Version 2.6.0 RC

Version 2.6.0 is the pre-release for the upcoming version 2.6.0. Although it is still considered to run stable, please use it with care and report bugs/issues.

Changes/Bugfixes since version 2.5.1.

• Migrate to bgrabitmap for better handling and displaying of the presentation slides. In the future, further text effects like shadows etc. can be easily implemented.
• Redesign the multi screen presentation controller: In addition to the songs, every slide with content is listed and can be selected directly.
• Context menu of presentation window: Fullscreen and ending of presentation is now also selectable with that menu.
• Minor improvements of the song editor and full text search
• Add "Select all Songs" under File menu in song selection.
• Bugfixes:
  • #24
  • Drag and Drop exception in song selection window
  • Wrong escaping of special characters in pptx-export

Version 2.5.0

Version 2.5.0

This version brings some major improvements as the function to export source code as pptx file. In addition, it comes with a large rewrite of code, bugfixes and much more...

Improvements/Bugfixes

• Complete rewriting of large parts of the source code including the internal structures for generating and painting presentation slides
• Improvement of the presentation layout
• Improvement of the song editor
• Implementation of a preview of the presentation in the settings menu
• Implementation of slide export to pptx (using PptxgenJs)
• Implementation of slide export to pictures
• Implementation of song lyrics export to markup text files
• Implementation of a full text search for browsing song lyrics
• Implementation of a two language song presentation
• Improvements of the presentation window and control (more keys and remote controls are supported)
• Fix issue #17
• Cantara can now be directly opened with a .songtex-file.

Version 2.4.1: Italian and Spanish translation

The version 2.4.1. adds Italian and Spanish translation to Cantara. Despite that, there is no additional functionality compared to Version 2.4.0 which means that if you are not using one of the languages, you don't necessarily need to update to this version.

Thank you to the translators!

• The Italian translation has been provided by @albanobattistella
• The Spanish translation has been provided by @haggen88

Thank you for the effort!

Version 2.4.0: Song Editor, Automatic Slide Pagebreak, Bugfixes

Version 2.4 is finally there! Beside new features, it also brings a lot of bug fixes. See the list below for details.

Improvements/Enhancements

• A new editor has been implemented which allows editing of the songs, converting CCLI songs into the song format, creating new songs, archiving them and cloning them (e.g. for different versions).
• A welcome assistant will guide new users after the first start of Cantara to setup and understand the program.
• Cantara can automatically break long slides into two pages if configured in the settings.
• The newly implemented SongTeX file format allows to export songs slides with the song lyrics and the order.

Bug Fixes

• Floating point errors when no background picture was selected
• Loading the slides took a long time if a background was selected

Version 2.4.0 beta: Song Editor, Welcome Dialog, Bug Fixes

Version 2.4.0 brings some major enhancements and bug fixes. Please note that the current state is still Beta. While it should work stable for most of the time, errors and bugs might occur. Feel free to report them as an issue.

Enhancements:

• Editor for creating, editing, archivating, cloning and converting song files inside Cantara
• Song selections can be exported with the songlyrics within and also imported into Cantara. For that, a new file format (SongTeX) has been implemented. The imported songs will be automatically added to the repository if necessary. This solves issue #7.
• A setup assistent will help with the basic configuration of Cantara when started for the first time.

Bug Fixes:

• Loading a presentation with background image took a long time, this is solved now.

Testing
Please feel free to test this release. Windows users can download the exe-file and install the program. For Linux users, snap is recommended:

snap install --beta cantara

If you use Pacman as your package manager (Arch Linux, Manjaro, etc.), you can also use the prebuilt cantara-2.4.0beta-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst:

wget https://github.com/reckel-jm/cantara/releases/download/v2.4.0beta/cantara-2.4.0beta-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
sudo pacman -U cantara-2.4.0beta-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Version 2.3.2: traditional Chinese translation, Flatpak generation support

Version 2.3.2. brings two minor but very useful improvements:

• Thanks to @primores-resugendi, a translation for traditional Chinese has been added.
• Thanks to @freundTech, the repository and program is now ready to be published as a flatpak.

Version 2.3.1: Support for background images, bug fixes

Release of Version 2.3.1.

Improvements

• Version 2.3.1 brings support for background images. These can be adjusted and made transparent (towards the background color) or brighter.

Bug Fixes

• fix of spell mistake in CCLI license tag. It now ccli-licensenumber
• complete German translation

Version 2.3: Support for CCLI Song Format and Metadata

After testing and further development, version 2.3 can be released.

Improvements:

• Support of the CCLI songselect format
• Support for Metadata which can be displayed dynamically during the song
• Improvements in source code
• Preparations for further development in source code, abstractions
• Bugfixes in displaying the songs

As always, I am looking forward to feedback, suggestions and bug reports.
Thank you!

Version 2.2.3 Beta (CCLI Songselect support, better english translation)

I am happy to announce the release of Cantara 2.2.3 Beta. This version includes support for the CCLI songselect file format and has some further improvements. It solves issue #2. In addition, English is now the main language, but a German translation is added as well. So, for German users, everything should stay the same.
Cantara has now also a webpage with documentation and further information.

Although this version is a Beta release, it can be used for song presentations. However, bugs or errors may occur. Please try it out and give feedback and suggestions! Thank you!

Cantara in der Version 2 veröffentlicht

Die Version 2 steht nun zur Verfügung. Intern läuft sie unter der Versionsnummer 2.2.1, da noch einige neue Funktionen hinzugekommen sind. In einer der nächsten Versionen wird auf eine semantische Versionierung umgestiegen werden.

Download und Installation (Update)

Es stehen fertige Installationspakete für folgende Betriebssysteme zur Verfügung:

• Arch Linux/Manjaro/Pacman-basierte Systeme: Die Datei cantara-2.2-1-linux-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst herunterladen und mittels sudo pacman -U cantara-2.2-1-linux-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst installieren. Eventuell benötigte Abhängigkeiten werden ebenfalls automatisch installiert.
• Linux (allgemein): Die Datei cantara-2-2-1-linux-x86_64.tar.gz herunterladen, in einem beliebigen Ordner entpacken und mit dem Befehl chmod +x install.sh && sudo ./install.sh installieren. Wichtig: Es müssen die qt5pas-Bibliotheken auf dem System vorhanden sein. Unter Ubuntu können diese beispielsweise mittels sudo apt-get install libqtpas installiert werden.
• Windows: Die Datei cantara2.2.1_setup_win64.exe herunterladen und ausführen, ein Installer führt schrittweise durch den Installationsprozess. Eventuelle Warnungen aufgrund fehlender Zertifikate können ignoriert werden.

Änderungen

• Der Liedtext wird standardmäßig nun auch in die Zwischenablage kopiert, sodass er zum Beispiel in sozialen Netzwerkgruppen geteilt werden kann (über die Einstellungen konfigurierbar). Dies eignet sich gut für Hauskreise oder Kleingruppen, wo kein Beamer zur Verfügung steht.
• Fehler während der Präsentation, die gelegentlich zum Absturz führten, wurden behoben. Darüber hinaus kann nun direkt über das rechte Auswahlmenü zu einem bestimmten Lied gesprungen werden.
• Kleinere Fehlerkorrekturen und Anpassungen am Quelltext wurden vorgenommen.

Der Autor wünscht bei der Verwendung weiterhin alles Gute, Gottes Segen und viel Freude!