How to Manage the Homepage – Basic Instructions for Praying the Rosary

In this video, we will explain the main functions of this app.

To start, the Welcome screen appears with the current day and the corresponding Mystery which can also be found on the homepage (for phones with small screens in portrait orientation there will be no date in the homepage, due to a lack of space).

Let’s now take a general look at the homepage:

⁃ We have the Mysteries (with biblical image and text),

⁃ The date and the Mysteries of the day,

⁃ Some buttons that we will explain soon,

⁃ A label that always informs us of precisely where we are in our Rosary,

⁃ The individual Hail Marys to be prayed, characterized by their own image.

If we click on the play button, the Rosary begins and Hail Marys move automatically, giving a very real sense of the movement of the fingers on Rosary beads.

Clicking on the pause button pauses the Rosary.

One of the functions that makes this Rosary very flexible is the option of positioning yourself, with great precision, at any point in the Rosary, at a precise ‘Hail Mary,’ starting the recitation from that point (I am thinking of someone who has been interrupted while praying and wishes to start over from the exact point where they stopped). Let’s try to position ourselves in the third Mystery at the third Hail Mary.

⁃ Another function that makes this app very realistic [life-like may be a better word here] is the ability to alternate the recitation of the Rosary by setting the voice in the app to say the first part of the prayer and then remain silent to allow us to respond. With this button, the function is activated and as you can see the icon changes. Let’s try to start the Rosary… as you can see it remains silent in the second part. If we click again, the app returns to default mode and the voice will say the entire prayer.

⁃ Another important aid for prayer is the ability to always keep the app in the forefront of the screen; this gives those who pray the opportunity to meditate on the Mystery of the Rosary with the help of biblical imagery and text. With this button, you keep the app in the forefront (note the small padlock indicates that it is active).

At this point, we can expect to see two features, which are on the preferences screen which help us in daily prayer. We will explain these in detail when we talk about this screen.

⁃ The first is Manual Mode. With this option you can choose the Mystery you want to pray, disconnecting yourself from what is given for that day. This is particularly useful for those who have not been able to say the Rosary before midnight and want to recover the lost Mystery. As you can see, if Manual Mode is activated, a list appears where you can choose the desired Mystery and the Rosary is immediately updated to the chosen Mystery texts, images, and audio. When you return to Automatic Mode, the Mystery of the day is presented again.

⁃ The second function is to add background music to the voice, which makes the recitation of the Rosary even more engaging. Music can be very helpful when praying, here you have the option to choose from the default songs in the app or add your own music. We will analyze this section better in a separate video. For now, let’s just say that it is possible to choose and play background music as an accompaniment to prayer.  Note that you can choose the volume of the background music and that this volume will be saved in the app for each piece of music (you may have pieces of music recorded at different volumes) so there is no need to update it with each change of song. This is especially useful, we will see, when listening in playlist mode.

⁃ The button with the icon of a person speaking opens a menu where you can choose the voice with which you want to pray. But we will explain this better in the tutorial dedicated to vocal recordings.

How to Manage Images

One feature that makes this app unique is the ability to manage the images within it. The images of the Mysteries, the images of the Our Father, Hail Mary, etc. Each image is customizable. A set of default images is provided; however, personal images may also be put in place of the default ones for each element that makes up the Rosary.

Let’s look at how to do this now.

First, let’s go to the images section by clicking on the button with the photo icon. Once in the images section, there are only the default images. These can be rearranged by dragging them to a different position. As you can see, there are three possible choices for the elements of the Rosary, and you can choose whichever you prefer. For example, if you want to change the image of the Our Father with another one of those options, proceed as so … click on the image, choose where you want to insert it in the menu that appears below and click OK to the screen that tells us what will be changed. If we go to see the image of the Our Father of the Rosary, it has changed.

But this is only the beginning. You can also upload personal images. This may be helpful if you have a particular image of Our Lady that you’re attached to, or an image of a loved one with whom you want to be particularly united in prayer (you will see in the video on voice recordings that you can combine the image and voice of a loved one, making your experience of the Rosary much more intimate and tangible).

To add a personal image, click on the menu icon to the right of the bar regarding images and click Add. This will open the photos folder on your device. Select the desired one and, after being compressed, it will appear in the part dedicated to personal images.

Photos can also be organized by dragging the photo.

