any deviceShowShare Quickstart

What is ShowShare?

ShowShare is a cloud based presentation system for Christian worship. It can be used to present songs and Bible readings ‘on the big screen’ using a projector, and it’s also great for musicians, for home groups, for teaching, for individuals, and in many other settings.

ShowShare works on PCs, Macs, tablets and smartphones, using a Web browser, and without any installation. Presenters can publish their content directly to users who have any kind of device that has a Web browser.

Being cloud based brings distinct advantages:

In addition to songs and Bible readings, you can use ShowShare to display Google Slides, images and videos. Soundtracks can be associated with a song, or played independently. Simple text, HTML, and PDF files can be shared.

In ShowShare, items are presented on a scrolling page, rather than as a series of separate slides. This means that when a song is being displayed, the overall shape of the song is more visible, and worshippers can read ahead into the next verse.

ShowShare is produced by Delta Lights as a replacement for WorshipSession.

Navigating ShowShare

ShowShare is designed to be operated with keyboard and mouse, or with a touch screen. Here are essential navigation keypresses:

↓Scroll to next song verse, or in Bible pasages, scroll down by 2/3 of your screen height.
↑Scroll to previous song verse, or in Bible pasages, scroll up by 2/3 of your screen height.
HomeScroll to the top of the page.
EndScroll to the bottom of the page (typically there is empty space at the bottom.)
{shift}If you hold shift together with ↑ ↓ Home or End,
ShowShare will jump directly to the destination, rather than smoothly scrolling.
{ctrl}If you hold Ctrl together with ↑ or ↓, ShowShare scrolls by just a small amount.
fFor songs, show the ‘feature’ for the song (Note: not every song has a ‘feature’.)
bClear (“blank”) the screen, or return from blank.
t, TIf your song shows chords, transpose to another key for use with a capo.
cScroll to the chorus.
1,2..Scroll to verse 1, 2 etc.

Touch screen users can push the content directly to any position. ShowShare will scroll to the next verse of a song if the screen is flicked up or down.

If your song shows chords, small buttons at the top of the screen can be used to transpose to another key.

Additional Navigation Keys for Presenters

EscShow or hide your Session. You can select Items with ↑ up and ↓ down, and press {Enter} to display them.
PgDnGo to the next item in your Session. Pressing ↓ down at the bottom of the page also works.
PgUpGo to the previous item in your Session. Pressing ↑ up at the top of the page also works.
{ctrl}If you hold Ctrl together with PgUp or PgDn, the new page is not published to the Channel.
*Hide the song verse at the top of the screen. This action is not published on your Channel,
but when the item is re-published, the starred verses will be hidden.
By hiding several verses you can use ‘star’ to show a single verse,
which can be useful for putting together a medley of songs.
{alt}If you hold Alt together with 1, 2, c, or f, the song will be scrolled to this position on re-load.

Touch screen users can push the screen to the left or right to display the next or previous item. A small keyboard is displayed at the top of the screen:
touch keys
These provide the Home, End, ‘feature’, ‘blank’, and ‘sound’ facilities.

There is no way to access the ‘star’ facility with a touch screen.

Leading from the front ShowShare Pedal

Song projection software is usually operated by a person who sits at a desk, and is somewhat detached from the worship. ShowShare's operation is so simple that it can be operated by worship leaders and musicians. The ShowShare pedal allows the system to be operated even where the leader is playing an instrument. See our 'how to' video on YouTube.

The ShowShare pedal generates ↑ up and ↓ down keypresses, allowing the whole presentation to be displayed. Since ShowShare can be operated from more than one place, a person sitting at a desk, or standing with a smartphone, can also help to control the presentation.

About Channels and Presenters

In ShowShare, all content is presented in a ‘Channel’, which is similar to a Channel on a TV or radio. Connect to a Channel by entering a URL, or by scanning a QR code. Generally, Channel URLs look like this:

http://showshare.net/mychannelname

When you connect to a channel, you will see the item that was most recently presented. Tabs at the top of the screen allow you to tweak the look of items to fit your device (see ‘Changing the look’, below.) Depending on how the Channel is set up, you may also be able to review the Channel history, and see some useful documents.

