On Screen Bible & Internet reliance

Is the internet required for OSB? Because I tried it offline the other week without success, and just tried it a few seconds ago offline to ensure I was correct.

It causes me great concern that such a fundamental element of the software cannot be used offline. We meet in a building that isn't ours so we have no internet connection, plus we're a church plant and don't have cash to splash around on intenet connections anyway.

I can kind of accept that Signals need the internet, I don't really understand why you need internet for remote, but i'm at a loss as to why Bible verses can't be pulled up on Church presentation software offline.

Why can't the software have at least one version (i.e. ESV) of the bible offline? Or access the bible from Logos which is already on my computer?

While we're on it, why does remote need internet? All it should require is a wi-fi connection, as the remote only needs to talk to the computer presenting the software. There is no need for it to access outside servers. I haven't tried using this yet because a) I have a windows phone & b) from my reading it seems to use the internet.

I'm trying not to vent my frustration and I don't think the expectations are unreasoable, I'm sure you understand that specialised software like this should be suited to its use.High internet reliace for church presentation software does not compute, especially when it's marketed as suitable for "rural churches, inner-city churches, and even the youngest church plants".

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Comments

Mike Binks

Is the internet required for OSB?

There is a special place in hell reserved for those who use TLA's unexpanded. :-)

I tried it offline the other week without success,

So did I – and it worked well in our church with no Wi-Fi.

So with great confidence I turned off Wi-Fi on this laptop and ran last week's presentation.

OSB (on screen bible) worked flawlessly in Preview but when I went 'onair' I got this error message.

Something has gone wrong.

TTFN

Spencer McKimson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/583694#Comment_583694

I just tried going on air w/o an internet connection and on screen bible items animated fine for me. What OS are you using when this happens? I tried it on both Mac and Windows.

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/583800#Comment_583800

Hi Spencer

What OS are you using when this happens?

I am using OSX and was quite shocked when this happened.

But in my case I have worked out why [:$]

I hadn't noticed that when I went 'on air' that the presentation had jumped back to the first slide (which was trying to stream video from the internet.

A more informative warning when this happens might be a good idea.

I can confirm that the OSB is working correctly here.

Spencer McKimson

Hey Samuel,

From what I understand, you are trying to create a new OSB item or bible item while offline correct? The reason this must be online is because when you look up a verse, it makes a web call to biblia.com and receives the information that way.

Samuel E. P. Lindsay

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/583869#Comment_583869

Yes, sorry for not clarifying. I have tried to create a bible slide, or use OSB on-air while offline.

If i have created a presentation and then go offline, rock up at church, then realise i mis wrote the Bible reference, how am i to change it? Or what if the Pastor (as he often does) arrives before church and changes the bible reading text? Or what if we are having a Q&A after the sermon, and the preacher wants to put up references on the go?

These things are all quite easily done, if you are connected to the net. Inability to use these key features offline is quite frustrating and frankly bewildering. I understand that there is an increasing reliance on internet/cloud based computing, but it should only be used where there is benefit to be gained, (like the collaborative elements of the presentation, but even here there is offline capability). I'm starting to rant again, sorry....

So is there an upcoming update to resolve this issue? Or is there some way to make it access a local copy of the bible, like a default version locally cached, or even talk to logos?

Mike Binks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/583902#Comment_583902

Or what if the Pastor (as he often does) arrives before church and changes the bible reading text? Or what if we are having a Q&A after the sermon, and the preacher wants to put up references on the go?

While the OSB (on screen bible) needs internet the standard bible pages do not as they use resources in your logos library.

Scott Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/584075#Comment_584075

While the OSB (on screen bible) needs internet the standard bible pages do not as they use resources in your logos library.

Both Bible and On-Screen Bible service items require internet to fetch Bible content from api.biblia.com. Several factors contributed to our decision to support server side only Bible content retrieval

Increased complexity and application size due to code required for parsing Bible references
Resource download time/delay for all users in a group
Resource indexing time/delay for all users in a group (Logos 5 users will know what I'm talking about [;)])

Or what if the Pastor (as he often does) arrives before church and changes the bible reading text? Or what if we are having a Q&A after the sermon, and the preacher wants to put up references on the go?

In this scenario (without internet) your best option is to add the reference text manually.