Tutorial
Getting Started with SundayPlus
This tutorial is geared toward the new user who needs to get going quickly
and is the place where all users should start. It is very basic and does
not cover all the features of SundayPlus. For complete information on
specific features, please see the Field Guide and Help file.
Lesson
3: Building a Simple CueList
What you’ll learn: How to build a CueList
Here we’ll start to build an actual service and see how quickly
you can get going in SundayPlus! First we’ll load media, then place
some of it into the CueList.
Loading Media
Let’s get Loadin’! Go up to the File menu and select New.
This will clear out the current CueList and Bins so we can start from
scratch. Now you can press CTL+L. That will bring up the Load dialog.
We could have also gone to any Bin, and selected Load from the Bin Menu
to do the same thing. Navigate to the Tutorial Files folder. The default
directory is C:\Program Files\Grass Roots\PrologueSP\Tutorial. If you
installed SundayPlus in a different directory, you’ll of course,
need to go there.
You can click in
the topmost text box (the one with the path name in it) to go directly
to a drive. The upper left box (right below the “Add All”
button) shows folders and allows you to double click on them to open
them. You go up a level by clicking the icon of the folder with the
up arrow next to the pathname. The lower left box shows media in the
current folder that can be used by SundayPlus. Only valid file types
show here, so the screen doesn’t get cluttered with files you
can’t use.
The right hand box is the largest and contains files you have designated
as ones you’d like to load. You do this by double clicking on
the file name in the lower left box. You can remove one from the list
on the right by double clicking it there. We’ll save some time
here and, with the Tutorial Files folder open in the upper left box,
click “Add All”. Now your window should look similar to
the one shown here.
Of
course, you can add or subtract files at any time before you press “Load”
to bring them into SundayPlus. You can also preview any file by selecting
and pressing, you guessed it!, “Preview”. When you are done
exploring the Load dialog, press “Load”. SundayPlus will
load all the media you chose and place it in the appropriate Bins.
For SundayPlus version 2.1 and greater, you can also open any folder
directly (using Windows Explorer), select the files you'd like to load,
then drag them and drop them on the SundayPlus interface (Operators
Screen). The files you drop will automatically load into the correct
bins for you. On the Mac OS, files should be dropped on the SundayPlus
program icon instead of the interface.
Placing Text and Images into the CueList
Now we are ready to start building our worship service! First, select
the Text Bin if it is not already displayed. If it is displayed you’ll
see some Songs (designated by the musical note icon) and Text files
(designated by the icon of paper with lines on it). Song files and Text
are really the same format, we just allow you to mark a Song with a
different icon for your convenience.
Drag any file icon from this Bin to Cue #1. It will land there and show
the file icon and the title over black. That is because we have not
associated a background with it yet. Notice that it is still located
in the Bin. That is because media in the CueList is a pointer to the
media in the Bin. You don’t really move it, you are just telling
the CueList which item in the Bin you are using.
Time to add a background. Click on the Image Bin button (the camera).
Drag a picture icon and drop it on the same Cue where you placed your
text. That will superimpose the words over the background.
You can add a background by itself by dragging it to any empty Cue.
Here is a shortcut (your first one, isn’t it exciting!). Right-click
on any Cue and select “Replicate” from the pop up menu.
Enter a number and press “replicate”. You quickly have copies
of this Cue in the CueList. This is handy for times when you want to
have several different text or song files shown over the same background.
Preparing
and Placing Video into the CueList
Just to use all three media types, let’s now select the Video
Bin (the button with the film icon). The media in the Bin just looks
black now so you can’t really tell which is which. Video is composed
of lots of pictures shown quickly in sequence. Any of these pictures
can be used as a thumbnail, but none have been chosen for these clips
yet. Let’s do that now.
Right-click on the first clip and select “Prep” from the
pop up menu. This opens the Movie Offline Preparation window. Pressing
the play button shows the clip in the Prep window. Drag the purple slider
button until you see a recognizable frame. Left-click on the picture
to set this as the thumbnail (see, you really can use any frame!). Click
the close box. Drag the clip up to the CueList. You’ll see the
thumbnail that you set with film sprocket holes on the sides to tell
you this is a video clip.
You can change the thumbnail any time by using the Prep window to view
the clip, select a frame of video (a picture) and left-clicking on it.
There are other functions to prepare Video for playback and these are
covered in full in the Field Guide and Help file.
One type of movie clips are a bit different. They are the Flash/SWF
format made in Macromedia Flash. While not literally “a movie”,
it does contain moving pictures and may be animated. Some Flash files
are interactive and can be played out on the projector screen. When
you choose the prep window for this type of clip, you’ll see the
swf, but it is also a little interactive in the prep window, until you
left-click. For example, if you roll over a button, it may change state.
Click to set the thumbnail and close the prep window.
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