Welcome ------- Welcome to the St Dom's Song Picker, version 1.3. This is a small and simple application designed to be used in churches to display the lyrics to songs on a projector. It's intended to replace the use of Powerpoint or other labour intensive methods, by providing a simple point-and-click interface to select an ordered set of songs from a list of pre-entered lyrics. These are then turned into a set of HTML pages, which are linked together. Why not Powerpoint? ------------------ - Powerpoint files need some labour-intensiove effort every week to get the right songs in the right order. While a program could be used to select the right songs and then generate the slides, this is quite tricky. HTML is a lot easier to automatically generate and thus take advantage of a simple slection interface. Why HTML? -------- - An HTML page can be as long as is needed - so the entire song can be displayed and scrolled down, instead of splitting it in sometimes arbitrary places. - HTML pages can be easily linked together - so clicking the "Next" link on each page will take you to the next song, with little fuss. - HTML can be displayed by a large number of applications, so nothing specific needs to be provided for display purposes. How to use it: ------------- When the Song Picker starts, it reads the text file "Sevice Order.txt" in the directory it was installed into. It determines the order of songs it will provide from this file. The file is shipped in a configuration for a Catholic Mass, but this can easily be changed to whatever one wishes - even so far as "Song 1", Song 2" etc. The "Service Order.txt" file also specifies whether the name of the song or the name of the position it is in should be displayed, as is explained in the file. Once the program has started, it's a simple matter of using the drop down boxes to select a song for each position. If no song is needed, the special "No Song" option can be used, and no file will be generated for that position. When the selection is complete, press the "Go" button, and the HTML files will be generated and placed in the installation directory. The application will store the selections made, and will load them when the program is next run. This allows for easily modifying the choices already made, if the program is closed. Displaying the HTML: ------------------- While any web browser will work fine, good results can be had with the completely free Opera web browser (www.opera.com). This can be configured to display links in the same colour as the background (to remove the unsightly "next" button) and can display only the text - no toolbars or menu items or so (by pressing F11, normally). Of course, any other web browser will work as well. Adding new songs: ---------------- All the song lyrics which the application picks from come from a set of text files in the "song" directory in the directory the app was installed to. Adding new songs is simply a matter of adding a new text file. There are only three requirements: - The first line of the file must be the name of the song which should be displayed (if that option is selected in the "Service Order.txt" file). This does not have to be at all related to the name of the file. - A blank line must follow the first line. - The lyrics of the songs should now be entered. To highlight a chorus, place the line "[chorus]" on the line above the chorus, and "[/chorus]" on the line after it. See the provided files for examples. Why the name? ------------ The program was originally written to be used at St Dominic's Catholic Church, in Hillcrest - hence the name :-) More info --------- This project has a webpage at http://www.rooijan.za.net/?q=song_picker, which provides some more details and also provides access to the source code, should modifications be needed.