To publish content on the Channel, you need to log in as a Presenter. Presenters see the Presenter Present tab so they can select songs, Bible passages, or other items from the cloud. When any kind of item is selected, it goes into a list that we refer to as a ‘Session’. It can be published immediately, or later, whenever the Presenter chooses. Presenters can have as many Sessions as they want.

Presenters can authorise other Presenters to publish content on their Channel, so several Presenters can contribute content simultaneously, each bringing a part of a larger presentation.

If you connect to the public Channel, everyone is automatically a Presenter. It’s good for evaluating the facilities, but should not be taken represent a typical case, in which only authorised people can publish content.

Notes about copyright ©

Songs Most of the songs in ShowShare are copyrighted, and when using the songs you must respect the rights of the copyright holders.

If your church has a CCL or CCLI copyright licence, that licence most likely covers your use of the songs in ShowShare for any activity connected with your church.

ShowShare keeps a record of your song usage for compiling your annual return to CCL. The list of songs used can be found in the Channel Profile.

ShowShare provides facilities for you to link PDF sheet music, images and audio tracks to your songs, but these separate copyrighted assets are stored on your cloud storage, not on the ShowShare site.

Bible Depending on the translation, the Bible verses displayed in ShowShare may also be subject to copyright. The provisions vary according to the translation — typically you are allowed to display or copy a few verses but not a larger section or a complete book. The copyright owner should be displayed in all cases. Check with the copyright owner for full details.

ShowShare The ShowShare site and the technology contained within it are copyright ©2014, Delta Lights, Carlisle, UK and protected by UK law. You must not store, copy, reverse engineer, re-publish or otherwise impinge on any of our intellectual property rights.

Changing the look Settings

ShowShare can present content differently on different devices. Using options in the Settings tab, you can change the font size, the margin width and the background colour. Songs can be shown left justified or centre justified, and can have padding between verses. Depending on your Channel set-up, you may be able to select the language and the Bible translation. Musicians can opt to display guitar chords along with the song words, and transpose the chords according to their preference.

Presenters can hide individual song verses using Star, and also set the Initial Position for songs.

Become a presenter Presenter

To publish your own content on ShowShare you need a Presenter account. When you register as a Presenter, a private Channel is created for you. Presenters can add their own songs, and create modified versions of the songs in the ShowShare library. Presenter accounts are free for three months, and thereafter carry a small monthly or annual subscription.

The essential magic of ShowShare is so simple it’s easy to miss it: when you display an item on your screen, the same item appears on other screens connected to the same Channel.

When you create a Presenter account, you choose a user name, and also a Channel name. Your user name is only for you, but you publicise the Channel name to your audience, and they can immediately see the content you are presenting. It’s almost as if they were looking at your screen, except that ShowShare adapts the content to the size and format of their screen.

Presenting songs and Bible passages

To Display a song in ShowShare, click Presenter Present, then song Song, or press the F12 key.

Type the first few characters of the song name. ShowShare continually retrieves songs that match what you type, either by first line, title or chorus.

song preview

Where several songs have similar titles, you can press on note Details to open the song preview (only the top part of the song is shown.)

Also in this image:

new New and edit copy Edit buttons. For details see Creating end editing songs, below.

The search Search button toggles to searching anywhere in the song.
To use search, type the search term then press {Enter}.

link Link background image from your cloud storage to song.

To select an item, click with the mouse or use ↑up and ↓down, then press {Enter}. In either case, if you hold down {Ctrl}, the new selection will not be published on your Channel. This enables you to select a list of songs before publishing them. You can hide individual song verses using Star, and also set the Initial Position.

To Display a Bible verse in ShowShare, click Presenter Present, then Bible Bible, or press the F10 key.

