Screens

A screen shows a set on a big screen: the lyrics for the audience, two lines at a time, or the chart for the band. It can be a TV’s browser, a laptop or a small computer plugged into a projector, or an old tablet. Whoever leads the set presents it from Live, and every screen follows.

Pairing a screen

1. On the screen, open songverse.one/screen. Nobody signs in there: it shows a code and a QR code. The code changes every 10 minutes until it’s used.

   

2. On your phone or tablet, scan the QR code, or open Screens - under Tools in the sidebar, or from the Sync menu in Live (Screens…) - and type the code.

3. Give the screen a Name (“Church TV”), pick the Set it shows - one of yours, or The day’s set (automatic) (see below) Then Pair screen. What it shows - the lyrics or the band’s chart - comes from its template.

   

The screen remembers it’s paired: next time, open the same page and it reconnects by itself. Only someone who can edit the set (its owner, or an admin of its team) can pair a screen to it, because they’re the ones who lead it.

Screens has four tabs: Screens, Templates, Widgets and Brands (your teams’ and organisations’ brands). On Screens, Add screen opens the pairing form above (a QR code opens it with the code filled in). Under it, each screen is a tile: how it looks, whether it’s Connected (or when it last was), the set it shows, its template and whose it is. Settings opens a dialog to rename the screen, move it to another set, change its template or its owner, turn its Effects on or off (see Effects), and choose the Layers it shows (see Layers), with the screen’s look beside them; the screen changes at once, and Done closes it. Disconnect, on the tile, stops it: it goes back to showing a new code.

The day’s set

A screen on The day’s set (automatic) follows its owner’s schedule: a team’s screen shows the team’s set dated today, an organisation’s the set of the day among its teams’, and your own screen yours. With two sets on the same day, it shows the one going on (started within three hours), else the next to start. The screen works it out from its own clock each time it loads, so it moves on to the next day’s set by itself.

On the screen itself, with nothing presented, OK on the remote (or Enter on a keyboard) opens the list of the owner’s sets: Today and coming up, Without a date, then Archive when you open it. Move with the remote’s arrows and pick one with OK; it stays until the next day. Back to the day’s set returns to the day’s own, and Back (Escape) closes the list. With no set today, the list shows by itself. It works with a Chromecast with Google TV’s remote, or the arrow keys on a computer.

A set put on a screen from Screens, in its tile’s Settings, is fixed instead: the screen shows it until you change it, and OK doesn’t open the list. Its tile says which set the day’s set is, or that there’s none today.

The screen’s menu

The screen has a menu of its own, for whoever stands by it, even while a set is presented. To open it, press OK three times quickly on the remote (or Enter on a keyboard), hold OK for about a second, or press the remote’s Menu key. With a mouse, double-click or right-click the screen; on a touch screen, press and hold. A single OK or a single click never opens it, so it doesn’t appear over the words by accident. On a screen following the day’s set, a single OK still opens the list of sets, half a second later, once no second press follows.

• Choose a set opens the list of sets above. On a screen with a fixed set it’s greyed out: change that set from Screens.
• Theme lists the Built-in templates and the owner’s Saved themes, with the one in use marked. Pick one with OK and the screen changes at once. It keeps that theme, as if you’d picked it in the tile’s Settings.
• Video input, with a template that shows one (see Layers), lists the device’s cameras and capture cards: The first camera there is, or one by name. The screen keeps the one picked, on that device. The browser asks to allow the camera the first time.
• Back steps out of the themes or the cameras, and Back (Escape) or Close closes the menu.

Whose screen it is

A screen is yours, a team’s or an organisation’s. When you pair it, For chooses: Just me, or a team or organisation you’re an admin of - the church’s projector and stage monitor belong to the church, and stay when whoever paired them leaves. The buttons above the tiles show All of them, Mine, or one team’s or organisation’s.

• A team’s screen is managed by the team’s admins, an organisation’s by its admins: they rename it, change what it shows and its template, give it to someone else with Belongs to, or disconnect it.
• The team’s or organisation’s members see it and put one of their sets on it - a set they can edit. The screen shows it as they see it.
• Your own screens go with your account; a team’s or an organisation’s go when it’s deleted.

Presenting from Live

Presenting uses Sync: the screens are members of the set’s session.

