Software demo

Stylesheets and tagging

This demonstration is taken from Visual Liturgy 4.0 for Common Worship. The changes in content run a lot deeper in version 4.0 than simply adding more texts. Every single item in version 4.0 has been marked up using XML tagging. One of the immediate benefits of this approach for version 4.0 users is that styles are supported. If users take the text out of Visual Liturgy and into a desktop publishing software package, it will be it easier to format and manipulate the text. Within Visual Liturgy, the style support enables users to change formats to suit their own requirements. Some users may wish to use a certain font. Some users may like to enlarge the font to make it easier to read. Those with the knowhow can even create their own CSS stylesheets and bring them into Visual Liturgy for use with the software.

Working with the text

The heart of Visual Liturgy lies in the Text details dialogue box. Accessed whenever a user wants to see more details about a particular prayer, hymn or other type of item, the dialogue has been revamped in Visual Liturgy 4.0 to make it easier to use. It also enables quick and easy access to the XML tagging through a pair of dropdown boxes for those who don't want (or don't know how) to deal with the raw code that lies beneath.

For example, if a user wants to switch rubrics between black and red, they only need to change the style definition. The Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) used are completely standard, and are stored in their own folder. Users can amend and supplement these style sheets or specify different style sheets for particular services. For example, a large-type style sheet could be created for printing services for the visually impaired.

Under the surface

For users wanting to get their hands dirty, the raw code under the surface can be accessed in order to make changes manually. As the screenshot shows (click on the image for a larger version), text formatting is defined using XHTML and CSS. For users who are familiar with HTML from creating and maintaining parish web sites, much of the code may look familiar although the "XHTML Strict" that is being used has a few noticeable differences.

Exporting texts

Returning, however, from geek-speak to language that most people will understand, most users will make use of the styles primarily when they copy texts out of Visual Liturgy into their desktop publishing packages.

When exporting from Visual Liturgy, the user can choose between RTF, HTML, plain text, XML or even custom XSLT transformations. The RTF output is similar to that used in Visual Liturgy 3.0 for Common Worship for import into word processors and DTP software, with the important difference that styles are included. This means you can modify the appearance of the document by amending the style definitions.

It will mean that users will be able to drop any item or even an entire service into your desktop publishing package and find that font choices can be made globally. A great deal easier than going through your service sheet, prayer by prayer and hymn by hymn, making changes!

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