Guide

Projector

The device is the performer’s copy. The external screen is a lyric slide. Plugging in a cable does not put the chart on the wall.

Connect

1. Connect a display with a wired adapter, or start AirPlay to an Apple TV or a compatible screen.
2. The Projector pill is always in the menubar, to the right of Songs. A green dot means a display is attached. The second line says No display until one is. The pill turns red while the song is actually on the screen. Blank is not red.
3. Tap it with nothing connected and Stagehand tells you it needs a TV, monitor, or projector on a cable, or AirPlay to an Apple TV. Mirroring the iPad to a Mac is not that screen.

Connecting only arms the feature. The room still sees nothing of the song until you present.

Present, blank, stop

1. Tap the Projector pill to present the open song. Tap it again to stop, or tap Stop in the song footer.
2. While you are presenting, those controls sit in the footer, on the same row as previous and next song: Stop, previous slide, the slide count such as 2/6, next slide, and Blank. The song buttons shrink to arrows. There is no second bar over the chart.
3. Blank shows the slide background and nothing else. The chart on your device does not change. Tap Unblank to bring the lyric back. This is the control you will use most often in a room.
4. The slide menu jumps to a specific slide. Previous and next move one at a time.

If the menubar hides, the footer stays as a floating bar while you are presenting. A chevron collapses it to a Songs tab. Changing songs does not stop the projector and does not blank it, and it does not fade through the background. It stays on until you tap the Projector pill or Blank. There is no picture of the footer controls or of a PDF on the projector. The song-change path was not tried on a real external display. If the screen still flashes, say whether you were on Slides or Full Song, which songs, and what colour the flash was.

A PDF

When the open song is a PDF, the projector shows that PDF, one page at a time, fitted to the display and centred on black. The same slide controls move between pages. Text size, colours, chords and Slides versus Full Song do not apply. A picture file is not a song. This was checked in a simulator preview of the projector window, not on a real display, and large or many-page PDFs were not timed.

Slides or the whole song

The Projector tab starts with Mode. Slides is the default: a few lines at a time. Full Song puts the whole song on the screen at once. Switching while you are already presenting takes effect immediately.

Full Song has its own controls, shown only in that mode. Starting point is a row of pictures, the same idea as the chart themes. Band is first, and it is the one a new install uses. Then Congregation, Bright room, and Distance. Each one starts with chords off, and only Verse, Chorus, Bridge, and Tag labels on. You can change anything after you pick one. Then: one or two columns, gutter and margin, separate sizes for the title, section labels, chords and lyrics, a colour for each of those plus the background, and Scale to fit screen (on by default). Show turns the title, the chords, and the section labels on or off. With section labels on, each label in this song has its own switch, so Intro can be hidden while Chorus stays. Start the second column at is A section or Any line, the same choice as on the chart. A section is never split. Any line fills the first column, then the second, so the song can be drawn at the largest size that fits. A chord stays on the letters it belongs to, even when the chord size and the lyric size are different. A short song is not blown up to fill the screen; the extra space stays at the bottom.

If the song is too long to read from the back of the room, the iPad says: “This song is too long to read at a distance in full-song mode.” The projector still shows the song. That sentence never appears on the wall. A colour combination that fails a contrast check is named beside the colour controls. It is not blocked.

Apply projector settings to all songs, in the three-dot menu, copies the slide settings and the full-song settings. The confirm step says how many songs will change and how many keep their own override. A song that set only one colour still follows the default for everything else.

What becomes a slide

Slides are built from the lyric, not from a second copy you maintain.

• A title slide comes first when Title slide is on. It shows the title and artist.
• A section boundary or a blank line ends a block of lyrics.
• Directives, comments, tabs and instrumental chord-only lines are left off the slide. A line of chords with no words is not useful to an audience.
• Lines per slide is a ceiling. A block splits evenly. Five lines at four per slide become three and two, not four and then a single leftover line.

Show chords is off by default. The audience is reading words. Turn it on for a room that needs the symbols. Section labels is off by default. Toggling chords while you are already presenting updates the slide without rebuilding your place.

How the slide looks

Open Chords, then the Projector tab. A preview at the top shows the slide. If you are presenting, the caption says changes appear on the display immediately. If you are not, it says to connect a display to preview on the wall.

These settings are not the Format tab. The chart in your hand is dense. The slide is large and sparse. Changing one does not restyle the other.

Edits apply to this song. The reset on a group clears that song’s override. The three-dot menu’s Apply projector settings to all songs copies this song’s resolved projector look onto the default. Songs that already have their own projector settings keep them. The confirm step counts both.

If the display drops

A pulled cable or a dropped AirPlay session takes the song off the wall. You stay on the same song, and Blank stays blank. Plugging the display back in resumes what you had on, until you stop it yourself.

Test this on a real display. The iOS Simulator is a poor stand-in for an external screen, and a 16:9 television will not match the iPad’s shape. The slide is laid out to the external screen’s own bounds.