[v6 General Discussion] Editing Songs

I am having trouble editing songs. According to the help, pressing Enter after typing the text will create a new slide. This doesn't happen, it just continues adding blank lines. So the only way I can create new slides is to click the button. Because of this I cannot split the text into 2 slides. I can't even add a new slide and then cut and paste the text as I can't find any way of Cutting or copying.

I have a song with 24 slides, the formatting and fit of everything is great (after much ctrl-enter and fiddling) but I have a super thick outline for some reason and I can't adjust it for the entire song...it's going to take me 10 minutes to go slide by slide making these adjustments....I really hope these inconveniences are fixed soon....I have 2 weeks until I'm off on leave and there's no easy way to train my replacement to use this nonsense.
Upgraded to EW6.1.5, and re-import the EW2009 database. This time, the import looks much better now. However, I still need to go into the songs individually to ensure all are ok. The only weird thing is, when I apply a theme, I would expect the font size to change to what was in the theme. Does not always works, in some songs it remains as it is (usually smaller size). This is despite unchecking re-sizing at the Edit -> Options -> Songs -> Song Fonts -> Formatting tab.

But overall, at least I don't have to keep adding back the background, except for some songs. I also had to do some formatting as the "Chorus" label was not recognised in some songs, so it was appearing as words in the slide.
Presently if you if you type a label in the label area that does not match the pre-defined labels, it will move those items to the song area on save.

This is not by design and has already been fixed in 6.1.6 soon to be released. If you change the song layout inside the editor, this will not happen. Basically EasyWorship takes two approaches to saving the song. If the layout is default, it does a basic save, with the bug. If you change the layout, it saves it as a full presentation with fills and anything else you customize, without the bug, keeping label 1 intact.
I've just tried today's version and it still doesn't like "label 1" as a label. Put it in the label filed and it comes down to be the first line.

Can someone confirm that this is what is suppose to happen or is it still a work in progress?
If I can figure out how to move this current profile into another profile, I will then blow it away and try a new import of the old 2009 data. I just don't want to lose the "almost finished" converted data in EW6.
It would of immense help if all of these Shift-Tab, Tab, Ctrl-Enter keystroke combinations were listed someplace and found their way into an up-to-date help system before. I'm sure many of the frustrations being experienced (and promoting a lot of negativity towards EW6) could be alleviated if we knew these things.

Maybe something else worth considering would be a short tutorial explanation of the philosophy behind the design. I believe this would help both new users and help transition existing users to the new ways of thinking. E.g. Is a Song now to be considered a separate collection of slides. What's the relationship between the global options set under options, what makes up a theme, why I can change some aspects of song text formatting and apply it to a them but not others (say font color). If I understood more about what's going on I would have a much better idea of how to achieve what I require, know what is not possible and feel less frustrated.

Appreciate there's probably a massive amount going on in the development den but addressing some of the above would I'm sure be much welcomed.

At present I'm in the "stay with 2009" camp because I just can see my volunteer operator team getting their heads around all the new ways of doing things, some of which are not very obvious without the "special undocumented knowledge" of the magic CTRL and ALT keys
Shift-Tab demotes the indent level of line. If you demote it at level 0, it will create a new slide.
Hitting the Tab key at the same level, or on a label, will promote it back to song text and part of the slide above.
Yes, delete v6.1 folder. Even though I purchased the upgrade I am not fully committed to going live, i.e. putting anything permanent into database until I'm sure that piece is solid. Some of the other issues are cosmetic or procedural.
GRBCMedia wrote:
EW6 Build 1.4 (released over the weekend) import of EW2009 database is much cleaner. It appears most attributes are migrated only a few background images/videos are missing and some justification is ignored.

does this mean that it's necessary to delete the EW6 database and reimport the EW2009 db to benefit from these improvements to formatting etc?
I share the frustration mentioned by others regarding not being able to quickly and easily edit the font for an entire song. i.e. all song slides at once.

Consider this scenario.
Live in a Service. Song in schedule ready to project. Feel led to change the image used for the background to something more appropriate just before song is to be used. Suitable pre-built background or theme not available
EW2009
Open either background palette or media/images tab. Drag over new image and drop. Hmmmmm. Font color needs changing.
Right click and edit song in schedule. Right click on Image in editor to go into background editor. Pick new font color (and optionally change placement etc).
Job done for all the slides. See the result in preview. Now ready to Go Live. Time taken - 20 ~ 30s.
EW6
Open either media/images tab. Drag over new image and drop. Hmmmmm. Font color needs changing.
Right click and choose edit song in schedule. Ctrl-A to select all text. All text gets highlighted. Click on text color selector. Select new color. Click OK
Job Done. Time Taken ~ 20s (a little faster than EW2009)

BUT then I discover that although all the text was highlighted - I've only changed the font color on one slide with no time left to alter the other 7 slides that make up the song.

Have I missed something here?
In EW6 Build 1.4 (released over the weekend) import of EW2009 database is much cleaner. It appears most attributes are migrated only a few background images/videos are missing and some justification is ignored.

The editor seems better behaved without extra slides and lines being added. I will try some more testing this week.


Well, unfortunately, after the update to 1.4, I continue with my editing (without importing again), and I had issues with either missing words or extra slides. If I do a break line using ctrl-enter, the next word will disappear, but no extra slides. If I do a break line using enter, words are fine, but I have an extra slide at the end. I guess I have to redo that whole song.

Looks like the global edit option issue is still not fixed in this version - I hope it will be for the next.
I suggested to the EW developers that the Label line needs to be more prominent, with a colored background like EW2009 or bigger font. On HD displays with no scaling the bold text doesn't look much different.

I have found that you can press Delete to bring first line up to label; but no quick way to go other direction. You have to cut-n-paste text from label body.

New song does add extra slides by breaking on blank lines, also moves Label down to song text. Fortunately one of the developers (Jeff) was able to reproduce and is working on a fix. [Mentioned in another post]

Still Schedule editor can successfully make and save changes back into schedule. They need to consolidate their code so all editors handle slides the same way.
I have noticed the same thing as well. I created a new song, three verses, each verse has 8 lines. I labeled the verses Verse 1, Verse 2 and Verse 3. All is well and it behaves as expected. I then decided to split each verse into two slides, because 8 lines was just too much on one slide. So now I have 6 slides. I labeled them Verse 1 Verse 1b Verse 2 Verse 2b etc. After saving, the Verse 1 Verse 2 and Verse 3 label stay in the label field, just as before. The Verse 1b Verse 2b and Verse 3b labels don't stay in the label field, they become the first line of that slide. Not sure why it's doing that. For now I just removed the labels with the "b" and the problem is solved.
In EW6 Build 1.4 (released over the weekend) import of EW2009 database is much cleaner. It appears most attributes are migrated only a few background images/videos are missing and some justification is ignored.

The editor seems better behaved without extra slides and lines being added. I will try some more testing this week.
Still some very odd things going on in the Song editor.

If I create a song which just consists of a Label "label 1" and 2 lines, "line 1, line 2" then all looks good in the preview.

When I save it then add it to the schedule and project it I get a 3 line song "Label1, line 1, line 2" with no verse label.

However, If I label the verse "Verse 1" it seems to behave as expected. Is there a restriction as to what labels are allowed?

Curious, as I have managed to have entire Hymn lines appear as a label I don't think there is a restriction. Fully acknowledge that this doesn't answer your question.....