Why you should NOT use Songbee

Some more updates on Songbee. First, I will be putting up a web site for it, although it's not a priority. The site will basically be a rearrangement of all the information you can find under the Songbee tag, so look there to begin with.

Second I'm not averse to putting up a public svn repository but I'm finding it tricky for administrative reasons; I have an svn repository that I'm working from on my laptop (actually I use SVK) and I don't know the magic incantations required to move it onto my server, with history intact, and then pull it back out and keep on working on it. svk is lovely, but I wish it were simpler...

But if people are interested in Songbee, I want to encourage them not to use it. Really, you should only be using Songbee if you've tried everything else and it doesn't work. Here are the alternatives you should try before looking at Songbee:

• Easislides. It's Windows only, it's fully bilingual, (although it doesn't support Japanese ruby, which is why Songbee exists, and since it's not open source I couldn't make it so) it makes songbooks, it's got Bible text inegration, and it's very pretty. If you're using Windows and you don't care about free software, and it does what you want, use this.
• openlp.org. It has a silly name, it's Windows only, it's open source, it does Bible text integration and Powerpoint integration, and it's very pretty, although it doesn't support Japanese ruby, and because I can't develop on Windows, I couldn't make it do so. If Easislides doesn't do what you want, use this.
• Opensong. This is Windows and Mac. It's open source. It's really good, although it doesn't support Japanese ruby, which is why Songbee exists, and it seemed like an awful lot of work to make it do so and besides I don't understand Realbasic. If neither Easislides nor openlp.org does what you want, use this.
• Lyricue. This is Linux only(!) and does all the usual stuff. As usual it doesn't support Japanese ruby, and I couldn't be bothered to make it do so because my target audience wouldn't be using Linux anyway. If you're a complete Linux-head, use this.

I hope you've now got the idea that you should only be using Songbee if you care about worship projection software that supports Japanese ruby, and if you did, I'd probably know you already.

Songbee doesn't do Bible text integration, although I can see that coming as an extension in the future. (XPCOM interface to C++ SWORD library; I know all the right words, but I don't know how to do it!) It doesn't and probably won't do Powerpoint stuff, although I guess someone who understands Windows might write an extension to do that. It isn't particularly pretty at the moment, although that's coming, and it won't do audio/video integration.

On the positive side it is open source (when I work out how to release the source!) and highly cross-platform; being based on Mozilla it'll run on OS/2 or BeOS if you need it to. But you know, so what? You're only likely to be using one operating system at a time, and it'll be covered by one of the ones above. So really, its only redeeming feature is that it fulfills a need in the Japanese church. If you don't have that need, perhaps try one of the others?

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