Babel Praise Documentation

Platform Overview

Babel Praise is a next-generation church presentation platform engineered specifically for multilingual congregations and mission-critical live productions. Unlike legacy church software designed around single-language slides, Babel Praise natively aligns and synchronizes dual-language lyrics, interlinear scriptures, and stage monitors with sub-5ms WebSocket communication.

Web Cloud vs. Desktop Client

Babel Praise offers two seamless operational modalities designed to work hand-in-hand:

• Web Client (app.babelpraise.com): Ideal for worship leaders, translators, and pastors preparing during the week. Accessible in any modern browser without installation. All songs and playlists are stored in your church's isolated cloud workspace.
• Desktop Client (Windows, macOS, Linux): Built with Rust and Tauri for Sunday morning presentations. Communicates directly with HDMI projectors, handles multi-monitor display outputs, and embeds a local Axum server for 100% offline airgapped reliability.

Setting up Your Church Workspace

Each church operates within an isolated tenant workspace identified by a unique URL slug (e.g. app.babelpraise.com/calvary or app.babelpraise.com/budapest).

1. Visit app.babelpraise.com/register to create a workspace for your church.
2. Enter your church name, desired URL slug, administrator name, and password.
3. Upon registration, your workspace is created instantly with a dedicated SQLite database (babel.db) isolated from all other organizations.
4. Log in to your workspace using your administrator credentials.

Adding & Editing Songs

To add or edit songs, navigate to the Manager tab and click New Song (or click on any song in the Song Library and click Edit Song).

Song Structure

In Babel Praise, songs are structured into modular sections (Verses, Chorus, Bridge, Pre-Chorus, Outro, Tag). Each section contains individual lines with multilingual equivalents:

• Primary Language: Typically the language of your congregation's main service.
• Secondary Language: The simultaneous translation projected alongside or stacked.
• Schedule (Arrangement): The presentation sequence (e.g. Verse 1 → Chorus → Verse 2 → Chorus → Bridge → Chorus). You can drag and drop sections to rearrange the order without duplicating lyric lines.

Bilingual Lyrics & AI Assist

Babel Praise includes an intelligent AI assistant that takes raw lyrics pasted from TXT, CCLI SongSelect, or emails and automatically parses them into structured verses.

• Parse Raw Lyrics: Paste unstructured lyrics into the editor and click Format with AI. The system will detect verses, chorus breaks, and generate the schedule automatically.
• Automatic Translation Alignment: Need a German translation for an existing Hungarian hymn, or vice versa? Click Translate DE → HU or Translate HU → DE. The AI generates contextual worship lyrics aligned line-by-line for immediate review.

Playlists & Service Planning

The service playlist controls the order of worship during rehearsals and live services:

• Active Playlist Switcher: Easily switch between different services (e.g. Sunday Morning, Youth Night, Midweek Prayer) using the dropdown at the top of the Manager.
• Add Songs: Drag any song from the Song Library on the right and drop it into the Playlist card on the left.
• Liturgy & Section Breaks: Click + Section to add divider headers (e.g. Welcome & Prayer, Worship Set, Sermon Scripture, Offering).
• Reordering: Grab the drag handle of any song or section to change its position in real time.

Live Presentation Controls

During the service, the live control toolbar provides immediate feedback and safety controls:

• LIVE ON DISPLAY / STANDBY: Displays an unmistakable green status pill when the audience screen is live, and a grey indicator when on standby.
• Live Toggle: Click the broadcast tower button to instantly send the selected slide to the screens or take the display off air.
• Translation Toggle: Turn the secondary language on or off on the fly without interrupting the primary slide feed.
• 2-Line Dual Mode: Toggle compact 2-line mode for high-density slides or stage lower-thirds.

Keyboard Shortcuts Reference

Babel Praise is engineered for high-speed operation during live worship. The following shortcuts are active when presenting:

Multi-Screen Display Profiles

Babel Praise routes presentation feeds to multiple screens simultaneously, each with independent formatting, typography, and styling:

• Main Sanctuary Projector (/display/main): High-contrast center-aligned bilingual lyrics optimized for 16:9 or 4:3 church auditoriums.
• Stage Confidence Foldback (/display/stage): Inverted colors, high-legibility bold fonts, upcoming slide preview, and optional stage clock for vocalists and pastors.
• Livestream Lower-Thirds (/display/stream): Transparent background designed as a direct browser source in OBS Studio, vMix, or Wirecast.

Customizing Profiles

In the Displays menu, you can fine-tune:

• Font family, size, line-height, and character spacing.
• Primary vs secondary lyric colors, opacity, and text shadow blur.
• Vertical alignment (Top, Center, Bottom) and padding margins.
• Slide transition animations (Fade, Slide, Instant).

Interlinear Offline Bible (Scriptures)

Scripture search in Babel Praise is 100% offline and embedded directly inside the application binary. No internet connection is ever needed.

• Included Translations: King James Version (English) and Károli Gáspár Vizsolyi Biblia (Hungarian).
• Bilingual Scripture Projection: Verses are rendered side-by-side or stacked in both languages with matched verse numbers.
• Smart Search: Type references like John 3:16, Jn 3:16-18, 1Thess 5:16-18, or Ján 3:16 to pull passages instantly.
• Saved Passages (Bookmarks): Save sermon readings ahead of time as bookmarks for one-click projection during the sermon.

Airgapped Mode (Zero-Wi-Fi Resilience)

Church services cannot rely solely on the cloud. If venue internet buffers or church Wi-Fi fails, Babel Praise guarantees zero downtime.

1. All active playlists, referenced songs, display profiles, and scriptures are pulled into a local SQLite database on the laptop.
2. The desktop application runs its internal broadcast engine directly on your laptop to power your screens without any outside internet dependencies.
3. You can now safely disconnect the laptop from the internet entirely. Your HDMI projectors and local network displays will run smoothly with 100% offline reliability.

Team Members & Permissions

Babel Praise features role-based access control (RBAC) to ensure your church workspace remains organized and secure:

• Presenter: Can run live presentations, advance slides, toggle live status, and search scriptures. Cannot modify song libraries or delete playlists.
• Editor: Can manage the song library, format lyrics, create playlists, and import/export song bundles.
• Admin: Full administrative access, including church workspace settings, cloud backups, team invitations, and display profile styling.

Inviting Volunteers

Admins can click Team Management → Invite Member, select the desired role, and generate a secure single-use invitation link. The volunteer opens the link, sets their name and password, and immediately joins the church workspace.

Database Snapshots & Backups

Protecting your congregation's song collection and display profiles is a primary priority:

• Workspace Snapshots: Create an isolated point-in-time snapshot of your church's database in 1 click under Settings → Workspace Snapshots. Snapshots are securely sandboxed inside your tenant folder.
• Song ZIP Bundles: Export your entire song library as a portable ZIP archive containing individual human-readable YAML song files. You can import this bundle into any Babel Praise instance at any time.
• Cloud S3 / MinIO & FTP Sync: Automated offsite backup storage supporting AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, MinIO, and secure FTPS servers.