Key features

As well as a host of new content in Visual Liturgy Live (Common Worship: Times and Seasons, Daily Prayer, Christian Initiation to name but a few) there are also new software features to help make the best use of this content. A few are explained here but for more information please use the forums on this website.

Smart Templates

A key new feature in Visual Liturgy Live is the new aptly-named ‘smart-templates’. The essence of Visual Liturgy is that you select a type of service, and the software populates it with the correct readings along with other material such as the preface in the Eucharistic Prayer, or a seasonal introduction to the Peace. The service you select is a ‘template’ because it contains the structure and unchanging texts of a service to be customised for a specific occasion.

The new smart template represents a number of service templates and will automatically select the correct one for you, according to the day or season for example. This is important for our inclusion of Common Worship: Daily Prayer. It means you can select Prayer During the Day for example, specify the date, and Visual Liturgy Live will determine which of several Daily Prayer templates is the correct one to use.

The image below shows how a Smart Service is created. It defines a list of templates and the rules by which they are selected. Visual Liturgy will choose the first matching template. For the user, it is just as easy as selecting a standard service template. The only difference is that a further selection takes place behind the scenes.

Visual Liturgy is also more intuitive then ever with the Smart-templates feature which is fully customisable and automatically selects the correct service template for the day or season.

Lectionary Planning

With the Lectionary Planner you can create an active lectionary plan in advance to pre-set readings for future services; you can also prepare reading rotas in advance.

This is a brilliant new tool that may be used to generate and customise a report of lectionary items for a specified period and lectionary. Once a report has been generated, you can also save and use that report as the basis of a lectionary plan to govern the use of lectionary-based material in future services. You can also slot in Reading Plans into your lectionary plans.

The benefits: You might want to look at the readings for the next few Sundays or you may want to plan out a sermon series to follow a particular theme or biblical book. The Lectionary Planner allows you to search VL’s lectionary database and carry out such tasks. The ability to save plans is intended to save you time. Rather than having to remember your choices previously set-out in the lectionary report and repeat those choices in your services, you can get VL to remember the details for you.

Once you have arranged your lectionary items you can then print out your lectionary plan.

At certain times of year, you might wish to depart from the lectionary for a short period to follow a set of readings through a particular biblical book or surrounding a particular theme. In the Lectionary planner, you can now use Reading plans to slot such series into your lectionary reports and lectionary plans. There are many reading plans already provided in VL from those suggested in New Patterns for Worship. If you wish to, you can also create your own.

The Short-list

When you are conducting a search, you may want to ‘short-list’ certain items to come back to at a later date. For example, you might want to draw up a short-list of ten hymns or songs to print out and then discuss with your organist or music group. You might want to put some of your favourite blessings on a short-list to make them easier to find later.

The Visual Liturgy Live browser includes a short-list function to make all that possible.

When you are looking at the short-list, there are several things that you can choose to do with the items displayed. Much like the browser, you can highlight items and click "Text details" to look at a particular text in more depth and perhaps make changes.

However, you can also use the short-list to take items out of VL into something else. You can print the short-list or export it to a file by using the respective buttons provided. This facility is ideal for taking a few hymns or songs to a planning meeting for discussion.

For help on any of these new features or to find out more information please use the discussion forums located in the left-hand navigation on this website.