Controlling & Viewing

Presenting with Chapel Screen uses two windows: the Controller (what you see) and the Viewer (what your audience sees). They stay in sync in real time.

The Controller

The controller is your presenter's dashboard. Open it from the presentation editor or from the presentations list. Each place the presentation pauses is a stop — the controller's buttons are labelled Previous stop and Next stop. From here, you can:

• See your full presentation content with every stop marked
• Navigate forward and backward through the stops
• See which stop is currently active
• Blank the screen, start the timer, and switch to autoplay
• Preview what your audience sees

Edits are live — if a collaborator changes text in the editor while you present, the controller and your audience see the update instantly. An edit never moves you: adding or removing paragraphs above the current point keeps everyone on the sentence they were on, and if that sentence is deleted the next one becomes current.

The app's top bar stays above the controller, and a toolbar under it names your team (or My content) and the presentation, with Edit, View and Presentation settings; on a phone, those that don't fit are in the ⋯ menu. Full screen is the last button, at the far right. Press F or use Full screen to hide the top bar, leaving the toolbar, the presentation and its controls. The team chat then sits beside Exit full screen, and a menu button appears at the left of the toolbar, opening the rest of the app; it shows a dot when you're offline. Press F or Esc to leave full screen. The presentation editor offers full screen the same way.

Preview on the toolbar shows what your audience sees: the presentation in its theme, at the current stop, in a small 16:9 picture at the bottom right of the screen — on a phone, at the bottom of the screen under the controller. Press it again, or the close button at the top right of the picture, to hide it. Chapel Screen remembers your choice on that device.

Sharing Control

Several people can open the same presentation's controller at once, on any device, and they all drive the same presentation. When one of them moves to the next stop, blanks the screen or starts autoplay, every controller and every screen showing the presentation follows. Anyone signed in who owns the presentation, or is in a team it is shared with, can control it; anyone else who opens a public presentation's controller can follow along but not change it.

For example, put a tablet on the lectern with the controller open. The speaker can see exactly what is on the screen and move through the stops themselves whenever they choose, while the operator at the back keeps full control too. Each device keeps its own view — scrolling or searching on one controller doesn't move the others.

Speaker Timer

The controller has an optional timer, so the person speaking can keep an eye on how long they have been going. Press the timer button and confirm to start it; it counts up from that moment. Press it again and confirm to stop it.

Every controller of the presentation shows the same time, so a tablet on the lectern and the operator's laptop agree. The timer keeps running if a controller reloads, and it is never shown to your audience: the viewer and channels don't display it.

Notes

Writing notes beside the presentation and presenting from them have a page of their own: Notes.

The Viewer

The viewer is the read-only display your audience sees. Open it from the controller or share its URL directly. You would typically open the viewer on a projector or second screen.

The viewer renders your presentation with the applied theme — background images, colours, fonts, and all image slots. It automatically fills the available screen space and adjusts for different aspect ratios.

If your device is set to reduce motion, the viewer and controller jump between stops instead of scrolling smoothly, and panels and notifications appear without animation.

Keyboard Shortcuts

In the controller, use these keyboard shortcuts:

Search mode lets you scroll freely through the whole presentation to find a stop without moving the audience's screen; the button in the top-left corner of the controller toggles it too. Leaving search mode returns to the current stop.

Blank Screen

You can blank the viewer screen at any time from the controller. This is useful during breaks or when you want to draw attention away from the screen. Toggle it back to resume displaying content.

Autoplay

Autoplay automatically cycles through your stops at a regular interval. Activate it from the presentation menu in the controller. When autoplay is running:

• Stops advance every 8 seconds
• The presentation loops back to the beginning after the last stop
• All connected viewers stay in sync
• Press the autoplay button again to return to manual navigation

Autoplay is useful for lobby displays, rotating announcements, or unattended screens.

Playing Videos

Playing videos from the controller and getting their sound working have a page of their own: Playing Videos.

Highlighting the Current Stop

In continuous or block display modes, you can enable highlight mode to visually emphasise the current stop. This helps your audience follow along when several stops are visible at once.

Toggle the highlight from the presentation settings or channel toolbar.

Setting Up a Second Screen

The most common setup is to have the controller on your laptop and the viewer on a projector or external monitor:

1. Open the controller in your browser
2. Click the viewer link to open the viewer in a new tab
3. Drag the viewer tab to your second screen and make it fullscreen (press F11 in most browsers)
4. Switch back to the controller tab on your main screen

Everything stays in sync over your network connection — the controller and viewer don't need to be in the same browser or even on the same device.

Surviving Refreshes

Your current slide position, blank screen state, and autoplay setting all survive page refreshes. If your browser reloads or you briefly lose connection, you'll pick up exactly where you left off. This also applies to the countdown timer.