We’re pleased to announce the availability of SundayWorship 1.5.

New & Improved Features

• Sample song database
• Support for PowerPoint 2010
• Importers for Songs of Fellowship 2 & 3
• Improved song editor
• Searching for songs by multiple attributes
• Added column sorting in the song picker
• Add support for deleting multiple songs
• Display two Bible versions side-by-side
• Display verse numbers in scripture references
• Improved alert management
• Improved multimedia management

Details of the new features can be found in the updated manual.

Downloading

You can download SundayWorship 1.5 from here or visit the download page.

An updated manual can be downloaded from here.

Upgrading

Although we don’t expect any problems it doesn’t hurt to backup your song database before upgrading. To do so click File –> Export –> SundayWorship Song Database, select all your songs and click export.

As usual, upgrades from previous releases of SundayWorship are free.

Problems & Questions

Should you find any bugs or have a question send us an email to our support account. See support.

We recently got some feed back from Nate in the USA (you know who you are). This is what he had to say:

I don’t see why any church/organization will spend hundreds of dollars on a projection software. As I’ve said before I’ve tried quite a few paid and free versions of projector software and I still can’t find anything better than Sunday Worship, clean interface, not bloated but still feature rich and a responsive support staff that is always willing and working to bring Sunday Worship to it’s utopia.

A few days ago someone emailed us and asked whether SundayWorship could play looping videos. It couldn’t, so I replied and said we’d add their request to our list of feature requests.

But having replied I thought, “Hmm…how hard could it be?”

It turned out that the answer was, “Not very!” So a few days later we have an update to SundayWorship 1.4 that can play looping video.

Next to the Play button there is now a repeat button.

When the repeat button is grey looping is turned off. When you click it it turns blue and looping is enabled.

With looping enabled clicking the play button will cause the video to keep playing until you click stop or unclick looping.

So there you have it. Looping video. One button down, one to go.

…and a bonus button as well!

Having done that I remembered a usability issue I’d found a few weeks ago during a baptism service.

We were using SundayWorship to project video of the people being baptised as well as songs. It was all working but switching from a song to the live video from the video camera was a bit painful.

From the Songs tab I had to go to the multimedia tab, select the camera, click the “go live” button () on the Preview view, and finally click the Play button on the live view. I wasn’t impressed, and I’d written it!

I decided what I wanted was a single button by the video camera that would immediately start playing the video on the live display.

So, with one video control button added I thought I’d add another. And here it is,

On the list of video camera each camera now has a “go live” button. When you click this button the live view is switched to immediately show the live video feed from the associated camera.

Download it now!

These two changes are being delivered as a minor update to SundayWorship 1.4. You can download it from here.

We’re pleased to announce the availability of SundayWorship 1.4. For this release we’ve added a couple of new features and fixed some bugs.

New Features

• Individual song formatting
• Custom properties on songs
• New song importers for SongSelect, SongPro and Songs of Fellowship 4
• Import songs from multiple files at the same time
• New formatting options for vertical text alignment and copyright display
• Added more formatting options for scriptures including text alignment

Details of the new features can be found in the updated manual.

Individual song formatting

In previous versions of SundayWorship the way a song was presented was controlled by the global song display settings. In 1.4 we’ve added the ability to change the song display settings on each song. You can change the font, colour, size, alignment and background on each song.

Custom properties on songs

One thing we get asked is whether we can add this or that to the song information. In 1.4 we’ve made it possible to add custom properties to songs.

You chose the name of the property (e.g. Songbook, Duration, ScriptureReferences, Ratings) and give it a value. When you want to record something about a song you can just add a new property and give it a value.

Once a property is added to one song it becomes available on all songs. You can also search for songs based on their properties and the list of columns at the top of the song list can be changed to include your most commonly used properties.

Importing from SongSelect

We’ve added support for importing the .usr files that can be downloaded from the CCLI SongSelect web site.

If you’ve got a CCLI SongSelect account you can download songs and import them into your SundayWorship song database.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a problem drawing the verse list when a non-default colour scheme is used
• Opening a PowerPoint presentation that is already open in PowerPoint could cause SundayWorship to crash
• The importers list on 64-bit operating systems was empty when no license was registered
• The projector monitor was not being saved correctly on Windows XP
• Fixed copyright text being shown in very small font under some circumstances

Downloading

You can download SundayWorship 1.4 from here or visit the download page.

An updated manual can be downloaded from here.

Upgrading

Although we don’t expect any problems it doesn’t hurt to backup your song database before upgrading. To do so click File –> Export –> SundayWorship Song Database, select all your songs and click export.

As usual, upgrades from previous releases of SundayWorship are free.

Problems & Questions

Should you find any bugs or have a question send us an email to our support account. See support.

We are pleased to announce the availability of SundayWorship 1.3.

The main focus of this release has been adding support for downloading and installing additional Bibles for use with the Scripture picker.

