Notes

Preachers often write the sermon first and the slides afterwards, and so does whoever gives the announcements: each one written out, then a slide for it. Chapel Screen works either way round: notes first, or notes for slides you already have. Choose New Notes on the Notes page, give them a name, and start writing: your notes are on the left, and the presentation itself is on the right, in its own editor, so you write both without changing pages. For notes about a presentation that already exists, choose Notes in its editor’s toolbar: it opens the presentation’s notes, or asks you to create them, named Notes for the presentation. A presentation has one set of notes, shared by everyone who can edit it.

The presentation itself is edited on the right, in its own editor, so you can write it beside your notes or paste sentences across. Each point carries its number in a disc in the margin. Its header, footer, timer and table tools are on its own editor page, which Presentation in the toolbar takes you to. Notes with no presentation yet choose one in the points column: a new one, named after your notes unless you rename it, or one you already have.

Both toolbars have Insert Content, as the presentation editor does: a Bible passage or a song from the library goes into the presentation as slides, or into your notes as text — the reference or title, then the verses or the lines, without the slide breaks and footer the screen needs. Licensed translations and songs can be added in a team on the paid plan, as in the editor.

To link a passage to a point, select the passage in your notes: the discs of the points that can take it turn into link buttons, and pressing one makes the link. The passage gets a coloured background and a bar beside it, with a line to its point. Each point takes one passage, and the links follow the order of the points, so a point that has a passage or would put the links out of order keeps its number and says why when you hover over it. Put the cursor in a linked passage to see its point outlined in the presentation, with Unlink on its disc; the discs can be reached with the Tab key too, and Enter presses them. Links stay with their points when the presentation is edited, even when sentences are added or split. A passage whose point was deleted keeps an amber bar beside it: press the bar, or Unlink in the notes toolbar with the cursor in the passage, to take the link off. Choosing another presentation in Notes settings takes every link off, since they pointed into the old one.

On a phone your notes fill the screen and the points wait off it to the right: swipe left, or tap the round button at the bottom right, to slide them in, and swipe right to come back. Select a passage, slide the points in and tap a point’s disc, and your notes come back with the link made.

Notes are never public. They go with their presentation: whoever can edit the presentation (its owner and the members of the teams it is shared with) can read, edit and present from its notes, and nobody else, so there is nothing to share. Notes written first, with no presentation yet, are yours and your team’s until you choose one. Notes settings renames them, chooses another presentation or deletes them. Deleting a presentation offers to delete its notes with it; kept, they lose their links to its points and can be given another presentation.

Presenting from Notes

Choose Present to see your notes beside the presentation’s points. They scroll together, so each linked point stays level with its passage. Tap a point to put it on the screen everywhere, use the blank-screen, previous and next buttons at the bottom left, or the arrow keys as on the controller. When someone else moves the presentation on, from the controller or the event page, the highlight follows, and your notes stay where you scrolled them. A tablet on the lectern works well. Preview on the toolbar shows what your audience sees, in a small picture at the bottom right of the screen (at the bottom of the screen on a phone), as it does on the controller.

You can also tap a linked passage in your notes to put its point on the screen, and the passage of the point now showing is marked. On a phone that is all you need: your notes fill the screen, and a swipe left (or the round button at the bottom right) slides the points in for one that has no passage; swipe right to come back.

While the presentation’s timer is running, started on its controller, it is shown at the top right of your notes as you present, and stays there as you scroll. It is not shown while you edit.

Whoever can edit the presentation can open its notes and present from them: its owner and the members of the teams it is shared with.