We're considering switching rom EasyWorship to OpenLP.
We're considering switching rom EasyWorship to OpenLP. I need to convince the decision makers that OpenLP is a stable product. I need to answer basic question such as : How long has it been a product? How many churches use OpenLP? How stable is the program in Windows? I need to know for sure that we will have a seamless transition from EasyWorship to OpenLP. Please advise. Thank you!
Comments
2. This is an OpenLP forum, so you're going to get biased responses. Having said that, our church has used it since day one (we're a newish church plant, about 1.5 years old). I was heavily involved in the decision making, and I remember looking at Easy Worship as an option. I didn't like it, honestly, although I can't recall why. OpenLP has been reliable and intuitive for me. The only crashes I've seen have actually been due to hardware failure (and thus not OpenLP's fault). It's very stable and has a number of import options. Additionally, there are a number of us regularly active on the forum to handle user questions & troubleshooting.
Hope this helps!
May I ask why you're considering making the change?
Thank you, Milon!
Sorry if I've missed any questions of yours lately - I've had my hands full with "real life" and haven't had much of an internet presence lately. I'm getting caught up, though!
- Build list of songs by reading my old e-mails and asking the guy who logs song usage with CCLI to send me a log.
- Rank by most often used.
- Import the top 50 into OpenLP by hand (use OpenLP importer then edit, or paste/type in directly).
- Start using OpenLP
- Add new songs as required.
Once I'd put in a bit of time to get the top 50 songs into OpenLP the rest was pretty smooth.From my quick test I am impressed with OpenLP, especially the way the bible verses are split over slides and the SongSelect integration is much better than EasyWorship. The only downside I can see at the moment is that the custom slides are not as flexible/easy to edit as the EasyWorship equivalent (that is almost like PowerPoint). We currently use this for some graphical slides to announce things like coffee in the evening service. I know it is possible to still do this by creating a theme to use with a custom slide (or create an image) but it's just not as smooth ;-)
A new feature that I think would get round this problem is to have a menu item called "Edit" when you right click on a file (.png .svg .pptx .jpg etc) in the Service Manager (and maybe also in the library lists?). OpenLP could then open the default program to edit the image or presentation on your platform. This way if for example you have your notices saved as a group of .svg files and you notice a typo before the service, the operator could easily edit that slide by right-clicking on it and Inkscape popping up. My python is a little rusty so may take me a while to put it in myself however I think it should be easy to do and work on all platforms.
The other big plus (for me) is the opensource nature of OpenLP. If I get time it will be great to develop a plugin (if not already done and I have missed it?) to create a booklet pdf (or other format e.g. rtf) of a service (Including all the words to songs, readings and maybe PowerPoint slides). This would help automate the task we currently have been doing by hand in large print for some older members of our congregation who can't read the screens.
Not that a PDF export wouldn't be a great addition to OpenLP, just highlighting another workaround that some people have used :-)
I also experimented putting this mornings service in OpenLP. I think I can do everything essential to make it a viable alternative to EasyWorship. The one major issue I had was adding songs from CCLI. Currently, our worship leaders when picking songs email the office the song name and CCLI song number e.g.
A lot of Christian songs have similar names and some classics are reworked (also crediting the original author). We just find it the easiest way of stopping confusion (our leaders tend to pick songs from their music folder which is typically printed from SongSelect and has the song number on it anyway). With this in mind, it would be helpful if OpenLP could search for the song number both in the local database and when importing new songs from CCLI.
I think both of these suggestions will be easy to add and I will add them both as separate feature requests to track (or shot down if would only be me using them). My one question is... With the imminent release of version 3 I am assuming that I should put them into that branch (it will probably be a month before I have the time anyway - but the CCLI song number search would stop us from switching to OpenLP so will prioritise that).
1 Is there a logo facility with Go live
2 does the text always stay the same size or is there a setting anywhere to auto size
3 I’m assuming I can import easily?
4 verse order?? Not sure how that works.
Any help greatly appreciated.
1: Not sure what you mean here...
2: Text always stays the same size as defined in the current theme.
3: OpenLP 2.4 can import from EW 2009. The next version will be able to import from newer versions.
4: OpenLP supports verse order, if that's what you mean...?
Have a look at the manual for more info: https://manual.openlp.org/
We are looking to switch from EW to OLP however the biggest reason we want to switch is because with EW people setup their own profiles at home, this often means the database of songs they are drawing from are incorrectly formatted or they don't even have the latest songs on their home database!
Does OLP run a 'cloud' type function in terms of storing songs in a central library. Meaning that people can log in at home and put there presentation together for Sunday knowing they are using up to date songs?
Any help would be appreciated.
Jim
This means that everyone who has access to the dropbox folder will always have an up to date data folder, they can make their service and save it and the OpenLP operator can easily open the service. (I always use the same service and overwrite it).