Ok so a few weeks ago I needed a quick cheap laptop teleprompter solution that I didn't feel like paying for and after browsing for available solutions, I didn't like anything that was out there.. so luckily i happen to also code for a living so figured i'd write my own. also figured i'd write a web-based one.

if you just wanna get to it already - check it out EasyPrompter - the best free online teleprompter. (http://www.easyprompter.com)

I'd really love to hear your feedback, everyone. I intend to maintain and improve it, especially if there is interest. I also intend to keep it free. If it gest super-popular or people really want to be able to save scripts, settings, etc - maybe i'll think about sort of a premium account, but the basic prompter will always be free.

I think this is at least competitive to others like it but really want feedback.

Please go and check it out. there are no ads and no accounts to sign up for. just type in your script and hit start.

I didn't know where this should be posted so figured i'd post here. if someone thinks there's a better place for it, do let me know.

tell everyone ;)


Thank you

not a single piece of feedback? comon people

Hi Mike,

Very nicely done! This is super easy to use and set up.

Alan

That's brilliant, definitely one to save to my favourites.
Is there any chance of you making it into a downloadable program ?
I've been in situations before where i could've used a teleprompter but i didn't have a net connection.
I'd be willing to pay a small fee for a program like that, simple and easy to use, plain black and white.
My paypal is on standby !!

Paul.

Without even looking at it, I would agree that downloadable would be much better. No matter how reliable your internet connection is, Murphy says it will pick precisely the worst moment to go down. I wouldn't want to hold up a shoot waiting for someone to figure out what's wrong with the 'net.

A windows app is being considered. I also had the idea of making the web app downloadable. Meaning the javascript would just be saved and you can run it from your computer without a connection.

Mike,


Well done! I have had use for a promter a few times and everytime I priced them I cringed and we moved on without one.


I wont have use for one until well into May when we shooting a three to four part series. It will be a first for us and the prompter will be excellent. I look forward to using it.

I actually had thought of setting up a power point to do it.


Now if you could make it stand alone so that you would not need an internet link that would be awesome for those of us who shootl mostly outside!!!!!!


Is there a chance of that?

Mike - love it.

It does all it needs to do - I've just tried it out and it worked brilliantly.

I have to agree, a download version would be the icing on the cake.

Looking forward to your next phase of development...

Mike, nicely done. a couple items though

1. I didn't see any controls to mirror the text, did I just miss them?
If that isn't a function then in order to shoot thru the glass the user would need to build a periscope type prompter. IMO mirroring text is essential.
2. Can scripts be imported or does one have to manually type the script in order to use it?
3. Downloadable is essential.

Can't wait for the downloadable version!

Well done - thanks for posting that.

No mirror text? Deal breaker. :(

unfortunately, there is no way (currently) to flip text in JavaScript. There are some unicode hacks that'll flip it horizontally but none that will do it vertically. The only way to get this is with a downloadable font that will simulate flipped text. Not the most elegant solution but i may have to implement it.

there is no way to import script aside from copy/paste at this moment. if there is enough interest, I will consider some sort of account-based setup where you'll be allowed to save scripts/settings.

downloadable version is coming soon - keep the comments coming!

Ask and you shall receive. Portable stand-alone version is now available. Please let me know how it works for you all.

EasyPrompter - the best free online teleprompter. (http://easyprompter.com/portable.php)

Thanks Mike a really useful thing to have on my macbook pro, it works a treat and is nice and simple for quick teleprompting.

Hey Mike, just wanted to say thank you for your work so far. I haven't used the app yet, but it will be on my MacBook soon.


Oh I should add I'm looking for an upside down font and found this: SunnyNeo - Upside Down Text Generator (http://sunnyneo.com/upsidedowntext.php)

It kind of works by flipping the text then pasting it into your app.

Duncan.

Hey Mike, just wanted to say thank you for your work so far. I haven't used the app yet, but it will be on my MacBook soon.


Oh I should add I'm looking for an upside down font and found this: SunnyNeo - Upside Down Text Generator (http://sunnyneo.com/upsidedowntext.php)

It kind of works by flipping the text then pasting it into your app.

Duncan.

Yeah this is what I was talking about - it only works somewhat. There are no capital letters. This is a unicode hack and unicode doesn't have upside down caps. Thanks for the research though.

Thanks Mike! Very useful thing to have.

What a great app to share!

The few times I had to use a teleprompter it was kind of a pain editing text and adjusting the speed. Yours is so easy anyone could figure it out at first glance and operate it sufficiently in no time.

I hope the day comes that you can mirror the text. That would be outstanding.

Very well done! I'm constantly amazed at the talent and generosity of folks on this board. Thank you. :)

Ask and you shall receive. Portable stand-alone version is now available. Please let me know how it works for you all.

EasyPrompter - the best free online teleprompter. (http://easyprompter.com/portable.php)

Mike,

I saved the portable version but the icons/pictures are not showing up when I run it either from your site or locally.

