Suggestion for Sermon Editor Tool

I have been using the Sermon Editor tool in Logos 7 for about 2 months now and I have to say I am liking it very much. It makes for a seamless transition from my research to my sermon outline and PowerPoint presentations. One suggestion I have that I think would be helpful, is for the print/export to include an option for the slide thumbnails to be visible in the LH margin. I love this capability in the Sermon Editor tool because it helps me to see how many slides I have and where they are in the overall scheme of things. However, when it comes time to preach my message on a Sunday, I don't always remember when to advance a slide because I don't have visibility on my outline of where the slides are.

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Graham Criddle

Hi Gareth - and welcome to the forums

I agree entirely that having some "slide indicator" would be very helpful.

I suggested a variation of this in https://community.logos.com/forums/t/136477.aspx

Its not quite clear where you are exporting to / where you would like the thumbnail.

Is it in a Word document or something else?

Graham

Phil Gons (Logos)

I have been using the Sermon Editor tool in Logos 7 for about 2 months now and I have to say I am liking it very much. It makes for a seamless transition from my research to my sermon outline and PowerPoint presentations. One suggestion I have that I think would be helpful, is for the print/export to include an option for the slide thumbnails to be visible in the LH margin. I love this capability in the Sermon Editor tool because it helps me to see how many slides I have and where they are in the overall scheme of things. However, when it comes time to preach my message on a Sunday, I don't always remember when to advance a slide because I don't have visibility on my outline of where the slides are.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestion, Gareth. I'm glad you're enjoying Sermon Editor. This is a good suggestion, and we'll discuss the right design and evaluate this work for an upcoming release.

Gareth Harker

Hi Graham,

I export either to Word or just send it directly to my printer.

Adam Borries (Logos)

One suggestion I have that I think would be helpful, is for the print/export to include an option for the slide thumbnails to be visible in the LH margin. I love this capability in the Sermon Editor tool because it helps me to see how many slides I have and where they are in the overall scheme of things. However, when it comes time to preach my message on a Sunday, I don't always remember when to advance a slide because I don't have visibility on my outline of where the slides are.

(in the Beta forum)

Would it be feasible to provide some sort of slide marker that would show up in the mobile app to give a cue when to move on.

I know I can do this using Speaker Styles (and know they are going to sync) but it would be nice if it were done automatically.

Graham and Gareth,

We've been talking about the best way to address this need. These are good suggestions, but probably not a trivial amount of work.

For print/export

One solution is to print with the same "View" options selected in the "All" (edit) mode; that is, if you have "Show Slides" selected while editing, it would include the same kind of thumbnails on the left hand margin in print view. We would probably want to do this work alongside other improvements to print/export, which means it wouldn't get done for a while..

For sermons in mobile app

Likewise, it's possible to add UI in the mobile app's read-only view to show slides, but it's not likely to be a priority in the short-term. (Our mobile developers are working hard on some other major improvements to the app.)

In the meantime

The current work-around is to add "Speaker prompts" to your manuscript, which appear both in print and on the mobile view. (I think this is what Graham meant when he referred to "Speaker Styles.")

What we might be able to do (maybe, as a short-term solution, perhaps), is a quick-and-dirty button on the toolbar to "Add Slides Prompts." The button would automatically add the text "> Next slide" in the Prompt style just before every slide. This would likely be a one-way action; that is, it would only insert the prompt text, not toggle it on or off. If you wanted to remove the prompt after inserting it, you would have to manually select and delete each one.

What do you think? Would that adequately solve the problem until we can work on a more elegant solution?

Graham Criddle

Hi Adam - thanks for following up on this

The current work-around is to add "Speaker prompts" to your manuscript, which appear both in print and on the mobile view. (I think this is what Graham meant when he referred to "Speaker Styles.")

Yes - I use a combination of "Prompt" styles and specific highlights from the Speaker Style palette.

What we might be able to do (maybe, as a short-term solution, perhaps), is a quick-and-dirty button on the toolbar to "Add Slides Prompts." The button would automatically add the text "> Next slide" in the Prompt style just before every slide. This would likely be a one-way action; that is, it would only insert the prompt text, not toggle it on or off. If you wanted to remove the prompt after inserting it, you would have to manually select and delete each one.

This would work for me just fine - and I like the fact it would be a manual operation (I need to press a button) as opposed to automatically done when a slide is created. There are some slides that are created automatically that I end up deleting and so being able to press a button when I have the slides as I want them would be great.

This would be really useful for me.

Thanks, Graham

Richard Wardman

I've just thought of this for the first time!

Any progress?

Adam Borries (Logos)

Our progress was, "we discussed it."

Actually, we spent quite a bit of time talking through the technical options and ramifications, decided not to do it for now. Any quick solutions just didn't meet our UX design standards.

I still think adding a "Show slides" option both to Print/Export, and in the mobile app is the best way to go for a more elegant, long-term solution, but I can't say at this point when that would be.