Reflections and Projections

release on sunday, thanks to sourceforge.net

It's a plain fact: SourceForge.net's servers suck. We moved the site away from them, we've moved our project management tools away from them, and I think I might just move entirely away from them.

I'm on dialup here at home. Which is slow. So it takes a HECK of a long time to upload the 7.5 megabyte install file for openlp.org. So you can imagine how unimpressed I am that the file upload failed at 95%. You can imagine then that I'm even less impressed with the fact that you cannot manually delete a file from their upload server, and that you have to wait 24 hours before the is automatically deleted. And that for some or other unknown reason I cannot log in to the shell server to upload the file there and then move it across to the upload server.

So, as much as I am ready for a Friday release, SourceForge.net's pathetic service is not. So please be patient while I wait.

beta 5 release due on friday

Hi folks,

Derek and I had a chat a few weeks ago and have decided to release openlp.org Beta 5 on Friday. it's not going to have all the features and bug fixes we'd hoped for, but it should have the majority of show-stopper bugs patched. We've fixed a number of things in the CCLI SongSelect and also in the Video part. We've decided to postpone the localisation, since that's gonna take a little longer than expected, and I haven't had the time to work on it until recently.

Also, like I've said before, we have done a feature-freeze. This is because if we DON'T we'll NEVER release version 1.0.

God bless!

openlp.org Mac

So, yesterday evening I decided to try to see how wxMac would compile openlp. It took all night to install wxMac, but finally this morning I've got openlp to compile, and present to you the first screenshots of openlp on a Mac! Bear in mind that there are a lot of crinkles to iron out now, but I'm pretty impressed by the fact it ported easily to the Mac, and that hopefully, we can get it workable for the same release as openlp.org on Windows cross platform.

Let me know what you think, please!


openlp.org C++

Hi guys,

just a quick message to show you a screen of what openlp.org in C++ is looking like. As you can see, most of the main window is implemented - and it'll all work just like you're used to. And remember, it's all been developed with totally free/open source tools, and will run on Mac, Linux and Windows!

Tim

openlp.org cross platform

So, over the last few months I've been doing more and more C++, and have been loving working with it. As my time is freeing up a little bit with regard to doing personal projects again, I've started work on a Cross Platform version of openlp.org based on the wxWidgets framework. The progress so far is stellar, in 3 days I've nailed most of the fundamental GUI features, and hopefully this completely open development platform will open up opportunities for more people to work on the project. I'll start uploading source into SVN in the next few days. The big advantage of this framework, for the non-techies among you, is that it can compile to binary on Mac, Linux and Windows; with support for all the libraries that openlp.org needs.

Oh and you can see my band, Glass Darkly in concert live at CreationFest this summer - or any number of other places around the UK, and the US. Keep tabs on the website for more info.

I'll keep you posted on any new developments.

Tim

Status update and a request for assistance

Things are looking promising for a release of beta 5 in the next week or two. I think I've nailed down the video bug and re-worked the theming to take everyone's preferences into account. You can now set your preferred theme level to song level, OOS level or global default. I few other small bugs have also been resolved. The internationalisation feature will be moved out to beta6.

The one outstanding issue that we wanted to include for beta 5 is the correction of the CCLI bug. This is where we have a small problem that I hope someone out there can help me with. The South African CCLI website does not have the same functionality as the USA website and we can't use it to test the CCLI interface. With this in mind, I would like to ask if anyone out there can assist me with a username/password. I will of course keep it confidential. You can contact me at derek(at)openlp.org.

That's it from me for now.

God bless,

Derek.

Happy New Year, and all the rest

Howdy folks!

Happy new year to you all from me and the team at openlp.org. We hope that 2007 is indeed a blessed year and you and your churches grow closer to God.

From our side, we're still working hard on openlp.org beta 5. We're hoping to get that out the door middle to end of this month.

As usual, we can always do with more people, so if you think you can be of use and you'd like to help out, you can contact us through the contact page.

Well, God bless to you all!

Translators and documentators needed!

Hey guys!

As you might have noticed, openlp.org's development is progressing pretty nicely. It's been a long time, and a long process (hectic personal schedules leave little time for pet projects like openlp.org), but we're finally nearing 1.0.

BUT in order for us to have a really nicely finished and polished product, we need documentation. We're looking for people who are willing to put aside a couple of hours a week (say about 2 - 4) and, in a collaborative manner, put together a user guide second to none. If you're interested in joining us, then please contact us via the contact form (subject: Help with documentation).

We also need people who are willing to translation this site (and therefore the documentation) into other languages. If you speak German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, or anything else, and you'd like to help out, then please contact us via the contact form (subject: Help with translation). Please remember that I don't speak anything other than English, so don't e-mail me in your language, I won't understand what you're saying.

Development status update

Hi to all since this is my first blog entry since joining this project as part of the development team, and thanks to Raoul for his guidance and support.

As you know by now, we have frozen the featureset for the current version of OpenLP.org which we are trying hard to get into a v1 release as soon as possible.  There have been some great idea's from you guys, and we are keeping them all on record for after the v1 release.  We are even putting some of our own idea's on the back burner for now.

So...what's next. Well, there are 4 main issues on the table for the next, and hopefully last, beta release (beta5). These are:

1) The translation feature
2) Fixing the CCLI SongSelect
3) Putting back the song theme assignment
4) Getting the video working

With regard to the Video feature, there is a possible workaround which I am using successfully at the moment.  If you have a relatively recent nVidia display card, there is a setting for "Full screen video".  If you set the "Full screen device" to "auto-select", the card automatically routes the video to the second display.  I had this setting unknowingly set on my development machine and couldn't figure out why video wasn't working on other machines.  Anyway, you can try this workaround and see if it works for you.

I'm sure you are all eager to know when to expect the next beta.  Raoul and I have had a chat and we are planning it for early in the New Year. I know that sounds a bit vague, but the translation feature is an immense amount of work and the video is a bit tricky since we are not DirectX experts.

Well, that's how things stand at the moment.  We appreciate all the comments and feedback.

God bless,

Derek.

Howdy!

Hi guys,

Congratulations to Raoul and his team on the release of openlp.org beta 4. It's looking great! I have been very busy outside of programming, just being back from tour in the US with my band Glass Darkly. We played 14 times over 14 days, and had a great time with it all!

I'm currently thinking up some new ideas for Christian open source projects that might interest me, and would be interested in hearing of any ideas that people have for software that has a church use, and has no or little open source alternative to a mainstream rival.  You can email me at tim [AT] this domain.

 Cheers guys,

Tim