2.0.1 — Eight projectors down to one, and a typeface you can read at the back

A fix for machines that slowed down, froze or shut down after updating to 2.0.

The projector was being drawn eight times at once. 2.0 gave the monitor rail a true mirror of the congregation's screen — and the six dashboard tiles and the stream preview were each drawing their own full-size copy alongside it. If your church uses a moving background, that was the same video decoding eight times over in the control window. It now decodes once, on the wall where it belongs.

The control window also stopped redrawing every panel once a second to advance a clock, and several jobs that ran all morning — looking for USB sticks, re-reading old backups, following PowerPoint's window — now run only when something is actually asking.

Scripture and hymns are now set in Inter. Playfair Display's thin strokes were the first thing a dim projector, a lit room or the back of the building took away, so words that looked crisp in the booth arrived faint in the pews. Inter's strokes are all one weight. If you prefer Playfair, choose it again under Settings › Content › Projection Typeface and it will stay chosen.

Nothing you have set up changes.

2.0.0 — Redrawn, and a few things that behave better

A new look for the whole application, and several things that behave better.

What you notice first

The window has been redrawn — clearer type, buttons with some weight, and what is on the wall stated at the top of every screen. Nothing you rely on has moved: the emergency row is where it was, and every keyboard shortcut is unchanged.

Choosing a hymn no longer puts it on the screen

Pick a hymn and it is prepared. It reaches the congregation when you press Send to screen — the way the Bible panel has always worked.

"Go live" now means the broadcast, and only the broadcast

The hymnal used those words for the projector, an inch from the button that starts a YouTube stream.

Bible: Back works at the end of a passage

Next reads on past the end of what you typed. Back now returns the same way, and never shortens a passage below what you asked for.

The broadcast goes out at 1080p

If you have already chosen a size, yours is left alone. Drop to 720p in Settings if the upload here cannot keep up.

Also

The Go live and setup steps no longer resize as you move through them. Text is a size larger throughout. The stage display is back to the size it has always been.

1.9.0 — The screen's colour, scrolling words, and an installer that asks

The congregation's screen has a colour. It was black because the first projector window was written that way and every screen added after it copied its neighbour — so a church with a bright, airy building got a wall of black whatever it set. It is yours now, under Settings › Theming › The Congregation's Screens. Light is a real choice rather than an inversion: a light screen gets its own shadow, which is what keeps white words legible over a photograph. Set a screen colour and the word colour follows from its brightness automatically — a cream background gets dark words without your saying so — or name a word colour and that is used instead.

The words can scroll, for the stream. A lyric band that stays still is right in the room and wrong on a broadcast, where somebody joins halfway through a hymn. Scrolls along runs the words along the bottom edge instead: the whole hymn on a loop, so nobody has to drive it, or only the verse that is up. Speed is measured in seconds per screen width rather than per run, so Medium means the same thing for a two-line chorus and a nine-verse hymn. Pause holds the words exactly where they are without taking them off. And Show on decides which outputs draw them, so the wall and the stream no longer have to agree.

A new version asks three questions instead of one. The old notice was a single dialog whose two buttons changed meaning underneath you: the box that asked whether to fetch an update became, some minutes later, the box that asked whether to restart — so an operator who had learned to click the right-hand button had learned to restart the app mid-service. What is new, whether to fetch it, and whether to restart into it are three separate questions now, each on its own page with its own button. None of them opens itself while the projector is showing anything or the stream is on air; it waits as a small pill in the corner and presents itself when the service is over.

The installer asks before it installs. It used to be one click — a progress bar, and the app was on the machine before anyone had read the title. The person running it is usually a volunteer setting up a booth computer that is not theirs, and the questions they actually have now get answered on screen. It installs for you rather than for the machine and never asks for the Administrator password, which is also why it can update itself on a Sabbath morning when the person at the desk is not the person who has that password. Installing over an older version replaces it in place: your songs, services, settings, hymn usage records and backups are somewhere else entirely and are not touched.

The whole hymnal, not only a search box. All hymns opens every hymn in the book, in the printed order or alphabetically by title. Search answers "I know which one I want" and has nothing to say to the operator who does not — a visiting speaker who names a hymn by half a line, or somebody building an order of service on a Thursday who has never seen what is in the book.

Graphics you have made are kept. Ready to Go holds the ones you named and saved, On Screen Now lists what is up and takes it off again, and the pinned hymn preview can be hidden when you would rather have the room back for the controls.

1.8.0 — Setup, Go Live, and the monitor rail

Setup, the first time you open it. Four questions instead of a seven-tab settings page: your church's name, motto and logo; your colours; how people reach you; and which monitor the congregation is looking at. Each step shows you the answer as you type it. Upgrading never triggers it — a church that already has a name is treated as set up. Run it deliberately from Settings › Church › Run setup again.

Your church's colours. The colour every graphic is drawn in — lower thirds, the giving card, the countdown — is now yours to set, in setup or in Settings › Theming.

A motto and contact details. The motto goes under the name on the logo screen; the website, phone, email and address go along the bottom of a foyer screen and nowhere else.

Go live, from anywhere. A GO LIVE button in the top bar walks four steps — name it, check the picture, check the sound, look at what is about to go out — with the real broadcast frame in front of you at each one. If a Google account is connected it will make the YouTube broadcast with your title and description and fill in the key itself. Once you are on air the layout controls follow you into the monitor rail, so the slide can be moved beside the preacher without leaving the Hymnal.

The monitor rail is back on the right, and you can drag it as wide as your screen allows. The navigation rail has room between its rows and scrolls on a short screen.

The arrow keys turn the page from anywhere — including while a dialog is open. The only place they don't is inside a text box, where they still move the cursor.

The hymn number and the scripture reference are adjustable. They were a fixed size that came out too small to read from the back of most rooms. Settings › Text on screen → Hymn number & reference, 50–300%.

1.7.0

The first release that can update itself. Install this one by hand — from here on the app will find new versions on its own and offer them to you.

Streaming

• Stream to YouTube from inside the app, with the broadcast created for you once your channel is connected
• Live viewer count, and YouTube's own reading of whether the stream is healthy
• A local recording that does not depend on YouTube, and that survives a reconnect instead of being left headerless
• FFmpeg ships with the app, so there is nothing to install separately

Cameras, sound and screens

• Cameras run inside the app
• Three faders and three meters in place of one blind capture, and a recording levelled once stays levelled
• As many screens as you have monitors, each one told what to show and which it is
• A clean feed for an external switcher, and a key output for laying graphics over cameras
• Two pictures in one frame

Words and graphics

• Lyrics from files, music under the words, and words over the slide
• Graphics that go out to the stream without going on the wall
• Overlays now draw over PowerPoint. The parent alert was invisible for the whole of the sermon, which is most of the time anyone would raise one
• Graphics along the bottom edge stack instead of being drawn on top of each other
• The ticker travels at one speed whatever the length of the announcement
• The names read from the platform week after week are saved rather than retyped

Updates

• The app tells you when a new version is ready and lets you restart into it
• Nothing ever installs while the app is open, and nothing is offered while the projector is live or the stream is on air
• If you would rather not restart, the update is applied the next time you close the app