A couple suggestions:

- Of course mirroring is critical, but you know that already.
- It would be nice if using the left arrow to decrease speed would take it down to "0". Also there isn't enough fine adjustment for speed at the bottom end. The difference between 0-1-2 are too great. Anything above 4 is too fast to be useful for reading.
- Mouse wheel control of speed would be cool if possible

Nice work! Now I just have to figure out how to mount my netbook to the camera. :)

I have to agree with Brett. This program will be great for people doing very short takes, but usually with longer shoots you will need to vary the speed of the read, especially for live shoots. Being able to alter the speed of the scroll on the fly would be a great advancement. It's also fairly easy to create your own font(I know someone who once did one of his one handwriting) so it shouldn't be all that hard to create a reverse font to use with your program, however that would need to be included in your program.

I have to agree with Brett. This program will be great for people doing very short takes, but usually with longer shoots you will need to vary the speed of the read, especially for live shoots. Being able to alter the speed of the scroll on the fly would be a great advancement. It's also fairly easy to create your own font(I know someone who once did one of his one handwriting) so it shouldn't be all that hard to create a reverse font to use with your program, however that would need to be included in your program.

Speed adjustment on the fly and scrolling up and down is already there. Use the up down left right cursors, you'll see.

Hart - what browser are you using? have you tried in a different one? the only thing I can think of is that it's set not to download/show images.

Brett - unfortunately, the speed of the scroll depends a bit on the hardware and resolution used. Go up to like a 120pt font on a 1600x1050 screen and run it full screen (F11 in most browsers) and 6 or 7 becomes a decent speed. I will see if I can put more fine-tuning in.

Scroll wheel support coming soon.

Instead of going down to 0 speed, you can instead hit pause (or Space bar on the keyboard)

for those trying to mount it - I found a neat solution. I have a portable music stand (I also play the violin in a rock band - SEVEN WAYS OUT - official space of a nyc-based co-ed rock band (http://www.sevenwaysout.com) - so I happen to have this) - this stand is pretty sturdy with a solid top. It's height adjustable and easily supports a laptop - I set it so the top of the screen is just below the lens.

Here is the result:
YouTube - Chiron Training Center promo video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfSx9X9vBjs&fmt=18)
(announcer comes in at 0:20)

keep the comments coming!

OK .. I just posted an update. couple things:

1 - the speed adjustment is more precise now - you should get about 3x the resolution in terms of timing.

2 - scroll wheel is now supported to adjust the speed of the prompter in real time

3 - compact version updated with these changes (so you'll have to download it again). Also, added a link to the compact version to "Check for updates." This will make it easier for those of you who are on the compact version to see if something new has been created without scouring the forums.

Note - you may need to refresh your browser cache in order to see some of these changes.

Thank you so much Mike for doing this. My daughter is an actor and she loves it.

John

That's great news. I would love to hear back from end users. Feedback will make this tool better.

very nice idea, well done and so simple and small....all in a browser, thank you!

This is great! Thank you!

EasyPrompter is now on Twitter - follow the news / updates and add suggestions there
Easy Prompter (EasyPrompter) on Twitter (http://twitter.com/EasyPrompter)
Thanks!

P.S. - I love seeing people from all over the world using this! Let me know if there are issues with other languages or anything.

Just wanted to update everyone - proper mirrored text is coming shortly. It will require a font download but I am creating my own font that is much more complete and unicode compliant than the Kcab font that's in use on cueprompter. It is based on DejaVu Sans (an open source arial/helvetica - type font). You can look it up online to see what languages/character sets it supports.
I am hoping the international community will help me test out this upcoming release in their language to let me know if there are any problems with non-Latin character sets.

Thanks all. Stay Tuned!

Mike,

Can I add my thanks to that of others? This is such a great thing that you are doing. Thanks a million!

BIG THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried Prompt! today but the 2500 character limit to the free version got me, plus I wanted a larger screen size. Just tried your telepromter and it is perfect!

Keep up the good work!

MIRRORED TEXT! MIRRORED TEXT! MIRRORED TEXT! MIRRORED TEXT!

After a few weeks and a few sleepless nights, I finally managed to get mirrored text fully working via a font (which I had to create) download.

Thusfar, it is FAR superior to what you find on cueprompter for a couple reasons:
1 - my font is unicode compliant so many languages and character sets will work out of the box

2 - I implemented some insanely complex (and annoying) code to make sure all the text is wrapped correctly.

There is only 1 caveat currently and that's if you resize the window or change font size during playback, the wrapping will get a little weird. I will fix this shortly.

For the time being, I need help testing this as much as possible - especially in languages other than english! Please let me know how it works for you!

Thank you all for the support!

Totally wizard, thanks for doing this! / Battle Vaughan/miamiherald.com video team

Mike, you RULE!. Thanks for putting this together and making the suggested changes. Wish I could present you with a medal.

