What's new in BibleCast

Share your themes and profiles as files — send a designed theme or a full setup to another Mac or another operator, with the background images, videos, and fonts bundled in.

• ▸Theme & profile sharing — export any custom theme or profile to a file and import it on another Mac. Backgrounds, videos, and fonts travel with it, so it looks identical wherever you open it. Import several at once; a bad file is skipped without stopping the rest.
• ▸Spot what you imported — after an import the theme list scrolls to and briefly highlights the new item, so you can find it immediately.
• ▸Sharper backgrounds — background images now stay crisp on large screens and LED walls.
• ▸Smoother go-live for video themes, and a cleaner output edge (removed a faint window shadow).
• ▸Reliability polish — tooltips no longer linger after opening a file dialog, removing a theme’s image resets its background to black, and fonts refresh correctly when you toggle italics.

Video backgrounds for the congregation screen — project verses over a looping motion background (or a still image), with a one-slider overlay that keeps the text readable.

• ▸Video backgrounds — choose a looping video as your audience background and show verses over gentle motion. It plays muted and loops seamlessly, and is designed to stay smooth on older Macs.
• ▸Readability overlay — darken or tint any image or video background with a single strength slider, so white verse text stays crisp over bright footage without re-editing the clip.
• ▸Live preview & thumbnails — the theme editor shows the real video (and your overlay) behind the verse as you set it up, and each theme in the list shows a thumbnail of its background.
• ▸Polish — the verse-list header no longer shifts as the Browse button and jump-to-live chip appear and disappear.

A correctness fix for translations that omit certain verses, plus a leaner install that ships with one translation and lets you add the rest in seconds.

• ▸Fixed the verse that goes live in translations with omitted verses — some translations (e.g. ESV, NIV, NKJV) leave gaps where a verse number is skipped. Projecting, and stepping with Prev/Next or the arrow keys, now always lands on the exact verse you selected instead of the next one.
• ▸Lighter install — BibleCast now ships with the King James Version only. Add the Romanian VDCC (Cornilescu Corectată), VDC, BTF and dozens of other translations in seconds from the built-in Translations Manager, online or by sideloading a file.
• ▸Polish — the Remote Control dialog footer now has its divider line, matching the other dialogs.

Drive your projection from a phone or tablet. Enable Remote Control, scan a QR code, and operate BibleCast from anywhere in the room over your local Wi-Fi — browse and project verses, go live, move through the passage, and switch translations.

• ▸Phone & tablet remote control — scan the QR code with any phone or tablet on the same Wi-Fi and a clean web remote lets you browse books, chapters and verses, project a verse (Show/Hide), step to the next or previous one, jump back to what is live, and switch translations.
• ▸Matches your app automatically — the remote follows BibleCast’s dark/light theme and language, and renders Hebrew, Arabic and other right-to-left references and text in the correct direction and order.
• ▸Reliable pairing — once enabled, a paired device reconnects on its own after the app or the Mac restarts, so there is no rescanning mid-service. A small badge on the toolbar shows when a device is connected, and you can regenerate the link at any time to revoke old devices.
• ▸Built for live use — large tap targets, an adjustable text size, “Add to Home Screen” for a full-screen app feel, the screen stays awake while you operate, and a clear prompt if it ever loses the connection.
• ▸Private by design — everything stays on your local network; the link is gated by a unique pairing token and is never exposed to the internet.

The biggest release yet for multilingual churches: show two or three translations side by side, present Hebrew, Greek, and other non-Latin scripts correctly, and let verse text size itself to fill any screen automatically.

• ▸Multiple translations on screen — show two or three translations at once, stacked or in columns, for bilingual congregations or study. The main translation stays selected, spacing stays even, and each verse block keeps a consistent height.
• ▸Right-to-left & non-Latin languages — references and verses in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and other scripts now read in the correct direction and order, search matches with or without diacritics and Hebrew vowel points, and matched words highlight correctly across scripts.
• ▸Verse text fits the screen automatically — text is sized by wrapping real words the way they will actually appear, measured per font and script, so verses fill the available space and stay as large and legible as possible.
• ▸Poetry reads naturally — verses with poetic line breaks (Psalms, prophets) now flow as prose with proper spacing instead of running words together, matching BibleShow and projecting larger and more legibly.
• ▸Smoother Bible browser — scrolling glides within a chapter to keep your place, snaps instantly when you jump across chapters or books, and chapter changes and the touch browser fade gently instead of jumping.
• ▸Quicker reference editing — the Reference field selects its text when you focus it (with ⌘F, F5, or a second Esc), so you can just start typing to replace it; an out-of-range chapter or verse now selects the book you typed.
• ▸Refined panel headers — section headers across the app share a consistent title style and action buttons.
• ▸Fixes — the book list no longer highlights one entry behind, the touch browser now follows along when you change chapters with the arrows, and a verse-list flicker after using the browser is gone.

