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Re: [PLUG] Fred Stluka's giving a talk on Cloud Computing Mon 11/16 7-9pm...
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Lee,
Thanks for all the feedback on my slideshow software! Sorry for the
delay in replying. Got swamped for a while. Digging out now, so here
are some replies finally to your comments...
> Fred,
>
> Thanks again for the Cloud talk, but since you specifically were
> describing your new
> slide system I thought others would like to know about very similar
> programs that
> have been out for a few years for comparison. Any of them are better
> than Ms PP.
>
Cool! Good to know.
> I'm a Infrastucture consultant, and I tend to look for existing
> libraries or packages before
> writing something, so that's how I stumbled into these programs when I
> was assembling
> a talk. Just a different style of doing things....
>
I agree. Reuse instead of re-inventing, if you can, especially when
trying to achieve a result, and most especially when doing so for a
paying client. In this case, however, I wasn't so much interested in
HAVING the software as enjoying the process of WRITING the software.
I knew it would be quick and easy, and I already had a pretty good
idea of what features I wanted, and I knew I'd enjoy playing with it
for years to come. I wrote it in a weekend, and have only spent about
a half day poking at it since. If anyone else wants to use it, that's
fine, but mostly it's been for my enjoyment.
> While I haven't used your slideshow the things that come to mind in S5
> reloaded are:
>
> - Reliable switching to next slide ( click anywhere except a link )
>
Yeah, mine does that, but I ran into a couple snags. Clicking on
or dragging the scrollbar caused it to advance. Also, dragging to
highlight text caused it to advance. You probably noticed me being
annoyed by those when I was giving the talk. I've fixed them, but
I find that clicking to advance still annoys me, because I tend to
move away to another window and then return with a click, and don't
want it to advance then. So, I added a new feature. Hitting "m"
(for mouse) toggles the "click to advance" feature. I generally use
the arrow keys or Enter anyhow, so I'll typically hit "m" at the
start of a presentation to turn off the "click to advance" feature,
which I only added because some users are very mouse oriented and
never thought to use Enter or the arrow keys.
For my talks, I'll typically also add instructions to the first
slide and to the footer of each subsequent slide, telling the user
to use the arrow keys, in case they don't think of arrows or Enter
or mouse click.
> - Optional Incremental display of bullet points, either individually,
> or at the section1 level
>
Yeah, I was thinking of adding that. Very easy to do. I'll make it
an option that can be turned on/off at runtime.
> - Optional incremental display of multiple images.
>
Also very easy. The same code for the bullets will do this
automatically.
> - Optional transition ( fade ) between slides.
>
I probably won't bother. I find transitions a waste of time. While
they are playing, you can't read either the old or new slide. I
always prefer a crisp transition. I think transitions or only used
by new presenters who have just discovered them, or for really non-
technical audiences who are impressed by them once or twice and then
find them annoying.
> - Navigation buttons at bottom of screen ( when you hover over them )
>
Yeah, already on my wish list. Thanks!
> - Index list of all slides, when you hover.
>
Yeah, I was thinking that hovering could pop up arrows in the bottom
corners, with a set of slide numbers in a line across from one corner
to the other, so the user can jump directly to any slide. The software
has been able to jump to any slide since day one, but I haven't added
a UI for that yet.
> - Repeating or single shot music ( I think you do single ), volume
> control on menu.
>
All possible with any Web page. Doesn't need to be part of the slideshow
software, except to persist from one slide to the next, and then it can
just be added to the master slide that the user defines for me to pull
the other slides into. I may look into it, but I generally lump sound
tracks together with transitions as a waste of time.
On the other hand, I wrote a totally different slideshow package, as a
Java Web app a couple years ago. It is for showing a slideshow of
pictures automatically, not for a set of slides in a presentation. It
has features like automatically serving up a series of pictures from
a server and automatically scaling each picture to fit the current
size of the browser window. Scaling is done on the server, not by
setting the width and height of an IMG tag, so that pictures going
across the wire are not bigger than they need to be. It also cycles
through the pictures automatically, but can be paused, resumed, sped
up, slowed down, or you can manually advance to the next picture. It
shows the picture, and the filename of the picture, and the optional
text that may be associated with the picture in a like-named file on
the server. It can walk a folder or an entire tree of pictures.
It's a JavaScript/Ajax front end, and a Java back end that exists only
to scale the images and to walk the folder or tree w/o requiring the
user to list the URL of each slide.
I'm thinking now of combining the 2 packages, adding all features to
both, but still keeping a JavaScript-only version that needs no server
code. For a picture slideshow, a continuously running background file
or music or speech makes more sense to me. So maybe someday...
> - Display slide notes and timer on 2nd display
>
Yeah, I considered a count-down timer to the start of the talk.
Not sure I'd want to bother with a timer during the talk, or with
slide notes. I make my slides detailed enough to not need notes.
That makes them better as a standalone presentation for someone
else to read when I'm not there to give the talk. Also, I tell the
audience in advance where they can get the slides, so they know
they don't have to take detailed notes, and can just listen. Or
they can print out the slides in advance, or load them onto their
laptop in advance, etc. The level of detail is one of the reasons
I need to be able to zoom the fonts and have the slides scroll.
