Song Database

The Song Database is a program to show lyrics on a digital projector for worship in a congregation. Although the old version 1.x is stable, the development of a new branch has started. Both versions have th following features in common:

• the program runs on nearly all systems because it is a Java application
• Dual Head (which means two graphic cards are required, or one with two outputs); this enables the user to have one control monitor to display the database and the presentation control while the seperate projection screen shows only the text the congregation has to see - no confusion, very professional
• show/hide the song title on foils
• guitar chords can be included in the database, but will not be shown when presenting songs - they are useful when printing song sheets for the band
• english user interface
• fonts and colors are customizable
• you can add remarks to every song
• find songs easily - just type the first few characters of title or first line
• filter on title or text parts

The old SDB 1.x also supports the following:

• more than one foil per song is possible
• german and english user interface
• the song beginnings can be shown in the song list (additionally to the song title) - you can find songs faster in spontaneous worship sessions
• single songs can be printed or exported to PDF files (including chords if available)
• import formatted text from Word (chords are taken care of) via the clipboard
• import RTF files

So why should you use the new version? Here's why:

• the user interface is much cleaner and more intuitive
• the application can be started without installing it previously, it uses Java Web Start - try here: http://sdb.zephyrsoft.org
• you can configure two separate presentation screens: one for the congregation (only text) and one for the band (text and chords) - hint: you need three graphics outputs to implement this setting
• database format is not binary anymore, but XML - easily modifiably by hand and mergable using tools like diff/patch or subversion merge
• the days on which a song is presented are counted (in a separate statistics file)
• ... and finally: as time permits, the missing features will be ported to SDB 2!

The program has evolved through more than 8 years at my church. If you find a bug or a missing feature, please go and fix it (preferably in the 2.x repository), or at least drop me a line!

License: GPL