1. In Live, open the Sync menu, Turn sync on, then Lead the set. Paired screens are listed there with the other members, marked “(screen)”.
2. Choose Present on screens. A panel opens at the bottom of Live, showing what the screens show.

• Next slide and Previous slide (the arrows on each side) move two lines at a time. On a keyboard or a Bluetooth page-turner pedal, the down arrow or Page Down goes on, and the up arrow or Page Up goes back. Past a song’s last slide, Live moves to the next song of the set and the screens follow; back past its first, to the previous song’s last slide.
• The song’s sections (V1, C, V2…) under the slide jump straight to one, for a chorus sung again or a verse dropped.
• Black screen blanks every screen, for prayer, talking or between songs. Press it again to bring the words back.
• Stop presenting, in the Sync menu, leaves the screens showing the set’s name.
• When the media operator has taken the screens alone, the panel says so and its controls wait until they give them back.

What the screens show

With a template for the audience, each slide’s two lines are big and centred. The line before is faint above, the line after faint below, and each slide fades in - in the default look; a template changes all of it. A section without words, like an instrumental, is an empty slide, so you step through the song as the band plays it. A song’s first slide shows its title, and its first and last show its credits at the bottom: who wrote it, its copyright and its CCLI song number, from the song’s details.

With a template for the band, such as Band chart, the screen shows the song’s chart with chords, in the set’s key, and keeps the section being sung highlighted and in view.

The words come from the version and key the set plays. Song notes and chords are never shown to the audience. If the screen loses its connection, it says so in a corner and reconnects by itself.

Templates

A template is how a screen looks and what it’s for. It’s made of three parts, each saved and edited on its own, so one change follows everywhere it’s used:

• a content theme - how the words look and how they come and go, or the chord chart for the band;
• a background theme - the colour, picture, video or moving light under the words, and the video input;
• effects - the glue between the two: the background answering the words, and the words’ own movement.

A template adds its tags and its layout - widgets on a grid, and masks. Each one is built for a single use: there’s no switch between lyrics and chart, a template for the band uses a chord-chart content theme. A screen picks a template in Template, in its tile’s Settings; the screen changes at once.

The Templates tab has four views: Templates, Content themes, Background themes and Effects. Each plays on a sample song, so you see how it moves.

Templates and their tags

Tags say what a template is for: Audience, Stage, Presentation, Lyrics, Chords and Signage. Pick tags above the list to see only the templates with all of them. New template starts one from the built-in parts. The Built-in templates:

• Classic - white words on black, the line before and after dimmed: the default.
• Concert - bold capitals over moving coloured light, words revealed one by one.
• Chapel - an elegant serif on warm dark tones, lines fading in.
• Sunrise - rounded words over slow warm waves that brighten in a chorus.
• Starlight - a serif glowing in over rising points of light.
• Spotlight - tall display letters under sweeping stage lights.
• Stream - outlined words in a lower third, leaving the picture above free for a video or a livestream.
• Minimal - left-aligned and quiet, the next lines in view, typed in.
• Stage display - for the platform, on a grid of widgets: the slide now and the next one, the clock, a countdown, the song and what’s next, and the operator’s messages.
• Stage monitor - big capitals at the top and the whole section, for the band.
• Band chart - the song’s chart with its chords, the section being sung in view, for the band.

Customize opens one in the template editor, with its preview beside the settings - at 16:9 or 4:3 - changing as you change them. ⏵ plays the sample song, ‹ › go slide by slide.

• Content, background and effects - the template’s three parts: built-in ones, or yours and your teams’. Customize beside a built-in part makes a copy of your own and opens it; Edit opens one of yours. A part used by several templates says so: changing it changes them all.
• Tags - what the template is for.
• Layout and widgets - places widgets on a grid. Below.
• Masks - black over part of the picture, or a window to the video input. See Layers.

Name the template and Save template: it’s yours, or - if you’re an admin of a team - the team’s, for every member to pick for their screens (only its admins change it). A team’s template uses the team’s parts. A template you can change has Edit and Delete; deleting it puts its screens back to the default look, and its parts stay.