Major presentation upgrades: the Bible browser now follows your live verse as you advance it, the Program list moves next to History with a much smoother drag-and-drop, switching the output screen works mid-service, and search shows you exactly why each verse matched.

• ▸Live verse following — as you advance with Next / Prev, the Bible browser scrolls to keep the live verse in view, but only while you are watching live, so scrolling ahead to scout is never interrupted.
• ▸Program, redesigned — the Program list now sits beside History in the right panel (F7 / ⌘⇧P; History on F8 / ⌘⇧H). Drag-and-drop is overhauled: the list auto-scrolls when you drag a row to the top or bottom edge so you can reorder across a long plan, the numbers preview the new order as you drag, and reordering is smoother throughout.
• ▸Outputs preview drawer — a pull-down drawer shows live thumbnails of every active output without leaving your work (⌘⇧O).
• ▸Multi-display fixes — changing or clearing the presentation screen while live now reroutes the output to the correct screen, with no more black or stuck screens.
• ▸Search shows the match — results now show a snippet around the matched word, so you can see at a glance why each verse matched instead of a clipped opening line.
• ▸Theme Customize — a one-click "Customize" button makes an editable copy of any theme to tweak.
• ▸Clearer resizable panels — the panel dividers now show grip handles, so it is obvious you can drag them to resize.
• ▸Smoother, calmer interface — dialogs open and close with a gentle fade, tooltips and shadows are refined, the Reference field sits inline with its View button, and assorted panel layout and aspect-ratio details were tightened up.
• ▸Fixes — a reference-field focus trap that could swallow the Enter-to-go-live shortcut, search-result highlighting, and window-resize smoothness.

The biggest update yet: build a service plan with the new Program playlist, browse by touch with the Book → Chapter → Verse picker, and key verse text over live video with transparent backgrounds.

• ▸Program — assemble an ordered list of verses for a service or sermon, reorder them by dragging, step through them live, and save or load plans to a file. Open it with F7 (or ⌘⇧P).
• ▸Touch browser — a big-button Book → Chapter → Verse picker built for touchscreens, color-coded by section, with quick translation switching and an "All verses" shortcut. Open it with the Browse button, ⌘B, or Esc.
• ▸Transparent theme background — a new "None" background option lets you play a video or motion loop in ProPresenter, OBS, or any video mixer and have BibleCast composite only the verse text on top — no chroma key, no green screen.
• ▸Deuterocanonical books — translations that include the Apocrypha / Deuterocanonical books now carry them through, and book abbreviations are recognized throughout the app.
• ▸Smarter reference field — typing just a book name ("ps") and pressing Enter jumps straight to that book; the matched book and hint now re-validate when you switch translations.
• ▸Faster, calmer lists — verse, book, translation, search, history, and program rows highlight on hover; search now shows the full result set instead of the first ten; large chapters like Psalm 119 mount instantly.
• ▸New shortcuts — F7 / ⌘⇧P open the Program panel; ⌘B opens the touch browser.
• ▸Crash recovery — if the interface hits a snag, a "Reload UI" option preserves your state; a second issue offers a clean interface reset that keeps your profiles, themes, programs, and installed translations.

Hotfix: the Translations Manager now shows language names ("Greek", "Armenian", "Hungarian"…) instead of bare ISO codes.

• ▸Translations Manager: language dropdown shows "Greek", "Armenian", "Hebrew", "German", "French", "Italian", "Hungarian", "Ukrainian" instead of EL/HY/HE/DE/FR/IT/HU/UK in 1.0.8.
• ▸Language ordering reshuffled to put Romanian first and the major diaspora languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Russian) above the others.

30 new Bible translations available to install from the Translations Manager — covering English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, and more Romanian options.

• ▸New Romanian translations: NTR (Noua Traducere Românească 2021), EDCR (Cornilescu Revizuită 2022), GBV, Bartolomeu Anania, Sinodală Ortodoxă, Romano-Catolică, Centenară Cornilescu — install any from Settings → Translations.
• ▸New English translations: ESV, NIV, NKJV, NASB, NLT, ASV — covering the major versions in current use.
• ▸Other languages: Spanish (Reina-Valera 1960, NVI), French (Segond 1910, Segond 21), German (Luther 2017, Schlachter 2000), Italian (Nuova Riveduta, La Nuova Diodati), Hungarian (Károli Revideált), Russian (Synodal, NRT), Ukrainian (Ohienko), Armenian Ararat, Septuagint, Textus Receptus, Biblia Hebraica.
• ▸Internal: bundled KJV and VDCC translations now preserve red-letter metadata (Jesus's words) and italicized translator-added words. No UI for displaying them yet — capturing the data now so future styling options don't require re-downloading the modules.

