Sermon editor image slides not always showing text
Jacob, here is a new thread to follow on from the discussion here.
John Duffy said:... but there is no text on the slides, just a background image. It just doesn't work unless I pick from those which are listed under one of the purposes. I personally can't get text to render on 'any' media as you indicate.
Specific examples of this problem would be very helpful. Do you mind starting a new thread to chat about this issue?
Here is a screenshot of a set of slide backgrounds with the title image chosen from a 'collection', which works fine.
Here is the same document with the verse slide background changed to an image selected from All > Image (i.e. from Kind = image).
This problem occurs on any image used for heading, text, or Bible verse, if not chosen from one which is listed under 'Purpose'.
Yet, even if I choose from some of the 'reference' purpose type images, the text does not overlay either, as below:
In fact, I cannot get it to show the text on 'any' slide unless I select a new 'title' slide image background from one of the 22 collections. When I do that, I can get the Bible verse to appear on a slide. In the screenshot below, the text of John 1:1 does not appear when the image background is chosen from a 'collection', but the next reference John 3:16 does work after I changed the Title background to the same image.
Effectively, I can only write sermons if I choose from the 22 image collections under purpose. Since I only like a few of the designs, if I were to start using sermon editor on Sundays, I would have to use the same few image backgrounds again every few weeks. That's a shame, especially since the media tool gives the impression that there are thousands of images for me to choose from for use in sermons. I'm not sure how many of the problems I have encountered are limitations by design, or bugs which need sorted out. Hopefully the choice will be greater soon, either by design change or bug fix.
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John,
It sounds like there are a couple things that might be going on. Allow me to address the issues as I've interpreted them, and please indicate if I'm missing something.
John Duffy said:there is no text on the slides
The Media Tool lets you 1) browse through a number of "media items" and 2) potentially add text to an image. For the purpose of this discussion, a "media item" is a base image, a number of images in different aspect ratios and resolutions (versions of the base image), and a set of available fields that can be filled in with text and then rendered onto one of the images.
Adding a slide in Sermon Editor will choose a media item based on the type of slide. This media item might have a "Title" field, or it might have a "Header" field, or it might have a "Quote" field (or a number of other options). Editing the slide in Media Tool will open this media item with the default aspect ratio and resolution, and fill in the current value for the field(s). Now, I think one of the issues you have is when you change to a different media item, the text disappears. I'm guessing that this is because the new media item has a different field, so the current value of the previous field (say, "Header") isn't transferred to the new field (say, "Title").
To confirm, please look at the left column of the Media Tool after selecting the new image (as shown in my screenshots). Is the name of the field different? Does it have a text value?
In an upcoming release, we will add a feature to Media Tool that will persist the value of a "Title" field to that of a "Header" field, and a number of other combinations that make sense. This should automatically resolve the issue you see in your existing workflow. Until then, you might need to copy over the existing text into the new field.
John Duffy said:I can only write sermons if I choose from the 22 image collections under purpose
After resolving the issue described above, there should be more than 22 available items (I'm thinking you are referring to the header subheader purpose specifically) (see screenshots below).
Additionally, we have the distinction between "smart" media and "static" media. Smart media is media that includes fields which can be rendered onto the image. Static media is just an image without the option to render any text on top. In an upcoming release, we will be adding a feature to Media Tool that allows adding a body field to any piece of static media, and customizing the style. This should enable you to actually use the full 28k (and counting) set of media as slides that have text in a sermon.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if there are still issues in your workflow. If so, please include screen shots of Media Tool to indicate what should be working that isn't. Thanks.
- Matt
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Matt Preucil said:
I hope this helps. Please let me know if there are still issues in your workflow. If so, please include screen shots of Media Tool to indicate what should be working that isn't. Thanks.
Hi Matt, thanks for replying.
Yes, there are still issues with my workflow. Can I say that there is no mention of smart media anywhere before now, and certainly not in the pro video or in the Help information on working with media in the Sermon Editor.
But to the point, have a look at the last image on my post above. You will see that when I changed the Bible verse for John 1:1 from the blue/white collection image set to a flat Bible image, the text did not autofill (see the previous two screenshots too). It only autofilled for a Bible verse once I changed the Title image/set at the top of the document, which then resulted in the Bible verse being filled after I entered a Bible verse and hit return, resulting in the next slide John 3:16. So, there is a problem of autofill not working. Yes, I could have copied and pasted into the relevant field in the Media browser as you have now told me. But part of the point of using the Sermon Editor is to streamline the effort and have Bible verses appear automatically in the slides. The autofill of text into the relevant fields on the slides is not always working as it ought to, and your suggestion to manually edit every slide is not a good solution, since I could use up lots of time editing lots of Bible verse slides that way.
Also, contrary to your screenshot, for me at least, the static images do not have any text fields where a verse or quotation can be inserted. They just have 'Format' and 'Description' on the left pane. Only those listed under 'Purpose' can have text overlaid on the images from my quick review of some of them.
Yet, under the 'purpose' filter, although there are many more slides with author and reference than the 22 full collections (those listed under header/subheader), you can see from the second last screenshot in the last post that even selecting a different image did not automatically pull in the verse text. And if I did enter the text manually, when I create more slides from selected text or Bible verse they all default to blank slides again, and I have to edit each one manually. I gather that that is not the intended way it should work, but that entering a Bible verse and hitting return should automatically result in a slide with the Bible verse(s) on it. It doesn't in certain circumstances.
So, the safe method that allows me to try it out without encountering these problems is to use only one of the 22 collections, and then optionally edit selected slides individually if I want them to be different from the set. I hope these issues can be resolved since I would love to be able to work with a larger selection of slide background images in the long run.
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