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Stardust

Show Notes

Markdown-rendered notes per Song and per Patch — chord charts, lyrics, conductor cues, anything you need at a glance.

📋 Planned · v0.11.0

What it does

Each Song and each Patch can have notes attached, rendered as markdown in a dedicated pane in Perform mode.

Typical contents:

  • Chord chart — chord changes for the Song
  • Lyric snippet — to know where in the Song you are
  • Conductor cues — “Watch for tempo change in bridge”
  • Performance notes — “Use mod wheel for the strings swell”
  • Reminders — “Floor switch advances to celesta sound after first chorus”
  • Plugin tips — “Reverb is set to small room — don’t push the wet mix above 40%“

Two levels: Song and Patch

  • Song-level notes — apply to the whole song; shown when no patch-specific note overrides
  • Patch-level notes — specific to the current patch; shown when that patch is active

The notes pane shows the most relevant context: Song-level for general info, Patch-level for “now this patch is active and here’s what to know about it.”

Markdown rendering

Supports the full markdown spec:

  • Headers, lists, bold/italic
  • Code blocks (monospace, useful for chord notation)
  • Tables (great for chord charts)
  • Links (e.g. to YouTube reference recording — opens in browser)
  • Inline images (v1.0+; useful for scanned chord sheets)

Custom extensions for musical content (v0.5–v1.0):

  • {C} / {Am7} etc. inline chord notation with theme styling
  • Tempo annotations: [tempo: 120]
  • Section markers: ## Verse 1, ## Chorus

Font size and theme

Independent controls:

  • Notes pane font size (16-32pt)
  • Notes pane font (system, monospace, or a few high-readability options)
  • Background opacity (for over-bright theaters or photo backgrounds)
  • Dark mode forces black background regardless of theme

Customize per Song or Patch if needed.

Storage

Notes are stored as markdown strings in the Show JSON:

"notes": "## Tempo: 120 BPM\n\nWatch conductor at bar 32 for the tempo change.\n\n## Chord chart\n\n| Bar | Chord |\n|---|---|\n| 1-4 | Am |\n| 5-8 | F |\n| 9-12 | C |"

In-app editing

Program mode has a dedicated Show Notes editor dialog with markdown preview alongside source. Quick-save, autosaves on close.

For longer notes, an external file reference is supported (v1.0+): notes_file: "hamilton-song-4-notes.md" loads from a sidecar file.

Perform mode display

The <NotesPane> widget shows current notes. Resizable from the Layout tab. Scroll wheel scrolls the content for longer notes.

Auto-scrolling on patch advance: when you advance to a Patch with its own notes, the pane updates to show those. Behavior configurable: instant swap, slide animation, or none.

See Widget Registry.

Use case: forScore alternative

For musicians whose primary need is sheet music (not chord charts), they should use forScore on a tablet. Stardust’s notes pane is for contextual information, not full musical scores.

If you have a notation file you want available, link to it from the notes: [See PDF](file:///path/to/score.pdf) — opens in the default PDF viewer.

See forScore Integration for the proper sheet-music integration.