Crash recovery: BibleCast self-heals if the settings database is corrupted mid-session.

• ▸Settings database self-heals — if the on-disk settings file becomes corrupted while the app is running (disk full, partial write, external interference), BibleCast now repairs it automatically instead of failing every subsequent save until you restart.
• ▸Internal: crash reports now include the correct app version so we can tell which build an issue came from.

Hotfix: broadcasts no longer come up live to receivers on app launch.

• ▸Output state no longer persists across launches — closing the app while Broadcast or NDI outputs were live used to restore them as live on next launch, going live to receivers before the operator was ready. The app now always starts with every output hidden.

Polish release: in-app update checks, friendlier NDI guidance, consistent Romanian role labels, and a hardened broadcast-resolution pipeline.

• ▸Check for updates — the Help menu in the top toolbar now opens Sparkle's standard update flow on demand, so you no longer have to wait for the periodic background check. The version label next to it reads the real bundle version.
• ▸Reference example follows the translation — the reference field placeholder now uses a book name from the active Bible. With KJV selected the example reads "e.g. john 3:16"; with VDCC it reads "ex. ioan 3:16". No more language mismatch when the UI is in one language and the Bible is in another.
• ▸Consistent Romanian role labels — the bottom output chips now say "Transmisie" instead of "Difuzare", matching Display Settings so the same role has one name everywhere.
• ▸NDI broadcast resolution hardened — soft warning shown for any sub-720p value (with options to fix, ignore, or open docs); hard floor at 320px to block useless values; invalid persisted resolutions are clamped on load instead of crashing the renderer.
• ▸Friendlier firewall guidance — "Open Firewall Settings" now looks like a button; when macOS can't open the panel directly, the full System Settings breadcrumb is shown so you can navigate by hand.
• ▸Outputs drawer fits more setups — wide rows now scroll horizontally, the thumbnail-width cap is gone, and the drawer height is relative to the window so it stays usable on small displays.
• ▸Performance — the checkerboard background behind transparent broadcast previews no longer freezes the app on dense grids; a single SVG pattern replaces hundreds of nested views.
• ▸App icon in the top toolbar — a small BibleCast mark anchors the toolbar without the previous wordmark/titlebar/menu-bar triple.

Bug-fix and polish release. Bundled Bible modules now seed reliably on first launch; the Translations Manager handles uninstall, sideloading, and invalid-module diagnostics.

• ▸Bundled modules — KJV 1769 and VDCC 2016 are now correctly embedded in the .app bundle and seed into Application Support on first launch.
• ▸Translations Manager — install modules from inside the app over the internet, sideload module files from a USB stick, or uninstall modules you no longer need. Invalid modules now surface as a clear warning instead of a silent failure.
• ▸Catalog redesign — Bible-module catalog ships from Cloudflare R2 (modules.biblecast.app), with manifest-driven discovery and SHA-256 verification on every download.
• ▸Dock-icon reopen — clicking the dock icon after closing the main window now reopens it cleanly instead of crashing.
• ▸First-launch locale defaults to English to match macOS region defaults; switch to Romanian (or any other) from the top toolbar.

The first public release. Native macOS, BibleShow-compatible workflow, multi-display roles, NDI broadcast, and a focused theme + layout editor.

• ▸Native macOS app — runs on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs (Big Sur and later).
• ▸BibleShow-compatible keyboard shortcuts — operators experienced with BibleShow feel at home day one.
• ▸Multi-display roles — Audience, Stage, and two Broadcast outputs, each with its own theme, layout, and resolution.
• ▸NDI broadcast — clean feed to OBS, vMix, or any NDI receiver on the network. No capture card, no shared-screen tricks.
• ▸Theme and layout editor — drag containers, snap to guides, restyle text. Lower-third bands for broadcast outputs.
• ▸Profiles — capture an entire setup (themes, layouts, screen assignments, UI preferences) and switch between configurations in a click. Export and import between machines.
• ▸Compact installer — two translations bundled (KJV 1769 and VDCC 2016) so the app is usable from the first launch.
• ▸Translations Manager — install more translations from inside the app with one click, or sideload module files from a USB drive when there is no internet. Public-domain and copyrighted translations are clearly labeled with their rightsholders.
• ▸Bilingual interface — full English and Romanian, with accent-insensitive Romanian search.
• ▸Light and dark UI modes with three text-size scales.
• ▸Privacy-friendly — everything stays on your Mac. Opt-out crash reporting (Sentry, EU servers); no analytics; no account.