This discussion is getting a bit heated :-) But it's really interesting to find out how different people use OpenLP and how it was designed.<br><br><br>I think most of our problems can be solved by using the 'blank screen' button AND most importantly the 'show desktop' button. This last point has only recently become clear to me. In an ideal world, we would do everything inside OpenLP but in practice that isn't possible for us (although it sounds like some other churches manage). The different functions of the 'blank screen' were not clear, maybe because of the way the button is presented with only one option visible at a time, or maybe because very few people need the 'show desktop' feature, or maybe because the escape key did pretty much what we needed and I stopped looking for other solutions.<br><br>Although we're probably the only people who faced this issue, and I admit that it was due to my own erroneous understanding of OpenLP, I think the interface could be make a bit clearer. My personal opinion is that it should be very clear that OpenLP (or any other piece of software) is taking control of a screen and that there should be an easy and obvious way to release control of that screen. Maybe we could have two separate 'blank screen' and 'theme background' buttons. When neither of these are active, the desktop is shown by default. A setting in the options would allow choosing the default state on startup (more robustly than remembering the shutdown state). This would allow some people to have OpenLP take over the projector and hide the icons and other software by default, but it would also allow us to easily bring up external applications by unclicking the blank screen button. I think this also does away with the need for the escape button, the show desktop button, and the default logo screen. The escape button could be a shortcut to disable 'blank screen' and 'show theme'. Does that sound reasonable or are there some scenarios that aren't covered by this setup?<br><br><br><br>We always start OpenLP before the service begins, otherwise we'd never have time to get all the songs and readings ready. Not sure why you both thought otherwise but I guess I wasn't clear. Let me walk you through a few typical services. Even if it's not of interest to you, maybe it will give others ideas of what to do or not to do. I see now that we have been misusing the blank screen button and the escape key.<br><br>1) The presentation person arrives at the same time as the worship team and the sound person. They get an order of service from the worship leader. They fire up OpenLP and create a new service with the songs, readings, videos, PowerPoints that have been given to them. On an easy day, that's all. The service starts, they go through the service as it was planned and all goes well.<br><br>2) As above, but the minister has a PowerPoint that won't run correctly in OpenLP. (That's another issue that I've mentioned here already.) So in the middle of the service, we open up the .ppt outside of OpenLP via Windows Explorer. If we have hit the 'blank screen' button in OpenLP, PowerPoint won't show on the projector. Several things might happen depending on who is sitting at the computer. Maybe they shut down OpenLP so that PowerPoint will show; or maybe they unblank the screen, revealing the last verse of the previous song, then hit escape, then PowerPoint appears; or (probably the correct solution) they use the 'show desktop' function.<br><br>3) As in the first example, but at the very beginning of the service, we show an interactive animation which is packaged as a .exe. This needs to be dragged onto the projector screen and double-clicked from there (a DVD or a faulty .ppt would present the same issue). OpenLP is already running and the operator is unable to get anything to appear on the projector screen except the mouse cursor. The 'blank screen' button is not active so there is no obvious reason why we can't use another piece of software to show something. The options are similar but not quite the same as in 2): shut down OpenLP; or show a random slide from a song then hit escape to regain control of the projector screen; or use the show desktop button (I can't confirm that this works right now but I think it does).<br><br><br><br><br>Regarding some of the other points, we'll have to accept that each person/team/church works in different ways and have to make different compromises. Some of the people I work with are very happy to have a list of instructions, but others never read anything and would rather quit than be told exactly what to do. Different people have different preferences or ways of learning so they're not necessarily just being rude or difficult. They are all volunteers and generally do a good job so I'm happy to let them be.<br><br><br><br>This was a bit long but it's been helpful for me to think through exactly what's been happening and how to make it better in future (perhaps) :-)