Content themes

How the words look, edited from Content themes (New content theme, or Customize a built-in one) or from a template:

• Shows - Lyrics, for the audience or The chord chart, for the band.
• Text - the font (or an Uploaded font: a WOFF2, WOFF, TTF or OTF file you may use this way), its size (Fit the line, or fixed), weight, colour, Capitals, Readability (a shadow, an outline or a glow, for words over a moving background), alignment, line and letter spacing.
• Lines - The slide, with the lines before and after it, or The whole section with the slide’s lines picked out; the lines around them Dimmed, Smaller, Blurred or Hidden.
• Layout - top, centre, bottom or Lower third, and a Safe margin for TVs that crop their edges.
• Motion - Between slides: a cut, a fade, a slide, rise, scale, blur or zoom, and how long it takes (a new song takes twice as long). Words appear all at once, line by line, word by word, letter by letter, typed or glowing.
• Title and credits - whether to show the song’s title and its credits (writers, copyright, CCLI number), on which slides and where.
• Chords - for the chord chart: the chords’ colour and the chart’s size.

The editor checks the contrast between the words and the background and warns when it’s under 4.5:1.

Background themes

What’s under the words:

• Base and video input - the base colour and the screen’s camera or capture card. See Layers.

• Background - a Colour, a Gradient, moving light (Aurora, Waves, Particles, Spotlight, in up to four colours), or your own Picture (drifting slowly closer) or looping Video: Upload… a JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF or GIF up to 15 MB, or an MP4 or WebM up to 150 MB. Darken keeps words readable over anything.

• Four backgrounds follow the words on the screen, wherever the template puts them:

  • Flow - trails drifting across the screen, parting around the words, with a burst where each word appears;
  • Strings - glowing lines waving across the screen, bending round the words, ringing with each new slide;
  • Grid - a faint grid whose cells light up under each word as it appears, then fade;
  • Bokeh - big soft discs drifting and gathering behind the words.

  

  The first colour is the background, the others the trails, strings, cells or discs. With effects, they also move faster, change colour, brighten or swell, as How it answers effects says. With Movement at 0, they stand still.

• A Shader is drawn by the screen’s graphics chip (WebGL): Mesh gradient (soft colours morphing into one another), Glow lines (glowing lines waving across the screen) or Embers (points of light rising in depth). Each has its own Shader controls - speed, softness, how many, and so on - and keeps the area behind the words quieter. Reset controls puts them back.

  

  You can also Upload… your own: an ISF shader (a .fs file up to 64 KB), the format VDMX, Resolume and many shader sites use. Its inputs become its controls; the screen fills the ones named sv_color1 to sv_color4 (the theme’s colours), sv_movement, sv_hue, sv_brightness, sv_elements, sv_pulse (what effects set off, 0 to 1) and sv_words (an image, white where the words are). A file without an ISF header is refused; one the screen can’t draw shows the colours instead. Shaders with several passes aren’t drawn yet.

  A screen that can’t keep up draws the shader smaller and stretches it, sharper again once it can: a TV stick still moves smoothly, a mini PC draws it at full size.

• How it answers effects - how much its Movement, Colour shift, Brightness and Elements (blobs, waves, particles, beams) move when effects set them off.

Fonts and pictures are added to a saved content or background theme, so save it first; they count toward your storage.

Effects

Effects tie the words to the background. Reactions: When a slide comes, a line or a word appears, a new section starts, or in a chorus (while it lasts), the background pulses with light, moves faster, shifts colour, brightens or swells its elements - each by how much you choose, times how much the background answers. The words’ movement: a Pulse, Breathe, Glow, Shimmer or Float, with how much and how fast. A template can have no effects.

A screen that can’t keep up - an old TV, a small stick computer - can turn Effects off in its tile’s Settings: it shows the same template, without the reactions and the words’ movement.

Each screen says what it is and how it’s drawing, every half minute while it’s connected: its tile shows how well it keeps up - Smooth, Limited or Minimal - and its Settings show its Device: the browser and model, its graphics chip and the WebGL it has, its cores and memory, its screen, and how its background is drawing (frames per second, the slowest frame, the resolution a shader draws at). Smooth runs everything; Limited runs shaders at a lower resolution and light effects (a TV stick such as a Chromecast, a Raspberry Pi on a big screen); Minimal should keep to still backgrounds, without effects.

