Posted by universalis on 15 April 2013
In Universalis you will see selection switches at the top of the Mass readings for certain days. What these switches look like depend on where you are looking at Universalis: typically, on the downloaded versions, there will be a pale blue arrow at the top right of the page, which pops up a menu if you touch it or click on it.
These selection switches have subtly different meanings at different times.
Posted in Calendars, Liturgy | 4 Comments »
Posted by universalis on 3 April 2013
There isn’t a Universalis application on the Blackberry and there won’t be one. However, you can still read Universalis on the Blackberry if you want, by creating a Universalis e-book on your computer and then reading it on your Blackberry. Here is how to do it.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis, e-books | Comments Off on Kindle e-books on the Blackberry
Posted by universalis on 5 January 2013
The last post, The Christmas Calendars, described how the transition is made between the season of Christmas, which reckons time in days after Christmas, and Ordinary Time, which reckons it in weeks starting on a Sunday.
There are two options at this time: the religious and the commercial. The religious calendar celebrates the Epiphany on 6 January, so the transition from Christmas to weeks happens after the Epiphany season. The commercial calendar celebrates the Epiphany on the Sunday between 2 and 8 January, so the transition from Christmas to weeks happens before the Epiphany season. The last post had a couple of elegant tables to show how it all works.
With adjustments to calendars come adjustments to liturgies. 6 January (when not the Epiphany) and 7 January (before the Epiphany) are days that are not part of the religious calendar, and yet they need to have a liturgy. The last post described how these liturgies were put together.
That is how things work in the whole world, both in the original Latin and in English translation. However, the American translation is different, and wrong.
Posted in Calendars, Liturgy | Comments Off on The American Christmas bug
Posted by universalis on 4 January 2013
At some point the Christmas season has to end and we have to get back to normal life. Liturgically this means that we have to finish the twelve days of Christmas, celebrate the Epiphany, and get back to normal life. Since “normal life” means starting the week on a Sunday, and since Christmas Day is on different days of the week in different years, this inevitably means an awkward splice.
This post describes how it all works in the context of the Liturgy of the Hours.
Posted in Calendars, Liturgy | Comments Off on The Christmas calendars
Posted by universalis on 18 December 2012
Whatever your toy, you can probably get Universalis on it.
iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone: you can buy the app.
Android tablets and phones: you can buy the app.
E-book readers: you can create e-books for yourself. Eventually you’ll need to buy a registration code but you can try it out for a month or so first.
Amazon Kindle – it depends what kind of Kindle:
All the things I’ve mentioned here are single purchases that last for ever. They don’t need any kind of subscription.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis, e-books | 1 Comment »
Posted by universalis on 18 December 2012
People quite often ask us how to give Universalis as a present. So here is a brief explanation.
Apps and programs
The Universalis apps for iOS (iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch) and Android cost £9.99. To give an app as a gift, visit the App Store or Google Play or Amazon and check the relevant store for details of how to give an app as a gift. Your gift will, of course, only work on iOS or Android, whichever you purchase it for.
The Universalis programs for the Mac and Windows use a Universalis registration code, which costs £19.99 (and also gives free access to the iOS and Android versions so that they don’t have to be bought separately). You can buy a registration code here. After you’ve made the purchase, please send us an email to tell us who the recipient is, so that we can update our database accordingly. Then send the registration code to your friend, who can download and install the Universalis program and then use the registration code to activate it.
E-books
A lot of people are getting (or giving) e-book readers this Christmas.
An e-book is just like a paper book, only with bytes. It begins at the beginning, it is divided into chapters, it goes on to the end, and it stops. Universalis is more than this, because it goes on for ever, with every day different from the one before. There is no way to squeeze infinitely many chapters into an e-book.
So here is how we do it (after a trial period): you buy a registration code for £19.99 and you create your own e-books, free. Each e-book covers a certain period (a month and a year are the most popular), and when that period is over you throw the e-book away and make yourself a new one. It doesn’t cost anything. You can read all about Universalis e-books here.
How does this work with gifts? There are two main ways.
Just remember that Universalis e-books are for private use by the owner. They aren’t meant to be copied and shared out, any more than ordinary books or e-books are. So if you are using Universalis yourself and you are also creating e-books for two retired priest friends of yours, please make sure you have bought three registration codes, not one. We don’t insist that you keep on switching codes depending on whose e-book you are creating, but it’s important to keep the overall numbers right all the same.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis, e-books | Comments Off on Giving Universalis for Christmas
Posted by universalis on 18 December 2012
To get a Universalis e-book, you open the Universalis program on your computer and ask it to make the e-book you want.
This is quite straightforward, but it does mean installing software, and some people find that process confusing. So we’re happy to announce that you can now create Kindle e-books on our web site without needing to download and install a program. Amazon will deliver your e-book wirelessly straight onto your Kindle.
Posted in e-books | Comments Off on New online Kindle e-book service
Posted by universalis on 18 December 2012
The Mass Today page in Universalis combines the Order of Mass with the readings and prayers for the day. So far, it has only been available in the Universalis downloads. Now we are happy to announce that it is available in e-books as well.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis, e-books | Comments Off on New Mass Today page in e-books
Posted by universalis on 22 October 2012
A version of the Catholic Calendar application is now available for phones and tablets running Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above. It includes the full Universalis content for the whole of 2012. Please download it, try it out, and let us know what you think.
The app is available on Google Play. Because it contains the whole of Universalis for 2012, we’ve called it “Universalis 2012” rather than just “Catholic Calendar”.
We will soon make the application available through the Amazon Appstore.
We will not be supporting versions of Android before 4.0.
We will release the paid-for Universalis app for Android before the end of 2012.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis | 14 Comments »
Posted by universalis on 5 October 2012
The last post described how to change the colour of the rubrics in Word.
Here is a much less intellectual way of changing the colour of the rubrics. I find it rather more fiddly, because of Word’s awkward user interface for searching and replacing. All the same, it provides a general answer to the question “How do I change the colour of all text that is not black?”. The basic technique will also work in word processors other than Word.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Electric Prayer 