New Feature Poll - Version 3.0

[Christian]

Hi Christian (great name by the way)

Yes - we understand the difficulties facing multi-lingual congregations and we will do our best to provide a solution like you describe in the next major release.

Unfortunately we can't give any definite dates when that will be - but we are aware of it and want to implement a good solution.

Thanks,
Christian.

[dgillham]

An explanation of my "other" vote is asked for

I am leading worship for a smaller congregation and we have no musicians. It becomes impossible for me to use Zionworx without support for midi files

Far better, in my situation, to use powerpoint as words can be displayed at the same time the music is played, but powerpoint is a lot more hard work getting the words in

Hopefully this will be considered some time soon. For me it is an absolute priority, not just another wish, if Zionworx is ever to be useful for our church

[webmaster]

I think we sometimes want to integrate too much.

I run a midi player and zionworx together and the work just fine.

Mind you we always run in 2 screen mode not single screen.

the problem with most midi players is the don't give speed control a problem we find as some f the worship midis we have seem o be written for a funeral about half the speed.

ppt does not handle midis well anyway as sometine we get the file to crash.

just a point of view.

Regards
Edd

[dgillham]

In my experience there are no problems whatsoever with midi files in powerpoint, but they do need to be prepared on a PC first

It's an interesting thought that your tradition suggests adding midi files is wanting too much but "needs" what I would consider totally unimportant like guitar chords, inclusion of scripture verses, nursery alerts and formatting of text for hymns. I know where you are coming from because I started my ministry as an SA Officer but I doubt you understand where I'm coming from which, trust me, means I can NOT use Zionworx because of this omission

[Peter Sampson]

Hi,

Just thought you might be interested to hear of some midi performance software called Midi-Maestro. It's not free but is cheap (approx. £30). I use it occasionally in live worship as it gives you a lot of control over the midi file, e.g. speed, key, etc. To find out more go to http://www.midimaestro.com where you can download a copy to try for 15 days. Like Zionworx I think its tremendous value.

Regards,

Peter

[dgillham]

Hmm. I was wary of posting an indication of what I meant by other as Christian asked. It has opened up, as I feared, the door to discussions on how to play midi files, which is not the point. Unless your suggested midi-maestro displays words on the screen then it is of no use whatsoever

I rest my case here. I only visit the forum to see whether midi is getting added to any new release and have done so for some years now. I lived in hope but hope is fading fast that I will get the integration needed in Zionworx that makes it better and easier to use than Powerpoint for WORD DISPLAY whilst at the SAME time playing the midi file synchronised with the words (YES, this can be done EASILY in powerpoint without the need for another software package). There are plenty of midi players out there or you could do as I do and become licensed to create and manipulate midi files directly, so they are created at the right speed, in the right pitch and with the correct number of verses etc. To add the capability to play midi files in Zionworx is relatively easy (trust me, I was a programmer so have an idea of the complexities) and I have cast my vote with the required explanation. That is all I want to do and I do not eally wish to get embroiled in anything else

[Professor]

Hi Christian (great name by the way)

Yes - we understand the difficulties facing multi-lingual congregations and we will do our best to provide a solution like you describe in the next major release.

Unfortunately we can't give any definite dates when that will be - but we are aware of it and want to implement a good solution.

Thanks,
Christian.

I have spoken with the woman who coordinates the worship at our church and showed her the posting.
We agreed that I will do the translation as usual and we will wait for the next Zionworx version.
Thanks!
Christian

[webmaster]

What I was trying to say is just because we can.....should we.

My personnal feeling and other church multimedia users don't think we should.

It would give our church no benifit as the player we have is far easier to operate. put disk in and press play.

I also think it would start to make ZionworX a more complex product that would be harder to train people on.

We(Zionworx) are always looking at new features and who am I to say we don't want midi....I am sure if the feature is in such demand Christian and the Zionworx team will look at it.

