One reason I stayed away from guitar and approach to piano before was the ability to see the shapes of white and black keys to understand chords and I can place my hands easily as it repeats on each octave. However, with guitar, It is nothing like the piano, so I would assume that learning the entire fretboard just to know where each note is form any guitar chords.

I know the CAGED theory is what makes it easier to play chords as long as you are familiar with the shapes and play it around, since I know that you should just know the root and keep the chord shape as you go up higher.

My question is there an actual technique or theory to know what each note of the chord you're playing WITHOUT learning the entire fretboard first? I know you should know scales like what is the 1,3,5 of a triad, but finding it as you go up the 6 strings rather than one single string is hard!

Or should I be real that learning the entire fretboard is the only way for me to understand to play major7ths, 13ths, dominants, etc? Especially learning inversions confuse me!

I hope my question isnt confusing lol. Thanks.