I used your software on a shoot. It worked! One thing that would be helpful is the ability to smoothly vary the speed the words scroll by -- the talent would vary her delivery and when the teleprompter operartor slowed down the text jerks a bit. It needs a little more fine pinpoint control in the scrolling function.
Since there was no mirror text, we didn't use the reflector glass and just placed the LCD below the lens. As far as I'm concerned, it looks just like the talent is staring into the lens.

I used your software on a shoot. It worked! One thing that would be helpful is the ability to smoothly vary the speed the words scroll by -- the talent would vary her delivery and when the teleprompter operartor slowed down the text jerks a bit. It needs a little more fine pinpoint control in the scrolling function.
Since there was no mirror text, we didn't use the reflector glass and just placed the LCD below the lens. As far as I'm concerned, it looks just like the talent is staring into the lens.

Hi Brian! This is really great to hear. Just wanted to tell you that you CAN control the speed during the shoot. By either using the left/right arrow keys or the mouse scroll wheel. The scroll wheel in particular may be really useful since you can have very fine control over it and if you have a wireless mouse, can do it from anywhere.

Mike Drob wins the WAY COOL!! award!

Mike Drob wins the WAY COOL!! award!

Thanks.. too bad those don't come with a big check attached ;) j/k

OK, So a couple of question...

Will the portable version have the flip option soon?

What's the best solution that people have found, for mirrored glass to get this whole thing to work properly on a camera, and to mount a laptop on a tripod...

Mike, if/when I use this on a job, I want to pay you for it.
Make it Shareware - What's your PayPal address.


In fact here's a starter for 10, the new Cinevate cage holds a laptop... Above a camera: http://www.cinevate.com/catalog/popup_image.php?pID=133

OK, So a couple of question...

Will the portable version have the flip option soon?

What's the best solution that people have found, for mirrored glass to get this whole thing to work properly on a camera, and to mount a laptop on a tripod...

Mike, if/when I use this on a job, I want to pay you for it.
Make it Shareware - What's your PayPal address.


In fact here's a starter for 10, the new Cinevate cage holds a laptop... Above a camera: Cage clamps (http://www.cinevate.com/catalog/popup_image.php?pID=133)

Duncan,

Yes, i'm working on having the flip option work for the portable version. I would also like to do a video demo of the software and put it up on youtube or something but havent found the time. I thought of making it donation-ware. I did spend quite a long time making this but since it was for my own purposes initially and just as a coding challenge later on, I don't want to charge people directly. There will always be a free version of easyprompter and it won't be disabled in any horrid way ( maximum amount of characters?!! wtf)

anyway.. if anyone is feeling truly generous, my paypal is orders@story-tailors.com and I would appreciate any contributions to help pay for the hosting and things like that.

Also - as far as mounting a laptop - I'd recommend mounting it under the camera instead of above if space allows. This way the text is closer to ther camera since it scrolls up.
Personally, I used a folding music stand for my shoot :)

Thanks again for all your support and spread the word!

anyway.. if anyone is feeling truly generous, my paypal is orders@story-tailors.com and I would appreciate any contributions to help pay for the hosting and things like that.

Contribution made and merited! Can I suggest putting a donate button on the homepage?

Thanks again for your efforts!

Thanks for all your effort. I find that the font does not replicate the flip function, but only reverses individual letters, which does not help by itself. Is there something more I need to do to use it in the stand alone?

Since a few people expressed interest in donating to the cause, I put up a donations page - EasyPrompter Donation (http://www.easyprompter.com/donate.php)

I would appreciate any support, but would like to maintain that EasyPrompter is FREE, so if you don't want to donate, don't feel guilty or anything :) - I'm cool with it.

----

Ken - thank you so much for your contribution.

Chris - I don't think I completely understand your issue. Can you describe what you're seeing in more detail? As far as portable version - flipped text is not yet available for it. I AM working on it though!

Mike - I think you answered my question. If I select the mirrored font in say, WORD, and type, it just types tyhe usual left to right, reversing each letter, standing alone it does not flip, which as I think of it, probably makes sense, as the flip programming only uses the font - it was not designed to be used stand alone. Thanks.

Yeah if you want to use it with word you'd have to type backwards. Font reverses individual letters. My code reverses the actual text

As promised - new version of the portable standalone is available which supports mirrored text. You will need to install the font separately in order for it to work. If you need to carry this on a flash drive to another location, download the font AND the standalone version and keep them together. Install font on whatever machine you need to use and you're all set!

For those using the standalone version just click "Check for updates" on top.

The rest, just head over here - EasyPrompter - Portable Standalone Version: the best free OFFLINE teleprompter. (http://www.easyprompter.com/portable.php)

enjoy!

Another day, another feature - I just added an Elapsed Time Display

go check it out!

EasyPrompter - Create Prompter (http://www.easyprompter.com/prompter.php)

Thanks Mark J. Hewitt for the suggestion!

Thanks Mark J. Hewitt for the suggestion!

And thanks again Mike for this wonderful applet. I mentioned it on another forum and they seemed to love it as well.

What about a charging fee when you finish it and an putting an advertisement in Backstage?

Just a thought.

Thanks again Mike.

Regards,

John