Bible select To select a Bible book, you can click on the button or begin to type the three-letter abbreviation. You will then be able to select a chapter, then a verse or a range of verses.

To separate the numbers for chapters and verses, use colon, dot, hyphen, or just space. John 14:1-3 works fine, as does John 14 1 3.

ShowShare displays Bible Preview and GO buttons. If you are using a keyboard, press ↓ down for preview, and {Enter} to display the selected passage.

As with song display, if you hold {ctrl} while displaying the item, it will be displayed, but not published on your Channel.

Creating and editing songs

You can add your own songs to ShowShare. When selecting songs, you will be able to see the ShowShare library songs, and your own songs, in the same list.

To add a new song, select Presenter Present , then Presenter Song, then press the Presenter new button.

Song editorThe song editor has fields for title, author, publisher, etc. This image shows a fully-specified song.

When typing songs, use {ctrl-Enter} to separate the lines in a verse, and {Enter} to end the verse. ShowShare draws blue lines to show where the scroll points in the song will be.

In a hurry? You could enter just the text of the song, and a single title so that you can find it, but remember to return and add the other information:

Adding chords to songs

ShowShare makes it easy to add chords. Press the | vertical bar key to begin a chord, and ShowShare inserts another | to close the chord. Between the two markers, you can place chords like this:

CmEbsus4D/F#
Fmaj7A7/C#Bdim

Do not put chords in brackets, like (G to end) - these will not be transposed correctly.

Importing chords automatically

ShowShare can recognise chords in songs if they are copied or dragged from another Web page or document, where the song is laid out using a monospaced font, with chords above the lines like this

G                          Em
Over the mountains and the sea
                             C
Your river runs with love for me
                      D
and I will open up my heart
                          G
and let the Healer set me free

You may find it easier to prepare songs using a text editor, with chords in separate lines as shown, then copy the whole song into ShowShare.

Songs in different languages English Français Deutsch

If you have configured your Channel to allow different languages, you will see a number of flags for selecting the language of the song. Songs can have several translations, and you can also enter titles in foreign languages.

© A note about ownership of songs - we respect your rights in any song of yours that you choose to store on the ShowShare server. If the song is not your own work, you should correctly include the author and publisher information.

Copy SongEditing existing songs

You cannot change the songs in the ShowShare library, but you can make your own copy then make changes to the copy:

Which song is which?

Select Song If you modify any of the ShowShare library songs, you can recognise the modified ones by a different coloured icon details in the list of song matches. The colour shows that you are the owner of that song item.

If you always want to use only the modified version, you can select Don’t show the ShowShare Library song with the same CCL number in the song editor.

Perhaps you modified the song because you discovered a fault in the lyrics or chords, or you added a foreign translation. You can select Propose this song to be included in the ShowShare Public Library in the song editor. If your change is accepted, we will update the ShowShare library and remove your changed version, so the song will show a blue icon again.

Presenting content from the cloud Cloud

ShowShare can display songs from its own library, and Bible passages from an online service, but because it is cloud-based, it can’t access image files, PowerPoints or PDFs stored on your computer’s memory or a USB pen drive; it can only display content that is on the Internet.

Connecting ShowShare to your cloud storage account enables you to display these types of content. Create your content as usual, save it in your cloud folder, and then easily display it in ShowShare.

Connecting to your cloud account brings to life these features:

If you are unfamiliar with cloud storage, take a moment to watch this Dropbox promotional video on youtube.com.

Connecting ShowShare to your Cloud Storage

To connect to a cloud storage account, select Settings then User Profile. Select your cloud storage provider (currently only Dropbox) from the drop-down list.

You will be directed to a page provided by your storage provider. Once you have logged in, you will see a security key that must be copied back into ShowShare to complete the connection. ShowShare will use this key in future to access your cloud storage account.

© The ShowShare team respects your privacy, and the private ownership of items stored in your cloud storage. As part of its normal operation ShowShare caches items and makes indexes. By using ShowShare you consent to these caches and indexes being made.

