Article
26 July 2004

Enhancement pack now available as a free download

Visual Liturgy 4.1 features ready

Church House Publishing have published the 'Enhancement pack' for Visual Liturgy 4.0 for Common Worship - and it is now available to users as a free download.

Following the release of version 4.0, many users sent in comments with ideas on how the software could be improved. The 'Enhancement pack' or EP incorporates some of those suggestions as well as fixing a small number of bugs in the software.

The pack is centred around four main elements - a revamped Lectionary Planner facility, an Advanced tab for the Browser to allow for more detailed searches, a new online update facility to make downloading extras easier and a new styles editor to allow more control over both service formatting and font selection.

Access to new content

Once you have downloaded and installed the Enhancement pack, the first new feature to test is the Online update. If you click EDIT in the menu bar, followed by ONLINE UPDATE, Visual Liturgy will connect to the Internet and check for any new downloads.

Amongst the downloads that are already available, you will find a module to provide the Common Worship Additional Collects alongside the original Collects in your copy of the software.

Please note that this module is only available to download if you have installed the 'Enhancement pack', and can therefore access the features in the new Online update facility.

Visit the Resources section to download the Enhancement Pack now.

The full list

As well as the major elements described above, a number of tweaks and fixes have been made. What follows is a comprehensive list of all the EP work done.

1. Lectionary planner overhauled to provide ability to edit a report, save a report and export to RTF, along with a new menu in the menu bar to help control the planner
2. Advanced panel added to the Browser
3. Online update dialog implemented
4. Stylesheet editor dialog implemented
5. Updated and slightly revamped 'VL4 Agent' to provide quick access to texts from the Windows System Tray
6. 'Show all templates' changed to 'Show more templates' on the Welcome Screen to clarify their use
7. A 'categories' button added to the Service explorer to manage the folders as well as the Service templates
8. Tweak made to the Lectionary planner to synchronize start and end dates
9. Maximum period limit of one year on Lectionary planner tweaked to allow for leap years
10. Ability implemented to drag and drop from the Browser to the Service overview
11. Double clicking an item in the results box of the Browser enabled to select the item
12. Hymns and reading columns more aggressively mapped in the Services planner to prevent multiple columns appearing
13. Changes to the column header menu in the Services planner to clarify use
14. Double clicking a service to open the service enabled in the Services planner
15. Tweak to the Services planner so that the 'Group by column' automatically expands the first level of detail
16. Ability to export the Services planner to tab delimited .txt format
17. Minor tweaks to the VLS icon made and tweak made to ensure double clicking a VLS file opens in the current instance of the software
18. Import routine to include usage records from VL3 databases as 'dummy services', imported into the Services planner
19. The ability to define global service properties to appear in the responsibilities pane of the Service overview
20. Required items in services to receive warnings on hide or delete
21. Hymns in services to display source and hymn numbers
22. Typo fixed in the Copyright acknowledgement heading
23. Ability to set a wide margin in rtf exports of services implemented and corresponding Preferences dialog overhauled
24. Printing the Calendar enabled
25. Ability to filter events in the Calendar implemented
26. A 'jump to today's date' button implemented in the Calendar
27. Import module routine accepts databases older than version 3.0
28. Bug fixed where Global Service Properties do not show in Service properties on Windows® 98 machines
29. Bug fixed where the software fails to prompt to save if the location was changed in the Service overview
30. Bug fixed where a dialog only shows (instead of the main software window as well) if switching between applications using ALT+TAB
31. Bug fixed where a multiple instance warning appeared behind the loading logo
32. Bug fixed where dragging and dropping from the Browser to the Services planner when service is highlighted failed to display the change immediately
33. Bug fixed where the Edit or insert item wizard failed to insert P tags into the underlying XHTML code of the text
    

What do you think of the planned Enhancement pack?
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