I think that useablity continues to be paramount - so that all content be it video, powerpoint, song or whatever is accessed in the same way - for example F3 / F4 to move through the "playlist" (and end the previous playlist item that was on display) and "spacebar" to move through pages / slides in content - or for videos to pause / play.
Adding video support is in fact mostly a useability issue - my users do not cope well with using a seperate application to Zionworx to display videos. I have had to resort to using Powerpoint and VBA macros within them to allow users to have a seamless ability to display videos as part of the Zionworx playlist. My solution is not ideal, sometimes things can go wrong such as Zionworx losing focus, or not freeing up the screen used for Powerpoint. A proper integration of all this would make the use of multimedia and song display in church much easier, seamless and professional looking.
These days there are many small churches that may use Zionworx. Like my church they may have to get inexpereienced users to control Zionworx during church services. Its important therefore that Zionworx and associated multimedia presentation is easy for a complete beginner to use. I don't mind additional optional complexity when setting up services, but it needs to be easy to use during the church service.
Subject to useability during a church service, here are the features important for my church, in order of priority:
1) Improved song formatting options - ability to have lines within a song formatted differently from other lines
2) Integration with CCLI so reports of songs used can be easily generated
3) Ability to display videos and play audio (a) as a separate item in the playlist (b) as a background to songs. Possibly all via the VideoLan activex control. Should include an option for the video or audio to loop or end normally. Either loading or displaying another playlist item should normally end the video / audio automatically, although it would be nice to have an option for the video or audio to continue across more than one song in the playlist.
4) Ability to obtain and use an offline version of NIV bible, so that bible readings can be called up and displayed during church. In most cases we set these up in advance, using the Online resource, but offline is occasionally needed.
5) The ability for choruses and verses to be separately tagged allowing the ability to easily locate and jump back to the previous verse.
In addition, but much less important ...
6) Look at formatting of bible verses so they display as well as possible without editing, avoiding orphaned lines, verses split across screens.
7) Integration with CCLI SongSelect so that lyrics can be downloaded
8 ) ability to categorise and search for songs by key, keywords etc or user definable searchable fields
9) I automate zionworx so it works with a remote control using a program called Girder. The ability to select and activate windows and options within ZIonworx either by use of shortcut keys and / or by the individual panes / window titles being accessible to programs like Girder (which uses LUA), or some sort of API, or VBA interface would be helpful to enable such automation to work reliabily and simply for users. Probably not many would benefit from this, so might not be worth much effort. I can provide more specifics if needed.
LexLuthor wrote:I really ask you to reconsider your priorities regarding all this fancy video/dvd support.
There is plenty free movieplayer software out there and frankly I can't remember the last time I watched a DVD in church.
Zionworx 3.0 is overdue so you should not overreach yourself with adding more and more multimedia features that are barely used.
What's urgently needed is a decent search bar for bible verses, because thats what people need to use in 100% of all church services.
Also before adding video backgrounds it would be much more useful to have at least some basic formatting options for the song texts.
The ability to display videos is used weekly in our church, whereas the need to display bible verses on the fly is only occasional (as they are planned in advance). Whilst I agree that video backgrounds are less important than song formatting (and we would rarely use them solely as backgrounds), the benefit of having the option for video backgrounds is that it effectively enables lyrics or subtitles to be added to videos that otherwise do not include them, with minimum effort. This we would probably use at least once a month.
kck wrote:I don't want to start an argument but those who want to do complicated things with video overlays and the like are more likely to have the expertise and resources to consider buying one of the many commercial packages that are around.
Not so in our church - we have very limited funds and could not afford a commercial package. In addition the simplicity of Zionworx is important as we have few people that would be able to operated anything complex - so a commercial package even if we could afford it would probably be a step in the wrong direction.