At this point, to insert your image in the element of the chosen Rosary, simply repeat the procedure we mentioned earlier. Let’s try…

If we see, in this case, we have replaced the image of the Our Father, we will find that the Rosary has changed according to our preferences.

It can also be done for the Hail Mary, let’s try … and we have the same result.

If you remember in the menu where we chose Add, below we have a button with the image of the camera. This button allows you to upload an image directly by taking a photo on your device. In this case you don’t go from the photo gallery, but go from the snapshot you just took to the app.

Finally, if you want to delete a personal image (the default images cannot be deleted), click on the third item on the Delete menu. By clicking the images, they will begin to move (i.e. you will be in delete mode) and a small red circle will appear on the upper right corner of the images with a white cross inside, by clicking on this cross, the image, after you click on the confirm request, will be deleted.

To exit the ‘delete’ mode, re-click on the Delete menu item.

There is a shortcut to speed up entry and exit from ‘delete’ mode: double-click on the images. With this action, you enter and exit the delete mode quickly.

Of course, what we have said about the Addition and removal of images applies only to personal images.

How to Record New Voices

In this video, we explain how to record new voices. This function is what makes this Rosary truly special, both because there are no language limits, and you can pray with the voices of your loved ones, feeling a particular closeness to them.

Let’s see how a new voice can be recorded.

From the homepage, you can access the recording screen by clicking on the button with the red circle that recalls the recording.

First, you need to create a voice. To do this, enter a name in the text field and press the ‘save’ button. As you can see, the item will appear in the list below. Note that you cannot create entries with the same name, or with system names (e.g., “Default”). Once the voice name is created, you can record the prayers. Pressing the Rec key opens the recording space. As you can see, there is the button that starts recording, the button that allows you to listen to the recording to check if it was done correctly, and the button to delete the recording, if necessary. Note that if you start a new recording, any existing recording will be deleted and overwritten. Beyond these buttons, there are the navigation buttons to move between the various elements to be recorded. If you want to proceed sequentially, the two arrow-shaped buttons next to the name of the element to be recorded are very convenient. With these, you may proceed to the next or turn back to the previous one. If, on the other hand, you want to go to a specific element, not necessarily following the selected one, it is more convenient to use the button with the list symbol that opens a menu at the bottom where you can quickly go to the desired item.

Note that if you want to proceed with the recording, an item must be selected (which appears above the name of the item. To select it, click on the item at the bottom of the list. select the item you want to record; you can proceed to record this item by pressing the Rec key. It is advisable to hold the phone close to your mouth and allow a very short time to pass both before and after the recording. Should there be long pauses, the Rosary will not run smoothly. In any case, after one or two attempts, you’ll figure out how long you’d like the recording to be. As you can see, the prayers of the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be are divided into two parts. This allows you to use the alternating recitation function which we talked about in the video on the home page. So, in Our Father 1 the first half of the Our Father is recorded, and the second half in Our Father 2, and so on and so forth for all prayers you decide to record.

Once an item is saved, the number next to the corresponding item in the list at the bottom increases. When all items are recorded, a tick appears confirming completion. You may also decide to record some elements and let the other elements be recited by the default voice.

It may seem like a long process but after a few tries you will realize that it is very quick, about ten minutes (since only one Our Father, one Hail Mary, one Glory Be and one Oh, my Jesus, need be recorded.)

Now that we’ve seen the process of recording a voice, let’s look at how they can be managed. In the lower part of the screen, we have the list of items. Each item has a menu on the left that allows you to access various operations:

⁃ The name of the item can be changed using the ‘Edit’ key.

⁃ With the Arrange button, a list opens in which we can move the various items to the desired position by dragging.

⁃ With the Export button, you can export the item and pass it to another device of yours or a friends.

⁃ With the ‘delete entry’ button you delete the entry

Note that the Edit and Delete functions can also be accessed by swiping the item: to the right to edit, to the left to delete.

The last button is the one located in the item bar on the left that allows you to import an item. By pressing this button, a window appears at the top where you must enter the name you want to give to the item to be imported, and by pressing the save button you can access the files of your device where you can select the item you want to import. After waiting for the files to be imported, you will see the imported item appear in the list below, with the name we have chosen, ready to use.

The last thing to see is how to select the voice to be able to hear it in the Rosary. To do this, go back to the Home page and press the ‘Voice’ button. A menu will appear at the bottom where you can select the desired item. From this moment, the Rosary will proceed with the chosen voice.

