We sometimes get emails from the webmasters of parish pages asking if they can use Universalis texts in their pages. Here are three answers.
Mass Readings in your parish’s page
Posted by universalis on 30 August 2013
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Universalis on Facebook
Posted by universalis on 24 August 2013
There is now a Universalis page on Facebook.
Just like the Twitter feed, it has a new posting each day to tell you the saint or feast of the day.
If you “Like” the Facebook page, you’ll see the feast of the day appearing in your own Facebook news feed.
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“Updates will percolate”
Posted by universalis on 4 July 2013
I am always grateful when someone spots an error in Universalis and lets me know about it so that I can correct it. (Or to be precise, I am annoyed by the error and grateful to have it corrected).
This post is about what happens to corrections and when you will see them appear in Universalis.
Posted in Downloadable Universalis, The Universalis site | 1 Comment »
The hiccup in Ordinary Time
Posted by universalis on 17 May 2013
Someone has asked me why, after the four-week psalm cycle got to week I on Shrove Tuesday before it was interrupted by Lent and Eastertide, it now continues directly to week III. I thought that other people might have the question but not be asking it, so here is the answer.
Posted in Calendars | 2 Comments »
No selection switches in e-books
Posted by universalis on 2 May 2013
The Universalis downloads and apps have blue arrow buttons inside them which let you choose different options each day. See, for example, How the Selection Switches Work for Mass. (The web site does the same kind of selection in some cases, but it does it using ordinary links).
If you print out a page from Universalis and you end up with blue arrows on the paper, tapping or clicking those buttons does nothing. The paper does not change.
An e-book is just paper inside an electronic box. Tapping or clicking arrows in it would do nothing. Consequently e-books created using Universalis do not show the arrows at all. This applies both to Kindle e-books and to e-books in the ePub format.
The selection switches for Mass let you choose which readings you want to use for Mass that day. For instance, on a memorial, you may want to ignore the General Instruction of the Roman Missal’s instructions (at §357) and use the readings for the memorial rather than the readings for the ferial day.
When you use the Universalis program on your computer to create an e-book, the program uses whatever selections you have chosen within the program. If you chose the readings for the memorial on a particular day, those are the readings which will appear in the e-book. So if you have particular preferences for readings on memorials (and also for optional memorials), go through the calendar in the program and set the selections accordingly. Then all future e-books that you make will respect your selections.
Kindle Fire
In order to confuse their customers, Amazon use the same name for their e-book readers (the Kindle) and their tablets (the Kindle Fire). In fact the Kindle Fire (modern versions) and the Kindle Fire HD are not Kindles but programmable devices, and you can buy the Universalis app for them, blue buttons and all.
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How the selection switches work for Mass
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Calendars, Liturgy | 4 Comments »
Kindle e-books on the Blackberry
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.
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The American Christmas bug
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.
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The Christmas calendars
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.
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Got a new toy for Christmas?
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:
- “Plain” e-book reader Kindles (Kindle Classic, Kindle Paperwhite): you can create e-books for yourself or you can get e-books straight onto your Kindle from our web site. Read all about it here.
- “Tablet” Kindles (Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD): you can buy the Universalis app.
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 »
Electric Prayer 