Hot on the heals of the 3.1 release is 3.1.1 which fixes a couple of bugs that some people have encountered with the 3.1 release.
We also have an experimental Flatpak build for those on Linux who are feeling adventurous.
So then the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
They went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that
followed. Amen.
Mark 16:19-20
New Features
Experimental Flatpak build
Bugs Fixed
Fix path to QtWebEngineProcess binary in macOS builds
Use Python's version comparison, not Qt's to align with new versioning scheme
Always open downloaded songs as utf-8 when downloading from Song Select
Today we are proud to announce that OpenLP 3.1.0 "Superb Seth" has been released. On the surface, this might not
seem like such a big release, since there seem to be very few new features, but if you dig a little deeper, the
sheer number of bugs squashed tells another story. We have also made a number of changes under the hood to help
carry OpenLP into the future.
Since version 2.0, OpenLP has supported the concept of "plugins" or "addons", but due to some limitations, these
plugins have always had to be deeply integrated into OpenLP. With the release of 3.1, OpenLP now has support for
community plugins, so that users can write their own plugins without needing them to become part of OpenLP.
As more and more churches are using OpenLP in a distributed fashion, more and more people are running into issues
when using OpenLP from multiple locations at the same time. In order to ease their pain, we have implemented a
locking mechanism which prevents more than one user from using OpenLP at the exact same time. Hopefully this will
tide users over until OpenLP has a better mechanism for sharing data.
It is because of Yahweh's loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don't fail. They are
new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.
"Yahweh is my portion," says my soul. "Therefore I will hope in him."
Lamentations 3:22-24 WEB
Known Issues
Please read through the following issues carefully, so as to reduce the burden on the OpenLP developers.
Windows 7 and 8 are no longer supported
Microsoft does not support them anymore either.
In order to make use of newer technologies, features and optimizations in the libraries that OpenLP uses, we
have had to drop support for Windows 7 and 8. Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7 in January 2020 and
Windows 8 in July 2023, and Python stopped supporting Windows 7 with the release of Python 3.9 in October 2020.
This also makes life easier for our tiny development team.
macOS incorrectly reports OpenLP is damaged
macOS reports OpenLP as damaged, due to the OpenLP app not being signed. If you encounter this problem, you can
try the following solution:
The main view in the web remote does not update automatically on Ubuntu 22.04 due to Ubuntu/Mint shipping an old
version of python3-websockets. This can be fixed by downloading and installing an updated version of the package
from the official Ubuntu archive.
Wayland on Linux
OpenLP at present does not behave well under Wayland so the recommendation is to run under X11. If you can't run
in X11 (or prefer to run it in XWayland), you should start it with QT_QPA_PLATFORM environment variable set
to xcb, although the Main View from the Web Remote will not work.
Video backgrounds
Video / streaming backgrounds and background audio in songs currently do not work together. You may experience
either the video not working but the audio works, or the audio doesn't work while the video does.
Download
To download OpenLP 3.1.0, go to the Downloads section of the homepage.
New Features
Support for Community Plugins
Implement a filelock for shared data folder.
Add Datasoul song importer
Add Footer Content as Extra First Slide
Enhancements
Better support for High DPI displays with fractional scaling
Allow Wayland to set the window icon
Made the Wordproject import more robust
Better handling of missing VLC
Better handling of attempts to load invalid SWORD folder or zip-file
Don't build manual, use online manual instead
Update some system messaging
Move "Live" / "Preview" and current item on one line
Add authors to Powerpraise importer
Add the list of associated songs to the delete dialog in the song maintenance form
New theme adjustments: Adding letter spacing to theme main area; adding line and letter spacing to footer
Implementing new message websocket endpoint for faster remote operation
Migrate from FontAwesome4 to Material Design Icons v5.9.55
Highlighted slidecontroller buttons
Correct About references and remove unused bits
Improve PowerPoint detection by trying to start the application instead of looking it up in the registry.
List view grid tests + horizontal scroll handler on small height
List view with grid view mode + using this list view within thememanager
Defining theme manager view mode default as 'List'
Allow the remote interface update notification to be turned off.
