gushie's blog

In just over a weeks time, the OpenLP facebook page will be switched over to the new Timeline view. The new view gives us the opportunity to add a cover image to go along the top of the page, and this is where we would like your help...

Ideally we would like to use a picture of OpenLP being used, with a full worshipping congregation and both the operators screen and the projector screen in view. For example a long time ago when v1 was just being born and monitors were still the size of a small car, the photo on the right was taken. We would like to bring it up to date..

From near the beginning there has been some form of remote control functionality in OpenLP V2. At first it was just a basic command line utility. Then we developed the basic Web view which although functional, wasn't very pretty.

Well in recent weeks remote operation has been getting some more much needed attention, in the shape of a new design targetting mobiles, an Android App and a Stage View.

In v1 of openlp.org, there is the option to enable keyboard shortcuts. However these hotkeys require you to press 3 keys at once, and as such are not very easy to use.

In v2 we've improved the situation. You can now for example use the left and right keys to go the previous/next item in the order of service, and Esc to hide the display. We also plan in the future to add shortcuts to allow the user to skip straight to a verse or chorus and the ability to customize the shortcuts.

We are pleased to announce the release of the third alpha version of OpenLP!

It has been three months since our last alpha release, and the developers have been working hard to fix bugs and add new features. We're getting ever closer to a complete application, and there are already enough finished features that some Churches are using the alpha releases in their Sunday Services. We hope more people will be willing to give this new version a try. Read on for more details about this release.

Being a rainy public holiday here in the UK, I decided it would be a good time to update you all on v2, since we've now sailed past revision 800 and there have been a number of changes since the last update.

Well 2.0alpha1 has been out in the wild for just over a week now, and we're both relieved and delighted that the response has been positive! According to the stats, just over 400 of you have been brave enough to download it and give it a try, and we've been been bumped up to 246 in the SourceForge rankings which I think is pretty good for a niche application, out of 266090 registered projects.

If you haven't tried the alpha yet, I'd urge you to please take a look. We'll be interested in your comments, both good and bad as to the progress we've made so far.

As you may well have seen, the release date for the first 2.0 alpha has been set, and the developers are working hard to ensure the deadline is met!

Up until now we've been asking testers to post bug reports or feedback on the mailing list or IRC. However as the 2.0 feature set has become more complete and stable, more people are trying it out and posting their feedback in the forums. We've attempted to point them in the right direction, but have now come to the conclusion that we're not got going to be able to hold back the tide once the alpha is released.

Raoul posted a screenshot of OpenLP 2.0 and OpenOffice Impress a few days ago, and for an open source application, this is a great pairing. In addition I've also been working on getting PowerPoint Viewer support working in Windows...

A few days ago, sjpslabbert asked the question in a forum post how many people are using OpenLP? As I said in the reply, it's close to impossible to answer that question. All we know is that we average 100 downloads a day, there were over 16000 downloads of version 1.0.1, this site has over 2500 registered users and we are approaching 200 fans on facebook.

What we don't know is how many of those downloads are new users who go on to use OpenLP regularly.