Layers

A screen draws its template as layers, from the bottom up:

1. Base - a colour under everything: The background’s first colour, or one of its own.
2. Video input - the screen’s own camera or capture card (Camera or capture card), to show a camera or a video mixer’s output under the words. Fill the screen or Whole picture, and how much it shows. Each screen uses the device it’s plugged into, picked in its menu; a preview shows where it goes.
3. Media - the Background above: a colour, a gradient, moving light, a picture or a video. A Colour background is the base, so the video input shows through it.
4. Content - the words, and the widgets that show the song (the slide now and the next, sections, the song, the set’s items).
5. Overlays - the other widgets (clocks, timers, messages, QR codes…) and the operator’s title card.
6. Masks - Add a mask: a Rectangle or an Ellipse, placed in % of the screen, with a Soft edge. Cover in black hides that part of the picture, for a projector on an odd-shaped wall; Window to the video cuts through the media there, so the video input shows through while the words stay over it. Everything but the shape turns it inside out.

A widget’s Layer, in its settings on the grid, moves it between Content and Overlays. The media operator shows, hides or clears each layer, and a screen’s Layers it shows, in its tile’s Settings, leaves some out for good: a stage monitor without the media, a lobby TV without the content. A screen’s own choice wins: the operator can’t turn on a layer it leaves out.

Everything that moves is drawn by the screen’s graphics chip, so it stays smooth on a TV’s browser. A viewer whose device asks for reduced motion gets still backgrounds and simple fades.

To try a built-in template on one screen, or to show the words in streaming software (as a browser source), add ?theme= and its name to the screen’s address: songverse.one/screen?theme=stream. It’s for that device only, until the address changes.

Widgets

A template can place widgets on a grid: a stage display shows the singers the slide now and the next one, the time and how long is left; an audience screen can add a clock in a corner, or the Wi-Fi password. The Widgets tab lists them:

• Lyrics or chart - what the screen shows without a grid: the lyrics, or the chart for the band, in the template’s look.
• Current slide and Next slide - the words on the audience’s screens now, and the ones coming (the next song’s first, at the end of a song).
• Current section and Next section - the whole section, every line: the one being sung, with the slide on screen picked out, and the one after it.
• Song structure - the song’s sections in the order they’re sung (V1 C V2 C B C), the one now picked out, and a Progress bar through the song.
• Clock - in 24 hours or 12 hours (AM/PM), with Seconds and The date if you like. Analog clock - a clock face, with a Second hand if you like.
• Countdown - the time left. Time from: The media operator, A set length, from when the item comes on, or Until a time of day (when the service starts). Past zero it can Count on, in red or Stay at 0:00, and it turns amber near the end. Colours by time left sets your own instead: Add a break point, give it a time (m:ss) and the colour of its Text and Panel from then on - amber under 5:00 and white on red under 1:00, say.
• Count up - the time since The song on screen, since it came on, or since the media operator started it. Colours by time gone by works as a countdown’s does, once that much time has gone by.
• Message - a short message from the media operator, shown until it’s cleared.
• Song and Next song - the song’s title, with its key and tempo, and what comes next in the set.
• Current item and Next item - what’s on in the set and what comes next, songs or not, with Its place in the set (3 of 8).
• Text - words of your own.
• Date - today’s date, Written as Sunday 20 October, 20 Oct 2026, 20/10/2026, 2026-10-20 or the weekday alone, With the time if you like.
• Slide count - which slide is on screen, as 3 / 12: Count The song’s slides or The whole set’s slides, with a Progress bar (Thin, Thick or None) under it.
• QR code - a code people scan with their phone. It holds A web address, An event (its title, start, end and place, added to their calendar), A contact card (name, phone, email, organisation) or The Wi-Fi (the network’s name and password, to join it in one tap). Its label is written under it.

Each one plays live on the Widgets tab, with a sample song. Customize sets its default look - its options, font, colour, size, panel and corners - which it gets when it’s added to a template: Save as default for yourself, or, with For, for a team you’re an admin of. A team’s template takes the team’s look, else yours, else the built-in one; Back to the built-in look forgets yours. A template that already has the widget keeps its own.

In the template editor, Layout and widgets places them:

1. Start from a ready-made layout - Words only, Words and a clock or Stage display - or Add a widget to the words.
2. On the preview, drag a widget to move it, and drag its corner to resize it. Picked, the arrow keys move it, and with Shift they resize it. Show the grid hides the cells to see the screen as it will be.
3. Pick a widget, in the list or on the preview, to set what it shows and its Look: its font and colour (or the template’s), size, a Panel behind it and Rounded corners. In the list, the arrows bring one forward or send it back, where widgets overlap.
4. Columns, Rows and Space between cells set the grid, and Black screen hides Everything or Only the words (timers and the clock stay) - a stage display keeps its clock and countdown when the audience’s screens go black.

