WordPress Sermon Manager is Being Updated with Podcasting Support

sermon-screenshot

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be completely re-writing the Sermon Manager plugin. The code is being improved and the features expanded.

Here’s a look at what is coming:

  • Cleaner interface
  • Easier file upload
  • Podcasting – you’ll be able to add your podcast feed to iTunes.
  • Better default layout – Making custom template files will only be needed if you want to make a custom layout.
  • Switching audio players for a better look

If there are features or improvements you want, now’s the time to let your voice be heard! What would you like to see?

34 comments

  1. Andrew

    What audio player are you planning to use?

    I’ve been using Sermon Browser (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sermon-browser/) on a number of client sites and like the fact that one can play the message without clicking through to another page—that functionality would be enough to make me switch to using your plugin especially since Sermon Browser has not been updated in over a year.

    I very much like the series function you have, as well as the fact that you use “pretty” permalinks, and am excited about the podcast feature. Keep up the good work!

    • Jack

      Thanks for the kind words, Andrew. For the sound player, I’m going to use: http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/. It is super lightweight and does exactly what I need – play audio across multiple devices. It will also be easy to add a small play button on the archive pages.

  2. Nicolas

    It can be great to have the ability to translate the plug in too. And my Church will like to get a page with all the series and their pict like http://marshill.com/media/sermons

    Thanks

    Nicolas

    • Jack

      Hi Nicolas,
      You can translate the plugin now! It’s fully localized. Thanks for the suggestion on the layout. If you are skilled at theme development, this can be done now as well. Sermon Manager provides everything you need. In the next theme I release in August, I’m going to showcase what can be done with various layouts for sermons.
      Thanks for your feedback!
      Jack

  3. Jian-Li

    Looking forward to the new release!
    Thank God for your coding.

    May His face shine upon you.

    • Jack

      Thanks, Jian-Li!

  4. Peter

    Hi Jack,

    First of all I just wanted to let you know how much your plug-n has blessed our socks off! It’s so obvious that you have taken such a tremendous amount of time to pour out your labor of love into this plugin and it has truly blessed our church.

    We’re moving our website to WordPress and we’re planning on launching it towards the end of July. We’ve already began to use sermon manager to upload our audio files but now we are thinking that if you are going to rewrite the plugin, then maybe we should wait until it is completely rewritten.

    1) May I please ask you when you expect to finish rewriting the plugin?
    2) Will the new Sermon Manager plug-in be backwards compatible with the one that’s currently available?

    Thanks so much Jack and blessings to WP for church :-)

    • Jack

      Thanks for the kind words, Peter! My goal is to be complete with the rewrite two weeks from today. Everything will be backwards compatible as well. The main differences will be adding features, improving the code, & changing the front-end display. If you are using a custom template, it may need to be changed slightly.

      With the new release will come full documentation in the knowledgebase (available free).

      Thanks for using the plugin & it encourages me to hear you find it useful!

      Jack

  5. justin bassett

    can’t wait until the new plug-in is ready to roll. We’ve used the current version a couple of times now and it’s been really nice.

    • Jack

      Thanks Justin! I’m glad to hear you’ve found it useful! What’s your biggest request for the next version?

      • justin bassett

        Podcasting for sure. Also, it would be nice (we’ve found a work around w/ custom fields i believe) to associate an image w/ either the individual sermon, the series of sermons, or both.

        For example, here’s a recent sermon gallery we did for a church using another plugin: http://theparadoxchurch.com/sermon/. We had to hack it up pretty bad to get it to do some of this stuff.

      • Jack

        Hi Justin,
        The current version already allows you to add images to individual sermons, speakers, and series. This is being greatly improved in the next version though!

        Thanks for the link. I plan on creating a theme next month that shows off some of the things like that which can be created with Sermon Manager.

      • justin bassett

        Thanks Jack. I’ll take a look.

  6. Steve

    Hi Justin,
    One question. Will the new plug in and player work on iphones/ipads? The problem I have is so many players require java and Apple doesn’t support it in OS. It would be great to have a sermon plug app which allows someone to listen or even see a video on whatever device they are on. Thanks for your good work on this project.
    Stee

    • Jack

      Hi Steve,
      It currently works for any iOS/Android device, but will look even better with the next version!
      Jack

  7. Jared

    Any chance the series page/description will be more format-able… ie more like a page/post. We are wanting to promote whole series over individual sermons and I would love to add more formatting options to the series page.

    Regardless, we just started using your plugin and love it. It is exactly what we were looking for in a sermon manager.

    • Jack

      Glad to hear that Jared! Thanks for your suggestion. Are you wanting the description field to have a visual editor?

      • Jared

        A visual editor would be perfect, But if not that then allow HTML or shortcodes or something.

    • Jack

      I looked into this a little last night & I’ll be able to add the visual editor to the update!

  8. northside

    Can’t wait for this Jack!! The only thing I ask if its like the current plug in, that when no audio is posted that the message say: “Audio will be added soon” instead of ” This text will be replaced”

    • Jack

      That’s a good idea. I’ll make a fallback in case no audio or video is added. That would enable others to use Sermon Manager to organize sermon transcripts/outlines as well.

  9. Jack

    Just a quick update on development. My original plan was to finish off the update last week; however, I didn’t take into consideration that last week was VBS at our church :-). So, I’m hoping to finish up by this weekend. Thanks for your feedback, everyone!

  10. Peter

    Thanks so much Jack for keeping us all updated. We are so excited for the launch. May the Lord repay you 1000-fold for your labor of love!

  11. Crawford

    Jack I’m very much looking forward to trying your plugin. I’ve just moved to using WP for churches (from another system) and this was one of the main reasons. Thanks for all your efforts.

    Crawford

    • Jack

      Thanks Crawford! No pressure on me now, right? :-)

  12. bridgecourt

    I just signed up for your 1 year membership. I don’t see how to get to the documentation for Sermon Manager.

  13. Crawford Paul

    I’m having trouble accessing the different areas of the site. I can’t get to video training or the forums. Even though it shows me logged in and I’ve paid it keeps asking me to join.

    Crawford

    • Jack

      I think the membership plugin was picking up your affiliate level instead of the premium user level. I removed your affiliate subscription so you shouldn’t have any problems now. You can still be an affiliate as well. :-)

      I’ll see if I can get to the bottom of this so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

      Thanks for pointing it out!
      Jack

  14. Chris Poteet

    Jack- thanks for your work. Sermon Browser is currently neglected so it got me looking at other opportunities. Is it possible for a widget that can display the current x number of sermons? I’d like to display on the home page? Sermon Browser actually has a very nice widget, but as mentioned the author is MIA.

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