Remember this is my own view and not a team view.

In the end I would not use the feature as the midi player I have works inline with Zionworx perfectly.

Some of our midi tunes would cause issues if lined up with words as they fit other songs like wice for a verse or no chorus......

Regards
Edd

[dgillham]

Of course you will not see the need. In the same way that I do not see the need to display guitar chords and would not use such a feature etc etc. I wonder how useful a translation feature might be to most of our churches too. But because we do not see the need, does that mean we shouldn't?

Hymn singing consists of two basic operations. The music and the words. It can be argued that we have perfectly good hymn books so we do not REALLY need projection software at all. In YOUR case you have a perfectly good band, two ministers, a young people's singing company and probably a Songster brigade too. Why would you need any extra computerised help to lead worship when you have all the help you need available locally?

Contrast that with my situation. One minister, no organist or any other form of musician, no money, a traditional liturgical gathering, a need for one person to operate everything

Now tell me again how easy it is! Tell me again that there would be no benefit to one program actually doing the two BASIC things required for hymn singing!

Yes, I can get by with Powerpoint. It works well and requires me to run ONE piece of software which is more easily controlled by a single person. I do not have to put a disk in anything nor do I have to press play, which might not work too well with a chalice in one hand, a host in the other and a remote control between my teeth. But it is hard work having to type up and format the songs week by week for several different services, all of which have no musical resources

My regards to Alan, your leader on 20th August. He was a year behind me at the Wm Booth College (graduating 1975)

[webmaster]

I will pass on your message.

It sounds like you need to get some help. wouldn't one of you congregation help to do the multimedia,

Sometimes I find that I want to keep control as they have to call me if anything goes wrong.

sometimes a little help takes the presure off.

Just a thought.

As I said we always discuss new feature and I am sure the team will discuss this option.

Regards
Edd

[enochho]

the heat is on after somebody brought in a demo copy of Easy Worship and we tried it for a few weeks (the demo version is valid for about 33 days) and I know that Zionworx is planning to integrate the same features, such as:

- 'live' backgrounds (moving backgrounds of water, shoreline, clouds, etc in .mpg format)
- live video feed capability (we don't have any use for this yet, but we may in a few years time)
- Bible passages can be easily called up instantly
- clear tagging of verses and choruses (example, you can put a colored tag in front of each section such as verse 1(a) or chorus (b) for clarity. Now with Zionworx it's pretty much a guessing game which is the verse and which is the chorus and where does verse 3 start and so on and so forth)
- certain backgrounds are pre-programmed to position the text in a certain way (for example, if the background has a candle by the left side, all the text is formatted to neatly stay on the right)

some people in the church are clamoring to take a serious look at the Easy Worship software, but I wanted to check with Zionworx to see if v3 has most of these things (well, probably except the live video feed) and when it's coming out? I know and appreciate that it's taking a long time and that it's a side project for everyone.

[AliBy]

A Clone of Easy Worship is EasiSlides http://www.easislides.com/.
I think they are still struggling with the overlaying as I get lots of flickering. When I tried the last beta of ZIonWorx the overlay was flawless. I think we must be careful of getting distracted or intrenched into something else too quickly - these guys are thorough.

[ChrisClark]

Hi,

As far as version 3 all of the features you list are planned to be included (including live video) except for the last one around backgrounds which is already available in Zionworx now. (Look at margins on the images tab)

The issue around version 3.0 is a matter of time as discussed in a previous thread http://www.zionworx.org.uk/forum/viewto ... c&start=15

[rjcrocker_uk]

Would really like to record more details about songs that would allow us to categorise them in different ways - for example song category, key, etc. A number of user-definable fields might be the best approach, so that users could employ them as suits individual needs.

[kck]

I'd like an extra field for the CCLI song reference number to make it easier for both us and CCLI to record our song usage. Ideally combined with something that read our service files and produced a report in a format that CCLI could easily use.

Steve