TitleDriver  users

support and feedback site

Use the links above to view the various chapters of TitleDriver's documentation.

View the   Table of contents

You may also use the search function via the magnifying glass icon at the upper right.

  _________________________________________________________________________________________   

Installation problems, or unable to launch the application?  –Click here

 _________________________________________________________________________________________   

Update list:

Upcoming 2025:

–The Recent Files menu items are now automatically numbered and can be quickly opened using the Command key/number combination shown in the menu. This allows quick switching among several recent files, for example during a sequence of speeches where fast recall of various separate data files is required. 

Note that the numbers associated with recently opened files will change as files are opened and saved, but during your performance session the numbers will remain assigned as long as you are not editing and saving files.


–The "keep alive" timer is now set to just under two minutes (see note in 4.7.0, below)


TitleDriver 4.7.0, December 2024:

–Internet broadcast users who have long pauses during their performances were seeing audience screens timeout and go to sleep. There is now a "keep alive" timer that sends a blank slide every two minutes while there is no text on screen.

–There is now a Preview tab in the Operator’s window, as an alternative to having to place the separate Preview window somewhere on your main screen.

–There is an issue that is preventing modification of certain Settings fields if TitleDriver is running while the computer is not connected to a network. Until this is corrected:  just have WiFi on, even if not connected to a network.

–By default, a display window not locked to a video output will be placed at the top of the built-in display (as on MacBooks). This way new users will have a visible Display window for demonstration when first using the application.



TitleDriver 4.6.12 October 20, 2024:

Preparing standard libretto text: There is now a function in the Edit menu of the Import Text window which automates a few tedious tasks for those converting English libretto text into supertitles.

Traditionally, GIlbert & Sullivan light opera companies will display their supertitles in longer form, up to five lines of text. The new preperatory function works with text that has been pasted into the Import Text area and removes capitalized character names and formatting (indentations etc.) and delivers prepared text that has asterisks inserted for line breaks. It will still be necessary to edit out stage directions and formatting anomalies, but this function should give you a good head start on the task. See Import window's Edit menu >Prepare standard libretto text command.


–Pictures (JPEG images): there is now a field in TitleDriver Settings > Utilities that allows you to specify where you want to store pictures referenced in your show files. Click the "Browse" button to select your pictures folder.

–There is now a reminder to save your data file when trying to create a report immediately after the import process (instead of the operation failing).


TitleDriver 4.6.11, July 28, 2024:

Display window not appearing at launch when "Lock to display..." checkbox is set is fixed.

Display setup: Center hashmark and text outline should be correct in all contexts now.


TitleDriver 4.6.9:

–By far the most problematic function that TitleDriver has to do is ingesting text from any word processor. Generally when a problem importing text arises it is often with rich text (that is text with font and styles included in the data)  and converting to plain-text format will solve most problems. But I've just encountered a new glitch while importing plain-text from Google Docs that needed to be addressed. Going forward, when one of these errors occurrs during the Import process, you will hear a beep; but the function will not stop, and the remaining text will be imported. In my testing, these errors only resulted in the addition of a blank slide, which you will then want to remove.

–When working in cells directly, you may now paste multiple lines of text that overwrite existing text (if any) rather than always inserting new titles. This requires that you hold down the Shift key when you press the Return key after pasting. As before, when you paste multiple lines of text the cell may look strange or empty, so don't be alarmed. Also a reminder that operations involving multiple lines of text cannot be undone, so always have a copy of your data file in reserve that you can fall back to.

–The text edit field (in the Edit Text & Format tab) may appear in the wrong font. There are a couple of ways this is happening, but note that any title behaving this way will appear in the Display & Preview windows correctly, and the font will be corrected when you make any edit.

–Launching without a specified video output device being connected will no longer prevent the app from opening correctly.


TitleDriver 4.6.8:

-The File Open operation has been updated to better handle cases where file data has been altered or corrupted in some way.  TitleDriver will now allow you to view whatever data is recovered during a File Open error.

–File Open and Save operations:  progress bar is more accurate (it wasn't showing progress at all previously).

–When using a hotspot to connect to the internet and broadcast title data,  there was a timing issue that caused some outgoing messages to be dropped. That issue has been addressed.

–Improved error messaging for internet connectivity problems.


TitleDriver 4.6.7:

–The Import Text function has been reworked, both for plain-text and for Rich Text (RTF) aka styled text. This has been problematic for some time because different word processing apps use different implementations of RTF. Currently working with MacOS Pages and TextEdit, it seems to recognize line breaks better now.

-A rare combination of events may result in the corruption of TitleDriver's settings (Preferences) file. So there is now code to create a backup of your settings at launch, which exists to replace a corrupted Preferences file in this situation. In your User Library/Preferences folder: going forward you should see "TitleDriver Preferences" and "TitleDriver Preferences backup." In case of emergency, you would trash the current file and rename the backup, removing the word "backup" and its preceding space.

–You may now obtain a link URL for downloading the current version of TitleDriver via the new command in the Help menu.

-Cancel Quit works again

-Opening a file from the recent files menu would for some reason show the Import Text window. That has been addressed.


