm talking about: there seems to be empty "slots" in the editor into which one can enter either chords or symbols, and then by hitting return can jump to the next slot.

Is the number of slots in a measure equal to the number of beats as determined by the time signature? I'm trying to enter "The Last Time I Saw Paris," which in my book is in cut time, so I gave it a time signature of 2/2. If I enter the chords "G" and "D" into the first two slots and a barline in the third slot, does that mean the chord change comes at the middle of the measure? What if there's a dotted feel and the change doesn't come until the "&" of two (or beat four in 4/4)?

Well I figured I would just play with it and see if things would become obvious as I worked, but so far they haven't (maybe because I'm just so dense). When I exported into the player it came in just fine with the correct title, etc., but when I pressed play it threw up an error message already in the first measure about an incorrect or illegal something (sorry I deleted the song, so I can't recreate the error message).

I won't be getting very far very fast at this pace. Is there a basic explanation about how the editor works (conceptually) or even a tutorial for beginners? Sorry if the answer is obvious, but I haven't been able to find anything like what I'm looking for in the forum or help section of the web site.

Thanks in advance.

[dflat]

The area into which you are putting the chart is fixed at 16 spaces (slots) across. This is unrelated to your time signature. As you can see from the internal library songs, we try to have 4 bars across - divides into the 16, with 4 spaces in each bar most of the time.

For 3/4 (see our library song called 'Always') we simply use 3/4 (the player looks for time sigs throughout for time sig. rhythms) but we maintain the same 4 bars across, with 4 spaces. And any other time sig. can be used at the beginning.

You can have just 2 bars across the system (might be used for a 2 bar intro for instance) or 8 bars across. Your 2/2 could just have either 4 or 2 spaces for each bar or vary it at different times as needed. (see 'A Felicidade')
You can have perhaps 3 or 5 bars across, but you could easily have a Player error as it cannot figure out where to play the beats inside the bar. A 3/4 piece could work with both 3 or 5 bars across a system for instance, but a 4/4 would probably bring up an error. This can depend on where the chords are placed within the bars.

There is currently (v3.0.3) no facility to tell the Player specific rhythmic information such as eighth beat anticipations, nor can it easily be depicted in the chart as there are no rhythmic notations directly provided within the app. and none to direct the Player.
iReal book originally was developed to provide jazz chord charts suitable for soloing, so the complications of trying to fit in rhythmic notation in the small space of the iPhone was not important during the early versions. The Player gives a basic backing, most suitable for practice. We may address rhythmic notation in the future.

More on Player rhythm
In 3/4 (having 4 spaces in each bar) you can create chord changes for the Player specifically on beat 2, 2-and, or 3 depending on where you put the second chord. In space 2, it will function on beat 2 (of the 3/4); in the 3rd space it will function on 2-and; and in the 4th space on beat 3. (You can change the size of these chords to 'small' to help fit in the space.)
For more other time sigs, like 7/4 you would have to play around with placement of chords within your bar. Again, do not expect to be able to construct specific or complicated rhythms at this time or expect the Player to be able to play anything beyond simple backings.

Might be relevant:
http://irealb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194

This information refers to v3.0.3 iReal book