Every screen using the template shows its widgets, each in its cells. Widgets the media operator runs - their countdowns and messages - come from the set being presented.

The media operator

Whoever runs the screens during a service - the media operator - has a view of their own: Operator view, on the set’s page, or in Live’s Sync menu (it opens in a new tab, so Live carries on). It’s a Live page: the app switches to Live mode. Anyone who can edit the set can use it, leading the set or not; it doesn’t play the metronome or the stems.

Who runs the screens

By default the leader’s Live runs the screens. The bar at the top of the operator view says who does now, and lets you take them:

• Take the screens - you send slides too, and so does the leader’s Live: whoever moves last wins.
• Take them alone - only you send slides. In Live, the present panel says who runs the screens, and its controls wait until you Give them back.
• Share with Live and Run them alone switch between the two; Give them back returns the screens to the leader.
• Take full control leads the set as well: the metronome, the stems and the song everyone follows, as in Live.

If you close the operator view, the screens go back to the leader.

The set and its slides

The sidebar lists the set’s songs, as in Live. The one on the screens is marked Now, and the ones the screens have moved past are ticked as played (Start from the top clears them). Pick a song there to see its slides.

The Slides tab shows every slide of that song as a tile, coloured by its section (verse, chorus, bridge…). Once you’ve taken the screens, a tile sends its slide to every screen; the arrows (Next slide and back) step through them, and Black screen and Stop presenting work as in Live.

Tick Notes to show the song’s notes under the slides they’re on: All notes, or only those of the people holding one of the team’s positions (Media’s notes), for the cues meant for you.

Timer and messages

The Timer & messages tab:

• On the screens - the song and slide the screens show now, and whether they’re black.
• Timer - what the Countdown and Count up widgets show when their time comes from The media operator: pick a length (1, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes, or type one and Set), or Count up; then Start and Pause, Reset, a minute less or more (- and +), or Clear. Past zero, a countdown turns red.
• Message to the stage - type one and Send, or press a quick one (Wrap up, One minute, Next song…). It shows in the Message widget of the set’s screens until you Clear it.

A song of the set can carry its own timer (Timer on the screens, on the set’s page): a five-minute countdown for a talk, a count up for a song. When the leader’s Live comes to that song, the timer starts on the screens by itself.

Screens and layers

Screens & layers, at the top right, opens a panel down the right, beside the slides rather than over them, like the Display panel. On a phone, it opens at the bottom. The slides, the sidebar and the keyboard keep working while it’s open. It lists the Connected screens showing the set now, and the Layers they draw (see Layers), top first: Masks, Overlays, Content, Media and Video input.

• Layers for - All screens, or one of the connected screens. A change for one screen is that screen’s own (“its own layers” beside its name); a change for all screens reaches it too. Like all screens puts it back.
• A layer’s box shows or hides it. Off Content, the screens show the background alone (for a video or a quiet moment) while the slides keep moving; off Media, the words show on the base colour.
• Clear hides a layer until the next slide or song, as other presentation software does; it comes back by itself, or with Bring back.
• Title card over everything - the set’s name and team, over whatever the screens show, before the service or between parts.
• Back to normal shows every layer again, on every screen, without the title card.

A layer a screen leaves out in its own settings stays off there, whatever the panel says.

Keyboard shortcuts

The keyboard runs the screens too, once you’ve taken them. The keyboard button beside Screens & layers lists the shortcuts:

Keys	What they do
→ ↓ Page Down	Next slide, into the next song after the last one
← ↑ Page Up	Previous slide, back into the previous song
Enter	Put up the song you’re looking at
Home, End	First or last slide of the song
B or .	Black screen, or back
S	Stop presenting
W	Content on or off (the words)
G	Media on or off (the background)
V	Video input on or off
O	Overlays on or off
M	Masks on or off
Shift with W, G, V, O or M	Clear that layer until the next slide
T	Title card on or off
C	Layers back to normal

The layer keys act on every screen.

Shortcuts don’t fire while you type a message. A button that has the focus keeps its own Enter.