Getting Started

Welcome! MidiStickers is a music software designed for music teachers, content creators, and advanced students. It provides flexible tools in the form os widgets for building fully customatizable layouts. It has been developed to provide seamless integration with your desktop, aiming to simplify online music teaching and quick video captures.

Please note that the software is currently in Beta, so you may experience some rough edges or minor issues. We’re working on improving the user experience and adding a more traditional mode with preset layouts.

This guide introduces the basic operations of the software.

The Toolbar

All operations in MidiStickers are accessed through the toolbar, which you can move by by clicking and dragging.

Click on the keyboard icon to collapse or expand toolbar buttons. To add a new widget, click the plus icon . The settings icon opens the Settings Window, from which you adjust the program settings, such as MIDI Input, Language and other options. The remainings buttons are covered in details in the Toolbar reference page.

Configuring MIDI Input/Output

MIDI Devices are configured from the Settings Window ( button on the Toolbar). By default, MidiStickers will detect and enable your first MIDI Input Device.

In the Audio/MIDI tab, you can enable or disable specific MIDI controllers. For your conveniece, there is a built in synthetizer in MidiStickers (Play MIDI Input setting), so that you can use a pure MIDI controller or even your PC keyboard (with the Virtual Piano/Fretboard widgets) to generate sounds.

For an in-depth explanation of all configurations, including using external VST instruments to generate your sounds, check out the Settings Window reference page.

Caution

Plugging or unplugging MIDI Devices while the program is in use might result in errors. It’s recommended to restart the application in those scenarios.

Adding New Widgets

Click the toolbar button to create a new widget. The “Add New Widget” window will let you browse through available widgets, grouped by functions:

• Input: input visualization, such as as staff notation and piano display. The virtual piano and fretboard allows MIDI input via your computer keyboard.
• Chords: widgets to display chord symbols, roman numerals, german function theory symbols and figured bass.
• Harmony: advanced harmony visualization and training tools, mostly intended for jazz education.
• Teaching: various teaching tools.
• Composites: preset widget combinations (e.g., staff + chords symbols).

MidiStickers versions

Some widgets shown on this documentation might not be available on all MidiStickers versions.

Widget operations

Widgets can be moved by clicking and dragging. To resize a widget, hold and drag with the Right mouse button.

Hold Control to display additional widget controls: Help (?), Minimize , Widget Settings and Close .

Holding Control and left-clicking a widget opens a context menu, allowing you to change the back-to-front draw order, set as transparent/opaque or to pin widgets.

To clone a Widget, hover over it and press Ctrl+C.

For certain widgets, double-clicking or using the mouse wheel will trigger quick actions. Those actions are always reversible by repeating the same action. Specific shortcuts for all widgets are covered on the widgets reference pages.