Remember that since your cloud account is linked to ShowShare, it is only as secure as your ShowShare account; anyone who has access to your ShowShare account can read the files on your cloud storage.

Once ShowShare is connected to your cloud account, you can see the files in your cloud storage by selecting Presenter Present, then Cloud storage Cloud.

Showing images and videos

ShowShare can share images and videos from your cloud storage - just select the image from the cloud tab.

Notes:

Backgrounds behind songs

ShowShare keeps an index of images and videos placed in the /showshare/backgrounds folder, allowing these items to be selected as backgrounds to songs and Bible passages.

The background button can be seen in several places, because you can assign background images in three different ways:

To set the ‘Default background’ for all songs, click Presenter Present, then song Song, or press the F12 key, then press the background button next to the type-in box. To set the default background for Bible passages, press the background button in the Bible Bible Tab.

ShowShare displays a list of items in your /showshare/backgrounds folder. Select an item to assign the background. You will see the Default background when you display an song.

To set the ‘Song background’ for an individual song, click Presenter Present, then song Song, or press the F12 key, then type a few letters to select the song, open up the song’s details section, and press the background button in the song preview.

As before, ShowShare displays a list of items in your /showshare/backgrounds folder, with an additional option to revert to the Default background. Select an item to assign the background. Display the song to see the assigned background.

To set the ‘Item background’ for an item that is already in your Session, open up the item’s details section, and press the background button in the preview.

The list of backgrounds is displayed — select an item as before. The song or Bible passage will be re-displayed.

Using animated backgrounds is really easy in ShowShare, but you need to bear a few things in mind:

Because of this, you should prepare three files: MP4 and OGG video files, and also a JPG image file. Name them all the same, like cool river.mp4, cool river.ogg and cool river.jpg, and copy them into your /showshare/backgrounds folder. ShowShare will show these files as a single item when it displays the list of backgrounds. Depending on their device and browser setup, viewers will see either the JPG, the MP4, or the OGG.

For performance reasons, ShowShare keeps its own index of all the images and videos in your showshare/backgrounds foldler. After copying your files to the backgrounds folder, wait a while until Dropbox finishes uploading the new files, then re-index the folder by displaying its contents in ShowShare.

Preparing a slide show

slideshow If you rename a folder in your cloud, so that the name includes slideshow, ShowShare treats it in a special way. Rather than showing the contents of the folder as normal, ShowShare makes a special index of all the images in the folder, and shows them in a single item.

(The slideshow feature was designed as a way of showing PowerPoint presentations.)

As noted above, it generally takes a few moments to create a ‘shareable link’ for an image, so ShowShare initially presents a page that allows you to re-order your images before making the index. Once the index is created, ShowShare will display the slideshow directly. Use ↓ down to show the images in the slideshow.

If you want to add, delete or re-order images in a slideshow, you will need to delete the index file showshare.slideshow from the folder.

As above, note that editing an image and saving with the same name may not work as expected. Use a new name for the modified file.

Linking soundtracks to songs

ShowShare can link soundtracks to songs, so that when the song is played, the soundtrack is available immediately. This works using the showshare/soundtracks folder.

A ‘soundtrack’ could be a downloaded music track, a recording of your church band, or just a part of the music such as a drum track. To link it to a song, all you need to do is copy the soundtrack into the showshare/soundtracks folder, and re-name it to be the same as the first line as the song to which it should be linked.

Notes:

For performance reasons, ShowShare keeps its own index of all the soundtracks in your showshare/soundtracks foldler. After copying your soundtrack to the soundtracks folder, you need to re-index the folder by displaying its contents in ShowShare.

Finally, you should re-select the song; the soundtrack will only be attached to new items, not to any items already in your Session.

Playing the soundtrack for a song

Notes on playing soundtracks:

To play the soundtrack for a song, press s. You can pause the replay by pressing s again.
For touch-screen users, a small ‘s’ appears at the top of the screen.

If you press {Shift-S} while a soundtrack is playing, the sound stops and re-winds to the start.