TitleDriver 4.6.6:

–Annoying behavior where the selected title gets unselected after a few seconds, and will also interrupt the edit process, has been addressed. ***NOTE: If you don't need Online>Local broadcast you can disable it and avoid this behavior in previous versions.

–Missing user feedback on File >Save TitleDriver data file command has been restored.

–Preview window now allows you to shrink it down much smaller, and still see an accurate representation of what will appear on screen (line-wraps were wonky previously). Preview text size is no longer locked to its Display Window's text size, and so the Preview text size may vary from title to title.

–Improvements to Language window (auto-localization)


TitleDriver 4.6.5:

–Changed behavior of Display Window when an external video output device is not connected (window size settings are honored and no longer overwritten).

–Fixed the omission of a fade-down command on double-cut hotkeys being sent to Online clients via pusher.


TitleDriver 4.6.4:

–More fixes and tweaks of the TitleDriver Online local server.


TitleDriver 4.6.1:

–In our first actual use case,  we are using both methods of broadcasting title text simultaneously, and so it has become desireable to have the ability to select a different (separate) network interface for the TitleDriver Online local network. See Settings > Online >Local tab

TitleDriver Online Local server will use port 8080 going forward. And as a reminder: you will see the IP address that your clients will need to connect to in the Settings > Online > Local tab. For example "10.0.0.7:8080" is an  IP address and port designation.

–The HTML web page that the server uses has been updated to better implement "shrink to fit." In order to optimize the size of text for small screens, the defaul text size is fairly large and for longer titles it is reduced slightly. Depending on the client's browser and view settings, line wrapping may still occur (in places you haven't desginated) for longer titles.

–The documentation for the new TitleDriver Online Local server has been updated to reflect a limit of 255 concurrent connections. While we do plan to increase that limit in future updates, it's also likely that your WiFi system will itself have a limit of fewer than 255 connections.

–Clients receiving TitleDriver Online via internet will now receive the correct fade-down times.


TitleDriver 4.6:

We have reworked TitleDriver broadcast via your local network. In the process of this major update, we will no longer use the term "LiveTitles" which is being used by another service.

Going forward,  TitleDriver Online will become a paid additional function, similar to the TitleDriver internet broadcast option. Subscriptions for the new TitleDriver Online server functionality will start at $60 per month, and will turn your multi-core Mac into a local server for (up to) about 250 clients.

–TitleDriver Online takes advantage of multi-core Mac CPUs that enable your TitleDriver computer to act as a server to an audience without the need for internet access. 

–There will be a  new receiver application going forward: TitleDriver Access (for MacOS and later for Windows) will provide access intended for client-owned devices (i.e.  provided to your audience by your company) that will offer the standard view of titles or the vision-impaired view that allows users to adjust all viewing parameters including text size, contrast, on-screen time, realtime translation, and synthetic speech.

–There is now an internet availability status dot in the Online settings page. 

–The asterisk (*) is now the mandatory new-line character, it is no longer a user preference.

–Left and Right justification (using the alignment format command) is now supported in Online clients. Other format commands such as BGcolor or LineHeight are not yet supported for Online clients.

–It is now possible to designate the space bar as a hotkey. The space character appears as "[sp]" in the table of Hotkeys (in Settings)  and also  in the Status window.

–Dark mode now needs to be invoked from the MacOS System Appearance command. Invoking dark mode in TitleDriver only is no longer an option.


Version 4.5.8:    

A bug has been addressed that occurs while editing when a user clicks on the bottom-most line of the titles listbox, in cases where that line is not completely showing (due to the window size): the wrong title can be selected for editing. 

The Import Window's line spacing has been increased to make it easier to compare text to be imported with existing text (when creating multi-language data files).


Version 4.5.7:

Fixes a problem with LiveTitles settings (primarily the pusher.com fields) not saving correctly.


Version 4.5.6:

Fixes a problem preventing text entry into the LiveTitles chanel names fields.


Version 4.5.5


Version 4.5.4 

•LiveTitles via Pusher.com has been expanded to enable up to four simultaneous user-configured channels. User-configured simply means you define each channel name and host each corresponding LiveTitles receiver page on your website.  A LiveTitles receiver client is not able to change the language (i.e. channel) on the fly. Clients must be directed to load the receiver page corresponding to their desired language.

•LiveTitles documentation has been updated. There is no longer a client/server LiveTitles web app. LiveTitles for web via pusher.com is the current internet broadcast method.


Version 4.5.3

•When pasting text into cells directly, multi-line pastes will always insert a new title for each line.


Version 4.5.2

•Fixed a problem in the Text Import window introduced in 4.5.0.

•New single-step renumber function, to assist complicated renumbering requirements.


February 2023: Version 4.5.1

TitleDriver now has a function to check for updates, and download an update when one is available. Checking for updates must be done manually, via the new command in the Help menu.


Version 4.4:  TitleDriver is now available in Universal Binary format. Native apps run more efficiently than translated apps because the compiler is able to optimize your code for the target architecture.  A universal binary runs natively on both Apple silicon and Intel-based Mac computers, because it contains executable code for both architectures.