What is the most useful...

[Chkurgrnd]

I have been in the mood to be more positive and I for one have only come to this forum when there has been something funky happen and need help with a problem... What has been something really useful that you have learned while working with EasyWorship in the last few months? Share how you did it and how all of our services might improve because of it.

I'll start: I'm a new purchaser of EW and I found out that I can play a song while having an image, powerpoint or silent movie file playing live. How I did it was by cueing up the image or PPT first in the schedule, then going to an mp3 using the media tab, and selecting "all files" at the bottom of the navigatable window... going to the song I wanted to play then and scheduling it.
'Go live' with the image or whatever and the song should move to the preview screen where the audio can be heard by pressing the little speaker icon next to the volume button at the top right and then pressing the play button near the top left of the pane in the preview screen!

I thought it was nifty because our pastor or intern can use this to run through the announcements with other recorded music playing behind while the announcements are clicked through on the live pane. Normally it's pretty silent but if he wanted some soothing music or 'techno or drum & bass' (gasp) it's easier than cueing up Windows Media or Winamp and then switching back to EW. If you wanted to run a playlist before service then you'd have to default to Winamp or another player...

Now it's ur turn! What have you picked up recently that others might not know about? Even if it's not earth shattering, like I know mine isn't...

[fall-apart]

Pretty basic, but if you want to change the background of a song, you don't have to open up the song editor. Simply select the new background (image or video) from the Media tab in the schedule column, and drag it over the song you want to apply it to. Easy peasy! It should be noted, that only changes the background in the schedule, not the database, so next time you use the song, it will revert to the original background.

[DanW]

If you are using a background that is not visually centered, like there is a tree on the side and a blank area on the other side, or if you want to use lower thirds text or move your text to a certain location on the screen, you can edit your song and click on the slide preview on the right hand side of the editor to get a text box adjuster. You can click and drag your text box to make it smaller or drag it to move it to a different location on the screen.

You can also go to the Backgrounds button and click Options and use the background designer to do the same thing for a background. That way, every time you use that background, your text will show up where you placed the text box on that background.

[EWSupportGuy]

First I always keep a shortcut to the resources folder on my desktop for easy access. The resources folder is located in
XP:c:\documents and settings\all users\shared documents\softouch\easyworship\Default(or other profile folder)\
Vista:c:\users\public\public documents\softouch\easyworship\Default(or other profile folder)\
That way I can just copy new media into the videos or images folder in resources.
Those images or videos will show up automatically in the media area of EasyWorship when you open it.
I also categorize my media using folders in the videos and images folders.
The folders can be accessed from the little ... button at the top right of the videos or images tabs.

Also, If I have images or videos to add from a memory stick or CD, I just select and drag them from the CD or memory stick onto the media area and EasyWorship copies them from the CD or memory stick into the videos or images folder. I can also choose what folder to drop them into by selecting the folder from the ... button and then dragging the media into the window.

[DanW]

Instead of using PPT for the sermon slides, you can use an EW song.

You can create the song and click on the Background button in the new song window and go to Background Options. Set the text to Left justify and Top align and click OK. Type in your sermon notes in the Lyric section like this:

slide
Sermon Title:

slide
Sermon Title:
1. This will be point One

slide
Sermon Title:
1. This will be point One
2. This will be point Two

slide
Sermon Title:
1. This will be point One
2. This will be point Two
3. This will be point Three

slide
Sermon Title:
1. This will be point One
2. This will be point Two
3. This will be point Three
4. This will be point Four

And so on... that way when you go live to each slide, it just adds your points to the screen. It is left and top aligned, so the screen won't adjust to try and center the text. The only thing you won't have is the custom animations like Fly in or Swirl in text. It works really well for us, plus we can use the backgrounds in EW.

Note: If you change the background to that song after you set the text alignment, it will reset it back to default because of the new background. You will just need to edit the song again and go to Background, Background Options and set the alignment again.

[AHendricks]

We had been trying to figure out how to format our lyrics so that we could project them on a background, as well as overlay them on the video shot of the worship team for the web feed. We've settled on white letters on a black background with a blue outline. We can then mix the words from Easy Worship over whatever background we choose from our VT. The blue outline also helps them to not dissappear over the worship team. It has allowed us a lot of flexibility with the lyrics, without having to use a complicated character generator.