Dear All — as I have been evaluating EW6 along with a number of other software programs (OpenLP, ProPresenter 5) to replace our old current church presentation software I have seen aspects of the software where there are good ideas and good functionality — but sometimes the 'execution' in EW6 is a bit lacking.

I would like to specifically mention in this post some points about the service 'workflow' using EW6. Also in light of some feedback from people about the preview option. Now I may be incorrect/have missed things in the program, sorry if that is the case, feel free to point me how to do the things I refer to.

OK — specifically looking at the workflow, going from creating themes, choosing songs and presentations for a service and then navigating through the schedule (service). I don't do this function in our church but I am an IT person and I have a logical way of looking at software. I also (personally) think that any good piece of software should be able to be driven from the keyboard — particularly if one is running something like songs etc. for a service.

[list=1:2p9q2a9x]
[*:2p9q2a9x] If we have a song with a chorus (which obviously is going to repeat) then from what I see when songs are entered into the song database in EW6 there is no option to list the normal/usual sequence of chorus and verses e.g. C1,V1,C1,V2,C1,V3,B so the chorus has to be either a) entered multiple times or b) songs have to be manually controlled (by typing "C", "V1", then "C" again etc. on the keyboard) to play the chorus multiple times? Is this the case? If b) then that seems a lot of wasted effort and is prone to failure, e.g. "what verse were we up to?"[/*:m:2p9q2a9x]
[*:2p9q2a9x] For the issue about previewing — if I look at what people need from a previewing option it is mainly to check a) what style/theme is going to be applied to a song/scripture reading, b) that the content is OK and finally c) to jump to a particular verse/slide of the item. Please have a look at the attached screenshot (ideally you should open it in another window as whole screenshot does not show in the forum software). I have made a mockup of the EW6 screen changing the Schedule view. It seems to me that that can satisfy points 2.a to 2.c.[/*:m:2p9q2a9x]
[*:2p9q2a9x] I also found what, really, I would call a bug. The 'Notes' entry box does not word wrap, so you can enter a lot of text but it just goes off to the right and essentially is useless.[/*:m:2p9q2a9x]
[*:2p9q2a9x] Also, and this also affects the workflow of EW6, there is no option to choose a default (fallback) song/scripture/presentation theme for a service (schedule). So if the worship leader (led by the Spirit of course ) decides that s/he wants a song on the fly you can quickly find it and pick it directly from the song database, great, but it is likely not to have the theme that you want. So the immediate 'go live' option loses a lot of its benefit.[/*:m:2p9q2a9x][/list:o:2p9q2a9x]

Are my observations essentially correct?

Any take up on the idea put forward in point 2, or have I misunderstood the required functionality being looked at in a preview function.

Some quick thoughts -

[list:s9mpubpy]Like note idea.

What if song has multiple themes? Using slide images is different not necessarily bad; schedule can be used as Preview.

Lower right there is Composer button allows new theme to be applied before song is added to schedule or to Live screen.[/list:u:s9mpubpy]

Some quick thoughts -

[list:2vadmg2v]Lower right there is Composer button allows new theme to be applied before song is added to schedule or to Live screen.[/list:u:2vadmg2v]

Hi - if I click the 'Compose' button (which is only enabled for the Songs & Scriptures resources tabs) I get three greyed out icons showing — video, sound and document — they don't do anything. My missing something?

When you click Compose it grays out. indicating mode is active; perhaps a more distinct indication would be better. When active click on Themes tab and double-click desired theme.

When you click Compose it grays out. indicating mode is active; perhaps a more distinct indication would be better. When active click on Themes tab and double-click desired theme.

Hmmm — very unintuitive, and again execution lacking.

I followed what you said, so steps were:
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[*:2efutqdo] Search/select song[/*:m:2efutqdo]
[*:2efutqdo] Click 'Compose' button, it goes grey[/*:m:2efutqdo]
[*:2efutqdo] Click on 'Themes' tab, 'Song' theme active[/*:m:2efutqdo]
[*:2efutqdo] Double-click desired theme, see theme is applied to song[/*:m:2efutqdo]
[*:2efutqdo] Click the small triangle 'play' button next to song search entry edit field which normally sends song direct to output screen — nothing happens[/*:m:2efutqdo]
[*:2efutqdo] Click on '+' symbol, song goes up into schedule, strangely theme is not applied to master icon, it stays black, but is applied to individual slides. Still then have to press 'PgDn' to make it live[/*:m:2efutqdo][/list:o:2efutqdo]

Execution....

We have never wanted to list the order of the items as there are too many exceptions, e.g. verses displayed in 2 chunks. which don't easily lend themselves to keyboard shortcuts. If the song is so long that we might forget where we are, then it is easy to add the chorus multiple times, but that still doesn't guarantee that the worship leader will not repeat a verse or chorus anyway.
I think that the issue with the preview is that we may not always start the next song with verse 1, so we want to display all the verses and be able to select the one to start with. Yes we can just about do this by expanding the schedule view to its largest, but then we lose the overview of the schedule and it takes 2 clicks to get it back again.
Your idea of showing the verses in plain text certainly makes it much clearer but it does not allow each verse to have a different background - I suspect a little used feature but some folk like it. I've seen it used once in 5 years and very effective it was too! I would like the ability to show the song verses either with or without the background. We seldom use anything other than white on black so all this stuff about themes is a bit OTT for us.
My main complaint about the layout is that so much screen space is devoted to displaying the main output, which I can see anyway on the main screen. Apparently there are some churches that have their projectionist in another room, but it is so cheap to provide a small screen duplicating the main one that I can't see this as a real issue.

Can see what you are saying, which basically comes back to having a 'full featured' preview section with options to select specific verse/Bible verse/presentation (slide) to preview it (see the style) and push it to live display if desired.

This then means that what they have done with the schedule screen is redundant and is eating up space because for the function of seeing what the screen will look like (preview) is best done in a preview, so putting that functionality also in the schedule screen is duplicating furnishing that requirement. So the schedule should simply show what has been listed for the service. So a layout like as was in EW 2009 (which I am not familiar with) or as in OpenLP (which I have been looking at).

So some work for the developers....?

This biggest issue with lack of preview pane is for items not in a schedule. It's good to have a buffer before sending an item to the Live screen.