Bug Fixes
Invalidate the service item cache when the theme changes
Fix "wrapped C/C++ object of type QTreeWidgetItem has been deleted"
Fix irregular service theme saving
Fix AuthorType not getting translated
Fix a PermissionError that occurs on Windows 10/11
Fix First Time Wizard loop on Windows
Fix traceback on bible import when no bible available
Fix external DB settings
Fix alerts
Fix trimming leading whitespaces
Ensure a path set in PathEdit is a Path instance
Inject String.replaceAll javascript implementation if needed into webengine when browsing SongSelect.
Do not start the same presentation again when it's already live.
Prevent key error when unblank screen at start of presentation.
Fix the multiselect in the images plugin
Fix saving of songs
Fix spelling in songimport.py
Bypass image db updates if the db has already been upgraded
Fix a couple of macOS issues
Change SongSelect import procedure to import when clicking download on webpage
Don't crash when a permission error is raised
Fix presentations not being able to return from Display Screen
Fix the deadlock on macos
Fix issue #1618 by ignoring the messages if the event loop is not running
Fix issue #1382 by waiting for the service_manager to become available, or giving up after 2 minutes
Try to fix an issue with MediaInfo perhaps returning a str instead of an int
Fix issue #1582 by running the search in the original thread
Try to fix an issue that only seems to happen on macOS
Allow loading the same presentation file multiple times from 2.4.x service file.
Fix endless loop at the end of a PowerPoint presentation
Fix song search by author
Fix issue #1297 by reducing the number by 1024 times
Ignore the thumbnails if the path doesn't exist (fixes #914)
Fix an issue where an item's parent is None
Fix the 415 errors due to a change in Werkzeug
Fix translations loading on linux system-wide installation
Add detection for presentation files that were uploaded from the cloud.
Fix Datasoul translate strings
Skip missing thumbnails when loading a service
Minor fix for EasyWorship import
Fix stopping and looping of videos
Under the Hood
Replace appdirs with platformdirs
Update SQLAlchemy usage to be 2.x compatible
Migrate Images plugin to use shared folder code
Migrate to using SQLALchemy declarative in Songs, Bibles, Custom, Images, Alerts, Song Usage
Fix portable builds by re-arranging when the settings are created
Fix bug in _has_header of Bible CSV import
Fix issues with upgrading 2.9.x databases
Fix OpenLP startup by reordering statements
Check before initialising a None Bible
Make PathEdit handle None values
Spoof the SongSelect webengine user agent
Update AppVeyor for Mac to install Pyro5 instead of Pyro4
Silence error when shutting down threads
Re introduce the selective turning off logging - correctly this time.
Fix some issues with building on macOS
Make some forward compatibility changes
Refactor last instances of TestCase-based tests
Add test coverage for __main__.py and remove some unused files
Update appveyor.yml to use Python 3.11.
Fix an issue with the arguments of with_only_columns
Remove dependency on PIL since the latest version does not support PyQt5
Fixing freezing screenshot test
Fallback code for display screenshot code (used on '/main' Web Remote)
Update resource generation for ARM64 platforms (e.g. Apple M2)
Enumeration Conversion
Upgrade to Pyro5
Update CI to use the GitLab container registry
Display Custom Scheme
Fix bug in icon definition - Typo only
Take account of VLC on macOS being bundled with OpenLP
VLC - Cleanup - Stopping and looping correctly.
Fixing Images not being able to be inserted on Service
Reusable Media Toolbar
Adding foundational support to Footer per slide
Merge CustomXMLBuilder and CustomXMLParser
Fix tests on Windows failing due to MagicMock in Path
Fix selected=True not being set at new Transpose API Endpoint
Rework the songs settings, so that they're not as squashed.
We're happy to announce the fourth release candidate of OpenLP 3.1. This release fixes or improves some of the biggest bugs and issues we've seen in OpenLP. This is the last release candidate before the final release of OpenLP 3.1.
What then is my reward? That when I preach the Good News, I may present the Good News of Christ without charge, so as not to abuse my authority in the Good News.
The OpenLP developers are pleased to announce the second release candidate of OpenLP 3.1. This release candidate
contains a multitude of bug fixes, a number of enhancements, and even a new feature or two. There are also a number of
changes under the hood which puts OpenLP in a good position for the future.
Wait, what happened to the first release candidate?!
We had some issues with the packaging of RC1, and we caught a couple regressions (bugs that cause a feature not to work
like it previously did), and so we had to build a new release.
Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I will say, "Rejoice!" Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at
hand. In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be
made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your
thoughts in Christ Jesus.
We want to say a HUGE thank you to our community for the recent donations we have received. The
recent donations we have received have enabled us to purchase the following items:
High DPI monitor
Many people have had issues on Windows with high DPI monitors and scaling. Thanks to the community,
we were able to purchase a 4K monitor so that we can test OpenLP with high resolutions and hopefully
narrow down these issues.
Apple Silicon Mac Mini
Due to a lack of resources, up until now we have not been able to build OpenLP on the new Apple
Silicon platform, resulting in various compatibility issues, especially with video. Thanks to some
extremely generous members of our community, we were able to purchase a Mac Mini M2, and we'll be
using that for building Apple Silicon versions of OpenLP, as well as testing and development of
OpenLP on that platform.
Extra RAM
We are also using virtual machines for running some tests and some development on Windows. These can
be quite resource intensive, and my desktop computer was not able to fully handle it. Thanks to our
community, the cost of an extra 16GB of RAM was covered, and we're able to run more virtual machines
for development and testing.
Ongoing Expenses
We do still have our regular ongoing expenses (domain names, downloads and forums hosting, etc), and
we are really grateful for the continued financial support of the community. Thank you!
As we said in our previous announcement, we are moving to rolling out fixes and updates faster.
So here, hot in the heels of our 3.0 release, is version 3.0.1 which contains a number of fixes for
issues you may have experienced.
Bugs Fixed
Fix theme loading of presentations
Fix a bug when migrating 2.4.6 presentations to 3.0
Fix song ordering for certain languages (On Linux this introduces a dependency on PyICU)
Fix an error when exporting song reporting
Fix the remote version test
Fix Print Service missing newlines on print
Video volume and repeat settings are now saved consistently between media.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, it's finally here! Yes, OpenLP 3.0 has been released!
And whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord, and not for men, knowing that from the
Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3:23-24 WEB
One of our original goals with OpenLP was to move to faster releases, and while that didn't seem to
happen for version 3.0, moving foward we are aiming to roll out releases much faster. With that in
mind, we decided that the worst bugs have been fixed, and most people should be pretty happy with
the 3.0 release.
Known Issues
Before we dive into the new features, here are some known issues which may apply to you:
New Features
One of the biggest changes in version 3.0 is that we completely rewrote the renderer, meaning that
we were able to bring in efficient transitions between slides for text items (i.e. songs, Bible
verses, custom slides). Transitions are available as part of themes.
Another major change in version 3.0 is the remote. Maintaining separate remotes for browsers,
Android and iOS was painful and slow. In version 3.0 we rewrote the remote API, and have
consolidated our work into the web remote. The web remote is also no longer bundled with OpenLP,
allowing us to roll out updates to the remote separately from OpenLP itself. The old API's will be
removed in a future release breaking the Android and IOS applications. Please migrate to the new
Web Interface.
In addition to the two above, OpenLP now supports presentations on macOS, using LibreOffice,
Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac and Keynote. Support of Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer has been removed.
Other New Features
VLC is now bundled with OpenLP on macOS and Windows, and there is no need to select a media
players
Guide marks to show position within a clip and the ability to repeat the playing video
Motion (video) backgrounds in themes
Better screen detection and configuration
Performance improvements reducing start up times
The settings page has been updated, so a number of options have moved
All icons have been migrated from images to scalable monochromatic fonts to allow for the
support of larger desktop displays and dark themes
OpenLP now ships with a dark interface/UI theme. On Windows and macOS, it can be enabled by
enabling the dark theme on system. You can always force the dark theme by changing the Interface
Theme in Settings
Media and Presentations now support being grouped by folders
Slide numbers in footer can be enabled in Settings
Songs can be searched by number
Chord support in songs (can be enabled in Song settings). The chords are shown in the "Chords
View" section of Web Remote, which supports chord transposition and mobile devices
More song formats can be imported:
- Singing The Faith
- LivePresenter
- ProPresenter 5 and 6
- EasyWorship 6
- ChordPro (for chords)
More bible formats can be imported:
- SWORD
- WordProject
Support for importing services from PlanningCenter
Updates and Bug Fixes
A lot more has been fixed, updated or improved, far too much to include here. If you're really
curious, you can do a comparison between 2.4.6 and 3.0.0 on GitLab.