We’ve also fixed a few bugs and re-worked the multimedia picker to make it a bit easier to use.

You can get the new version from the download page or by clicking here.

A new version of the getting started guide can be downloaded from here.

New features in SundayWorship 1.3

• Download additional Bibles
• Added support for typing non-English Bible book names
• Display musical keys for songs
• Drag and drop for adding content to the content pickers
• Added additional keyboard shortcuts for the Projector view
• Updated manual

Bug fixes in SundayWorship 1.3

• Failed detection of PowerPoint can prevent SundayWorship from starting
• PowerPoint presentations were not running correctly
• License dialog was shown but hidden when 30 day trial period had expired
• Improved the performance of the picture browser for large numbers of pictures

Downloading additional Bibles

To view list of available Bibles use the Bible Manager by clicking Tools –> Bibles and then select the Downloadable Bibles.

At present we are able to offer Public Domain or royalty free Bibles. For this release we’ve added Bibles in French, German, Spanish, Polish as well as a couple of alternative English Bibles.

For more information see the updated Getting Started Guide.

Using non-English Bible names

To help users whose first language is not English we’ve added the ability to search for Bible references using non-English names. We currently support French, German, Romanian and Spanish.

To use this feature use Tools –> Options –> General and select the Language to use.

Existing users

SundayWorship 1.3 is a free upgrade for all existing users of previous versions.

Before upgrading we recommend making a backup of your song database. To do that use File –> Export –> SundayWorship song database.

The first edition of the SundayWorship Getting Started Guide is now available to download. You can get it by clicking here or from the download page (here).

If you have any comments or questions please send them to our support email address.

In version 1.2 of SundayWorship we have introduced the ability to add tags to parts of songs so that they can be reused. Tags take the form of a text inside a pair of angle brackets, for example <chorus>, on a line by itself. For example,

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

<chorus>
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

<chorus>

Here the second part of the song has had the <chorus> tag added to it. Now every time SundayWorship sees the same tag with blank line either side of it, as in the example, the lines after the tag will be shown instead of the the tag. This song would be displayed as

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Notice that tags are not displayed when the song is displayed.

A tag can be redefined by adding it before another part of the song. Subsequent uses of the tag by itself use the latest value assigned to it

SundayWorship 1.2 provides two new options for searching for songs: by author(s) and by lyrics.

Searching for a song by author selects all songs that have the typed text in the Author(s) property. Searching for a song by lyrics selects all songs that have the typed text anywhere in the lyrics.

Here I’m searching for all songs with the word, “Wesley” in the author.

Note that the lyric searching may be slow when you have a 1000s of songs.

SundayWorship 1.2 can now capture live video from video cameras attached to your PC or laptop enabling you to project live video without having to leave SundayWorship.

To project live video, first select a camera from the list of video cameras on the Multimedia/Video tab. If a video camera is attached but not in the list of video cameras displayed, trying clicking the refresh () button. SundayWorship should be able to use any device recognised by Windows as a video camera such as DV cameras, Webcams and so on. If your camera is still not recognised, make sure it can be seen by other programs such as a video editor.

Once you’ve selected a camera the output will be displayed in the Preview View. Click the Send to live button ( ) to transfer the camera to the live view.

Use the video controls to begin and end capture by clicking the Play and Stop buttons.

If your camera has a VCR mode, you can capture the playback of recorded video as well as live video.

We are pleased to announce the release of version 1.2 of SundayWorship.

This release includes the following new features:-

• Support for playing video from files and video cameras.
• New methods for searching for songs.
• Options for displaying scripture references.
• An improved export dialog.
• Song mark up.
• An improved Romanian Bible text.

You can download the latest version from here.

As with the release of v1.1 the next few blog posts will give some details of the new features.

Users of SundayWorship who have purchased a licence are entitled to a free upgrade to version 1.2.

If you find any problems with SundayWorship please send an email to our support address. You can find the address here.

Play video from files and cameras

SundayWorship 1.2 now supports playing video from files and connected video cameras. Video can be reviewed in the preview view and then displayed through your projector.

New song database search capabilities

In addition to being able to search for songs by title, we now support searching for songs by author and lyrics.

Options for displaying scripture references

You can now choose whether to display the reference for a scripture at all, whether to include the Bible version and where to display the reference.

Improved song export dialog

The song export dialog now lists the authors of the songs in the database and can be sorted by author or title. This allows you to easily export lists of songs by author as well as by title.

Song mark up

In SundayWorship 1.2 we have introduced song mark up. By adding a tag to the start of a paragraph of text (e.g. a verse or chorus) you can use that tag to repeat the following block of text.

The tags are defined by the user, so you can identify any part of the song you want to be able to repeat. For example, you can identify multiple different choruses, verses that repeat or bridges.

Improved Romanian Bible text

The Romanian text we have been using has been found to have a number of issues (for example missing passages) that are being gradually corrected by a Romanian brother. We have included the latest version in this release.