Chapter 3: Knowing Your Way Around EOFThis chapter will explain the basic controls and features of EOF. If you're already familiar with the program, you can skip it, but you might be missing out on a couple of my special tricks
First off, I'll explain basic controls, how to place notes, etc. You can refer to the bottom image in my previous post if you need help.
The are three main parts of EOF: The chart where you actually place notes, the information panel, and the preview window. You'll be using the chart the most, and the info panel the least.
To place a note, hover your cursor over the chart and
right click. Depending on what grid snap (more on that later) you're using, the note will automatically be placed. You can add notes to make chords, or place another one further on down the line. To add a note to your selection,
hold down Ctrl and click on another note. To select a precise amount of notes,
hold down Shift and click the notes on both ends of the selection you're making (e.g. a repeating riff). To preview your chart, press
spacebar, and your song will play in the preview window. This is mostly just to see if what you're doing looks good, it doesn't help much with synchronization unless you have claps and/or metronome on. Press spacebar again to stop playback. Note that can you cannot do anything with EOF while you're watching the preview, this includes saving the chart, and placing notes.
One important feature to know about is
slowing down the playback. To do this,
hold down Ctrl and hit spacebar. This will slow the song down to half speed (I think), which
really, really helps with charting. When the song is slowed down, you can sync notes more precisely, and sometimes you can hear things in the song you can't hear at normal speed. Note that slowing down playback is invaluable to charting fast guitar solos.
The info panel is the third part of the screen. Really it isn't that important, I mostly use it so I can see if claps or metronome are turned on (in case I forget). However, it'll tell you how many notes are in the song, which note (or how many) you've selected, and a myriad other functions that may or may not be helpful to you.
3a: Keyboard ShortcutsBelow I've listed the keyboard shortcuts that
I use the most. There are plenty of others, but I don't use some of them.
K: Turn on/off claps (plays a clap every time a note crosses the play line, invaluable for synchronization.)
M: Turn on/off metronome (plays a metronome noise every time a beat line crosses the play line, also helps with synchronization.)
Ctrl + C: Copy a note. Can also be used to copy a selection of notes.
Ctrl + V: Paste a note that has been copied, or a selection of notes. (Note that you cannot cut and paste in EOF)
F2: Save your chart. Do this often! It'll be saved in your EOF folder (I suggest you make a shortcut to it on your desktop for easy access.)
Esc: Close EOF. Note that you cannot "X" the program out, you have to click "Exit" in the file menu, or hit Escape.
Left & Right: Scroll back and forth through the chart.
Up & Down: Change the color of the note.
Ctrl + Z: Undo an action. You can undo ~5 actions with this.
Ctrl + Y: Redo an action that you just undid.
Del: Delete the selected note(s).
Ctrl + A: Place an anchor on the currently selected beat line.
3b: The "File" MenuThe File Menu is where you save and load charts, among other things. Its various functions are explained below.
New: Start a new song.
Load: Load a previously existing song (Must be a .eof file)
Save: Save the currently loaded song.
Save as: Make a copy of the currently loaded song and save it somewhere else.
Load OGG: I never used this, but I'm guessing it's for loading new music files.
MIDI Import: Load a previously existing song (Must be a .midi file) This is how you load songs that were not created with EOF.
Settings: Change some of the technical settings of EOF. I didn't use this option much, it works fine as it is.
Preferences: Changes the way the song is saved. Another option I seldom used.
Display: Changes the display settings of EOF. If your computer has trouble running it, use this option to make the window size smaller, and therefore more manageable.
Controllers: The presence of this option insinuates that EOF has controller support, but I never used this.
Song Folder: This brings up a window to select the song folder. Not exactly sure what it does, but it isn't necessary.
Link to FOF: Another option I never used. I don't think it works anyway.
Exit: Gives you the option to close EOF. I usually just press Esc instead.
3c: The "Edit" MenuThe Edit Menu helps a lot with changing your song editing settings.
Undo: Undo up to around 5 previous actions. I just use Ctrl + Z for this.
Redo: Redo an action you just undid. I just use Ctrl + Y.
Copy: Copy the selected note(s). I just use Ctrl + C.
Paste: Paste the notes you previously copied. I just use Ctrl + V.
Old Paste: Paste the notes that you copied before the last time you copied. Not something I used often, so I'm no expert with it.
Paste from: Not sure how this one works. It might mean you can paste from another song, which could be helpful.
Grid Snap: Brings up a submenu where you can select the grid snap. More on that later.
Zoom: Changes the zoom level of the chart. I like to keep mine on 1/5.
Speed: Changes the speed of the playback window. I like to keep it on Fast, but it really depends on how experienced you are with FoF.
