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Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 6:41 am
by msierra
Hi,

I actually wrote an access database which I used when I was the Bishop of my ward way back 2003. After 6 years of using it, all other wards in our stake have ask for a copy in which to this stage they still using it. The management is a bit hard as I have to install run-time app in each of their machine so I recently migrated it online using APEX.

Here's the link to the login screen. In there, you'll find an icon with link to the screenshots of this application. I love using it for our stake meetings. Very handy and can easily be updated using my phone.

http://black.maxapex.com/apex/f?p=226:101

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2013 10:50 pm
by waynecooke
To the Password question. I was under the assumption that there was the same password throughout the Church. I have traveled some and the same password works in each chapel I have been to. That includes about 15-20 chapels in 6 states. Is it possible for the stake or building to change the password? The one thing that is handy with the one that I have encountered is that it is very easy to remember.

We use our building for a two Ward, Family History workshop every Wednesday evening, and each person brings their own Laptop and we do research, etc. Hence, that would only be possible if there happened to be one of the "Chosen Few" who knew the password at the workshop. We do not keep the password a secret, and have never had a problem with over used bandwidth. Considering some of the examples given of what people are accessing on Sundays at the Church, maybe some counseling would be in order.

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 6:05 am
by TinMan
Why doesn't the Church print a program for General Conference?

Why don't they have an accessible on line program people in the congregation or at other locations can look at?

Why do you need one for Sacrament meeting? I never understood the need for a Sacrament meeting program. The hymns are listed on a board in the front of the chapel, and the program is announced by whomever is conducting.

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 9:28 am
by lajackson
TinMan wrote:I never understood the need for a Sacrament meeting program. The hymns are listed on a board in the front of the chapel, and the program is announced by whomever is conducting.
As I mentioned earlier, I have lived in many wards that did not hand out a printed program. They managed just fine.

Since announcements are not made from the pulpit, and they did not have a traditional program to print them in, these wards all had to be extra careful that there were other paths for members to learn of activities and receive other needed information that would otherwise have shown up in a printed bulletin.

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 10:10 am
by email_programmer_jim
I am in the Stake Sunday School presidency and a computer programmer (.Net and Java) for a living. In trying to promote the Church website online curriculum for Sunday School, we have noticed a wide disparity between various units in the amount of online involvement.

I can keep it short and sweet with this comment: the elderly in wards may carry cell phones, but they rarely use them for more than a phone. You will get many complaints by going digital with things like this. It works great for the young and the United States. We are not allowing our youth to use the scriptures online or cell apps because it will hinder them as missionaries to third world countries.

The church budget helps to get PC's for support of church units. Outside of that, you will face big opposition by making digital access a requirement for church resources. That is not to say that digital resources are not extremely helpful in many cases. The Family History libraries have PC's that the Stakes purchase and support.

We need to be careful in making our future standards digital. No one is complaining about making digital solutions where persons can opt in. No issue there.

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 11:50 am
by ggllbb
email_programmer_jim wrote:the elderly in wards may carry cell phones, but they rarely use them for more than a phone.
We have older people who don't and won't have computers. One of which teaches many of the priesthood lessons. The gospel doctrine teacher has a computer but only for limited use. In fact, I doubt she remembers her lds.org password even though I have helped her recover is at least once. Some members can't afford computers, much less smart phones and tablets. We put the lesson schedule for the current and next 3 weeks plus announcements and leader phone numbers in the bulletin for everyone, but especially for those people.

I'm not sure I see the point of an 'on line' program since all that information is either:
1. Already available on line including things such as lesson schedules announcements, activities and leader phone numbers, or
2. Becomes obvious or announced during the sacrament meeting including things like who is presiding and conducting, visiting stake leaders, hymns, speakers and prayers.

I don't know that we would use such an 'on line' program even if it were available.

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2013 3:51 pm
by TinMan
lajackson wrote:Since announcements are not made from the pulpit, and they did not have a traditional program to print them in, these wards all had to be extra careful that there were other paths for members to learn of activities and receive other needed information that would otherwise have shown up in a printed bulletin.
Announcements can be made from the pulpit before the opening hymn. (See handbook 2 section 18.) But printed announcements on a half page can also be prepared in advance.

The ward that shares the building with us does a full page (folded in half) program with a cover picture, printed announcements on one side of the inside fold, program on the second side of the inside fold and ward leaders on the back. We use half the paper they do with our half page announcement sheet (sometimes printed on both sides.) And many of both wards paper goods just get left behind in the hymn book holders or on the floor.

The young adult ward my daughter is in does a full page program similar to above with a secondary insert for announcements. Plus they have everything emailed to everyone as well. There is such a thing as "information overload." :)

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Wed Jul 17, 2013 10:27 pm
by sbradshaw
The LDS Music app for iOS (and soon for Android) now supports deep linking, meaning you can have a hyperlink (from a website or, in this case, a program) that pushes you directly to a song in the app...

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 1:50 am
by sbradshaw
For anyone who may be interested, I made a prototype for a digital sacrament meeting program, that could be adapted for stake conference or whatever too (it's HTML):
http://bradshawfamily.net/~samuel/zzz/meeting/

If you have an iOS device, you can add/pin it to your home screen from Safari and it's basically an app. When the web page is updated, and you open it again from your home screen, it shows the updated version (if you're connected to the internet). So basically it could be updated each week by whoever's in charge of the program. I don't know much about programming actual apps, but this was pretty simple!

I'm interested to see if it works on Android too.

Re: App for sacrament meeting program.

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 11:14 am
by waynecooke
Tin man commented:
"Announcements can be made from the pulpit before the opening hymn. (See handbook 2 section 18.) But printed announcements on a half page can also be prepared in advance. "

As our Stake President has stated the policy that announcements were not to be given in Sacrament Meeting except for special ones, or additional ones that weren't on the printed bulletin, I went to the citation noted above. Actually it says that announcement "should" be printed, not "can also be prepared". And the words used in the instructions are "essential announcements" "may" be given by the Bishopric.

So I guess that our Stake President was right on the money.

Also, the comment about not allowing youth the use the "mobile device" to access the Scriptures in class was a great thought, one I had never thought of. I am forwarding the thought to my Bishop and Stake President . Thank you "Jim" for the insight.