Here's how to get started with the Ringing Room.
Ideal set-up
As far as we can tell, Ringing Rooms work best under the following set up:
- Use Google Chrome on a desktop or laptop where possible (Mac > Windows > Linux >> mobile).
Microsoft Edge users, beware: keyboard hot-keys won't work in that browser.
- Use a separate voice chat like Zoom, discord, Google hangouts, or WhatsApp to coordinate ringing
and put calls in.
There is a facility for using hot-keys to put in calls (see below), but in some browsers this
results in the sound of the bells being interrupted.
Starting a new room
Starting a new room is simple: go to the home page by clicking "Ringing Room" at the top left of
this page. Then put any name you like in the text box and click "Create". This will create
a new "tower" with a sharable URL. You can send this URL to others you would like to ring with.
Joining a room
There are currently two ways to join a room that already exists. The easiest way is to go directly to
the link that the room's creator has sent you. Alternatively you may type in just the numerical
ID (a nine-digit number) into the textbox on the homepage.
Setting up and ringing in a ringing room
On the top left, you may set the number of bells in the tower by clicking the desired number. To ring,
you may either click on the ropes or use the following hot-keys:
- [1-9], [0], [-], [=]: Rings bells 1 - 9, 10, 11, and 12
- [SPACE]: Rings the bell in the lower right corner.
- [LEFT] and [RIGHT] arrow keys: Rings the left and right bottom-most bells.
- [f] and [j]: same as [LEFT] and [RIGHT]
- [SHIFT]+[0-9]\[0]\[-]\[=]: Rotate the "perspective" of the ringing room to put that bell
in the lower right corner so it may be rung by [SPACE] or [j].
Ringers may now assign bells by entering bell assignment mode (top left of the screen). While in
this mode, any ringer may be selected under the user list and then a second click by a bell will assign
that user to a bell. Clicking the "x" by the user's name will kick them off that bell. Bells may not be rung
in bell assignment mode. Simply click the button in the control towers to exist bell assignment mode.
For now, anyone may assign anyone (and kick off anyone).
There are also hot-keys for various calls, but be aware that in some browsers using these results
in the sound of the bells being interrupted.
- [l]ook to...
- [g]o next time
- [b]ob
- si[n]gle
- t[h]at's all
- s[t]and next
Related Efforts
Richard Johnston has done a great deal of work to make Ringing Room work with Handbell Manager and with Android phones as simulated handbells (!). Read more about it by clicking here.
Known bugs and currently available fixes
As Ringing Room has been gaining in popularity, we have had several bug reports (thank you!)
and have started a list of known bugs and any currently available fix. This list is not exhaustive.
Always try refreshing as a first start when dealing with a bug; it may be the solution!
- Issues with users not logging out, or being locked out after being inactive: We are
actively working on this as of this week and hope to have a good solution soon. We're definitely
still figuring out some of the kinks over here; sorry for any issues.
- Bells are sometimes laggy: Sorry, no fix for this yet. It is a rather tricky problem!
We'll keep you updated on the "News" sidebar of the front page.
- Bells are double-sounding/echoing: First, try headphones. If that doesn't fix it,
you are encountering a known problem in some browsers. Re-starting your browser or doing
a hard refresh (hard refreshing varies by OS and browser type) has been known to help in
some cases. The cause of this bug is not yet identified.
- Microsoft Edge users can't access hot-keys: Old versions of Microsoft Edge do not conform
to standards of key-press listening. Please update to the newest version if possible.
- Ringing Room doesn't work under this non-Chrome browser/Linux OS...: Please email us with
the operating system and browser you're using, along with any steps taken to fix the issue
(restarting browser, hard refreshing). We'll bear this in mind, but cross-platform testing is
currently pretty slow as we both have Macs!
- Ringing Room doesn't work on my phone/iPad/...: A known problem, but one that's it's
pretty hard to fix without building a dedicated app as far as we can tell. So probably
best to stick to a desktop or laptop for now.