Playback Rate: Changes the rate of the playback window. Pressing Ctrl + Space automatically sets it to 50% but you can permanently set it with this menu.
HOPO: Changes the formula for HOPO creation (more on that later). I keep mine on RF (not sure what it stands for), but I suggest you set it to the same settings as you have on FoFiX.
Metronome: Turns the metronome on and off. I just press M instead.
Claps: Turns the claps on and off. I just press K instead.
Clap Notes: Select which notes clap when the cross the play line. Especially useful for charting drums, so you can hear when snares only come across, etc.
Bookmark: I never really took the time to figure out how bookmarks work, but I can see how they'd be helpful. You can set one to a number (1-0) for easy searching.
Selection: Make certain note selections. Not a menu I ever used.
3d: The "Song" MenuThe Song Menu aids in changing the settings of your song, and finding certain parts of it.
Seek: Find a certain part of the song.
Track: Important. Switch to the note chart for a different instrument. Included instruments are Guitar, Bass, Guitar Co-Op, Rhythm, Drums, and Vocals.
Catalog: I have no idea what this does or how it would be important.
File Info: Look at the technical info for your song. Not much to do here.
INI Settings: Not sure about this, but I think you can add certain doodads to your song using it.
Properties: Review your song's properties. Set the title, artist, fretter (you), and a bunch of other stuff here. Also, this is where you can turn on 8th Note HOPO (more on that later).
Test in FOF: This might have something to do with the Link to FOF option, but I don't think it works that well. You can try it.
3e: The "Note" MenuYou have to have a note(s) selected to use this menu, but it helps with several things.
Toggle: Change the color of the selected note(s). I just use the up & down arrow keys to do this.
Transpose Up: Make the selected note(s) go higher up (towards orange/purple) on the color scale. I just use the up arrow key for this.
Transpose Down: Make the selected note(s) go lower (towards green) on the color scale. I just use the down arrow key for this.
Resnap: During your charting adventure, some of your notes might go slightly off of the current grid snap. Use this to put them back in position. It can mess up your chart if you're not careful, however!
Edit Lyric: I imagine you use this for charting vocals, but since I never did that I never used this option.
Toggle Crazy: This changes the way the notes look, but beyond that I'm not sure what it does.
Solos: You use this for marking solos, but it's not recommended since the way it does it doesn't work with FoFiX.
Star Power: Same basic principle as above.
Lyric Lines: Once again, this is most likely for charting vocals, but I never used it.
Hopo: This is used to manually control whether or not a note is a HOPO. Unfortunately, the changes don't carry over to FoFiX, so this option is best left alone.
Delete: Delete the selected note(s). I just use the Del key for this.
3f. The "Beat" MenuThe Beat Menu helps change the beat settings of the song. For some reason some of the options never become available, so I don't use them.
BPM Change: Change the BPM of the song after the currently selected beat line. Turns the beat line into an anchor. The more experienced you get with anchors, the less you'll use this option.
Time Signature: Change the time signature of the song. I know some people use this but I don't really get how it affects the outcome of the song.
Add: I'm not sure what they're adding, since this option never becomes available.
Delete: Same as above.
Push Offset Back: You can't push the MIDI offset back unless you've already pushed it up. An option I never really used.
Push Offset Up: I think this affects where the notes start at the beginning of the song, but I never really used this option.
Anchor Beat: Places an anchor on the currently selected beat line. I use Ctrl + A for this.
Toggle Anchor: Turns the anchor on or off. I'm not sure if it completely removes the anchor or not, so you're best off not using it, just in case.
Delete Anchor: A useful option. Deletes the currently selected anchor. Unfortunately there's no keyboard shortcut for it.
Reset BPM: I'm guessing this does what it says, but I'm not sure exactly since it never becomes available.
Calculate BPM: Same as above.
All Events: Review and skip to all the events you've placed in the song.
Events: Mostly used to mark guitar solos and/or star power. More on how to do that later.
Clear Events: Delete all of the events placed in the song.
3g. The "Help" MenuFor me, the Help Menu is the least-used menu in the program. You don't really need it if you've read this guide.
Manual: Opens an online manual for EOF in your web browser. Mostly helpful for figuring out menu functions (which is what I'm explaining now).
Tutorial: Opens an online tutorial for EOF in your web browser. I've never looked at it until now. It's sort of making this guide seem redundant.
Keys: Tells you all of the keyboard functions in the program, including ones I never use (and therefore didn't put in the guide).
About: Opens a very small window of boring software information.
And that's all! Stick around for Chapter 4, which I'll probably write sometime tomorrow!