A Look at the Settings Screen

In this screen, we have the option to set various preferences that demonstrate the flexibility of this app.

First, you can set the Manual Mode which, as we said in the video dedicated to the homepage, allows us to remove the Mysteries displayed for the current day. The default setting shows the Mystery corresponding to the current day, but if we set the Manual Mode, we can choose the Mystery we want. In practice, this feature can be useful if you wish to pray the Rosary if it is past midnight and, consequently, the app will show us the Mystery of the following day. By selecting Manual Mode, we can choose the Mystery we want. Or, if you want to recite more than one series of Mysteries a day, thanks to this feature, you can!

Then we have background music. By activating this option, music plays in the background of the voice that recites the Rosary, making the prayer more engaging. There is some default music, but, in keeping with the philosophy of this app, you can add your own music. To do so, simply open the menu by clicking on the icon that shows a list and click on “Add”. At this point, it is necessary to enter the name of the music file you are about to import and press the ‘Save’ button. The ‘files’ app on your device will open and you can choose whatever piece of music you desire to listen to. Once the music has been imported it will appear in the music window and will be ready to use. To choose the music you want to listen to, click next to the label that shows the music, then select and choose it from the menu that will appear below.

Another operation that can be performed with the background music is editing the name of the music if you wish to change it. To do this, click on the ‘Edit’ button in the menu we mentioned earlier. You can delete a piece of music that you no longer want to keep in the app or organize your various audio tracks.

This last function allows us to create Playlists. Usually, a piece of music lasts an average of 5 minutes, while the Rosary lasts much longer. To keep the background music playing throughout the Rosary there are two options:

⁃Listen to the selected track on a loop

⁃ Select ‘playlist mode’ and listen to the sequence of songs chosen from the music available in our app.

Let’s look at how to switch from a single loop to playlist mode. As you can see, next to the volume slider there is a button with a number ‘1’ in the middle and if you click on it, there is nothing in the centre. The first indicates that the single loop mode is active, the second that the playlist mode is active. Now if we have activated the playlist mode, the songs listed will be played one after the other and at the end of the list, you will return to the first song. However, you might not want all the songs to be played, but only some. To do this, you must enter the Organize mode, by clicking on the menu that we mentioned earlier under Organize. As you can see, a list opens where you can select the songs you want to listen to, and you can change the playback order by dragging the songs to the desired position. This gives us great listening flexibility.

The next option that you’ll find on the preferences page is to choose the colour theme of the Rosary or you may also choose to activate ‘dark mode’. To choose the various themes, simply click on the button with the ‘list’ icon and the usual menu will appear at the bottom where you can choose the desired colour theme.

We then have another function that enables a vibration when we reach certain points in the Rosary. One vibration in the first Hail Mary, two vibrations in the fifth Hail Mary, three vibrations in the tenth Hail Mary. This can be useful when we have the app in our pocket, and it updates us on where we are in our prayers.

Then there is the option to change the language of the app, both the texts and audio. Clicking on the button with the ‘list’ icon opens the menu where you can choose the desired language. The change is immediate and does not require a restart of the app.

The following functions enable and/or disable the ‘Hail, Holy Queen’, the litanies, ‘Oh My Jesus’ prayers or the number of Hail Marys in our Rosary, ensuring maximum flexibility for the user.

Finally, we have settings that allow you to save, recover or reinstall the various media and preferences of our app in case you change your device. It can be complicated and/or difficult to have to re-record voices, images or music that have been saved in the app over time. In some cases, it may even be impossible, for example the voice of a person who may no longer be with us.

With the save function, a ‘.zip’ file is loaded onto the device, which contains all our voices, images, music, and preferences. After clicking on the Save button it may be necessary to wait some time to allow the app to compress the various files. Once done, through the sharing window that opens, you can choose the place to save the .zip files to. Since there are so many cloud services, we prefer to leave the user choose their preferred service.

When you want to restore the contents, click on the restore button, look for the .zip file that was previously saved and click on it to restore all the data.

The last button concerns the restoration to the factory (initial) settings of the app. This may be necessary if something goes wrong and problems arise. For example, the .zip file with the backup should not be changed. Changing it can lead to problems that could only be solved by deleting and re-installing the app. Keep in mind that with this operation you will lose all media and personal preferences.