Zionworx

We have two churches. One runs Zionworx,the other uses Powerpoint. There is resistance from the computer operator at the second church to using Zionworx because he says it can't be operated by remote control. Is he right?

Probably incorrect. Most remote controls operate by sending keystrokes, so one I am looking at buying (the Kensington Si600 - http://uk.kensington.com/html/11630.html sends page up for the right button, page down for the left and "b" for the bottom key (which will black out PPT). The only issue I potentially have with this remote presenter is that the laser pointer button sends F5 which usually means Refresh, and in PPT means start show, but in Zionworx means add new song to database!

I don't have a copy of ZW installed where I am at the moment, but if F5 operates as expected in ZW when doing presentations then I cannot purchase the above remote presenter - which is a shame, as two years ago when I was last looking at these (http://www.zionworx.org.uk/forum_3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=482 they were over 100 Pounds sterling and now Amazon are selling this one at 25 GBP and has loads of good reviews.

Other remote presenters will do different keystrokes. The way to find out how they operate with ZW is to open a Word document, type =rand(50) and press Enter (this will generate a few pages of random text), scroll to the middle of this document and start pressing buttons on the remote. F5 = Goto in Word. Other keys will either appear at the cursor or cause pages to move. If any of the keys simulated by the remote presenter conflict with ZW then either change remote or do not use ZW.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a remote presenter (must be RF based and not line of sight) that cooperates with Zionworx?

Surely an important question is whether the remote presenter is able to send the following commands:-
Up (or Page Up)
Down (or Page Down)
Enter (or Spacebar or Carriage Return!)
F3
F4

These would allow remote loading of songs (F3, F4), navigation within a song (Up, Down), and moving to the next verse (Enter).

In fact, I didn't see 'Enter' mentioned in the posts above, yet without this code being sent, it is only possible to whizz around within ZW but not actually cause it to present anything on the screen. Surely the 'Enter' key is vital if a remote is to be of any use at all?

I can understand the PowerPoint-only guy in the initial post as, providing the entire service is loaded as a single PowerPoint, then it is possible to run the whole service in that manner (very linear and not flexible, unless you are at the keyboard to jump to specific slides, in which case ZW is more flexible anyway). But then, you could equally well have all the words in one ZW song. Not a good idea, but technically the same as a single PowerPoint slideshow.

Powerpoint does not need Enter to be sent, so you are unlikely to find a remote presenter that will send it. Remapping ZW to a standard set of keys for PPT would make ZW work with remote presenters during the songs as well as the slides.

I was going to use Zionworx remote last weekend when I didn’t want to be sitting behind the PA desk all the time.
The way I planned to it was:
1. Connect your computer (running ZW) and your smartphone/tablet on a LAN using a WiFi Access point or similar.
2. Install a VNC server on your PC. UltraVNC is what I use. Free & just use the default settings. Make sure the “VNC Server” is running in the task bar.
3. Search for a “VNC viewer” app on your remote device – plenty of free apps out there. You’ll just need the IP address of the laptop/pc and maybe a port number to connect to it. (Default VNC port is 5900) e.g. in the server field, put ‘192.168.1.1:5900’
This will allow you to remotely control your computer, double click to navigate through the words, or use the on screen keyboard to press page up, page down, etc.

Hi Andrew,

I'm intruiged... did this work for you?!
If so, what portable device did you use?

Thanks,
Christian.

Surely there's a fundamental issue about using a remote with ZW as opposed to PPT? PPT is linear - the user simply scrolls up (or down) a pre-built list of songs.

But for ZW there are more options - we need to control the current song, but then need to focus on a different pane in order to control which song is displayed next. And can even need to control the pane where new songs are added on the fly. That's a lot more than simply next/previous display. And if I'm not looking at the control screen, I wouldn't know which of the three main panes was live. Essentially, there's enough fine-control on ZW to make it too complex for a simple remote, surely?

But having a wifi control pad sounds fun!

@christian while i have done VNC connections alot before, i havn't attempted to operate Zionworx via one yet.
Any portable wifi device is capable, although the best would be a smart phone or tablet.

I dont supose it would be very hard to write a iphone or andriod app to interface with the native program across a wifi - but thats not my area of expertice.

A lot of media centre remote controls come with a small program where you can assign a button on the remote a particular key or key-combination. this could allow you to have:
Button A = next verse (Enter)
Button B = previous verse (Up, Enter)
Button C = next song (Alt+tab, down, enter)
Etc etc.
You obvously would have no visual display other than the main projector tho (as compared to VNC remote view ideas above)