I don't see the value of terse slides with details hidden away from
the audience in a notes section. I'd rather have bullets that can
be expanded and contracted on the fly to give a high level talk
or very detailed talk, choosing which at each slide or each bullet
point, based on the interest level of the audience. Such expanding
and contracting is also in the works...
> - Print slides as one page ( I think you had this feature )
>
Yeah, I currently do it as part of my "pub" script that pushes the
talk to my web site. It's a simple Unix "cat" of all of the
slides into a single HTML file. I'm planning to add a feature
that loads all of the slides into a single page dynamically,
like the code that currently loads one at a time dynamically.
Then you could flip between the modes on the fly.
> - Automatic timed slide advance
>
Yeah. Already done in my Java server-based version. VERY easy to
add to the JavaScript version too. It's a one-liner:
setInterval("com.bristle.jslib.Presentation.loadNextSlide(+1)", 10000);
OK. Now done here too! Hmmm... While I'm at it...
OK. Now you can hit "a" to toggle auto-advance mode, "+" to go
faster, "-" to go slower, etc. Manual navigation (Left, Right,
Enter, Home, End, Click) cancel auto-advance mode. Fun stuff!
Hey, while I'm at it, let the master slide specify that it should
start in auto advance mode, what the speed is, whether mouse clicks
are ignored, etc. OK. Done.
> - Numerous themes
>
Use any Web authoring tool. Why re-invent that? I support a master
slide and a master CSS file. Use them as you see fit.
> - Online documentation and tutorials/samples
>
Good point! So far, all I have is a sample master slide with
comments about how to use it, but there's really not that much
to know.
> - Wiki input text mode ( in S9 )
>
Hmmm.... Maybe. Or just use an existing Wiki authoring tool to
generate HTML pages and use them here. I've created a runtime
environment for HTML-based slides, but not an HTML or Wiki
authoring environment. I create my slides in Dreamweaver.
>
> BTW, I'm not trying to knock your software, just that the open source
> way may be to try and
> collaborate rather than writing yet another XHTML slide show system when
> there are
> so many already out there.
>
> Lee
>
Good point, but then I don't go looking for someone to play golf for
me either. I just do it myself, because I enjoy it.
BTW, do any of the systems you know allow one HTML file per slide,
instead of trying to cram all of the slides into one file? I like
one file per slide because it is so easy to edit a slide with any
HTML editor, reuse the same slide in multiple presentations with
the style sheet and background image conforming to the master slide
of the presentation, and so on.
Thanks again for all the feedback!
--Fred
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred Stluka -- mailto:fred@bristle.com -- http://bristle.com/~fred/
Bristle Software, Inc -- http://bristle.com -- Glad to be of service!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Lee Marzke wrote:
> Fred Stluka wrote:
>
>> Lee,
>>
>> Thanks! I may take a look. I didn't go looking for such a package
>> because I knew I could do a good job of it over the course of a
>> single weekend. I tend to do things myself, without looking for
>> pre-existing solutions, if they are easy and obvious. In this case,
>> I spent much more time writing the content of the talk than I did
>> writing the software. Amazing how easy it is to surpass decades
>> of Microsoft development, when you have free and open source tools
>> and open standards to work with, eh? In this case I just built on
>> the open DHTML, CSS, and JavaScript standards, and didn't even have
>> to re-use any code except my own pre-existing open source JavaScript
>> and Ajax libraries.
>>
>> Before I bother going to check, is there anything you know of that
>> these packages do that mine doesn't? Thanks!
>> --Fred
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Fred Stluka -- mailto:fred@bristle.com -- http://bristle.com/~fred/
>> Bristle Software, Inc -- http://bristle.com -- Glad to be of service!
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
> Fred,
>
> Thanks again for the Cloud talk, but since you specifically were
> describing your new
> slide system I thought others would like to know about very similar
> programs that
> have been out for a few years for comparison. Any of them are better
> than Ms PP.
>
> I'm a Infrastucture consultant, and I tend to look for existing
> libraries or packages before
> writing something, so that's how I stumbled into these programs when I
> was assembling
> a talk. Just a different style of doing things....
>
> While I haven't used your slideshow the things that come to mind in S5
> reloaded are:
>
> - Reliable switching to next slide ( click anywhere except a link )
> - Optional Incremental display of bullet points, either individually,
> or at the section1 level
> - Optional incremental display of multiple images.
> - Optional transition ( fade ) between slides.
> - Navigation buttons at bottom of screen ( when you hover over them )
> - Index list of all slides, when you hover.
> - Repeating or single shot music ( I think you do single ), volume
> control on menu.
> - Display slide notes and timer on 2nd display
> - Print slides as one page ( I think you had this feature )
> - Automatic timed slide advance
> - Numerous themes
> - Online documentation and tutorials/samples
> - Wiki input text mode ( in S9 )
>
>
> BTW, I'm not trying to knock your software, just that the open source
> way may be to try and
> collaborate rather than writing yet another XHTML slide show system when
> there are
> so many already out there.
>
> Lee
>
>
>
>
>> Lee Marzke wrote:
>>
>>> fred@bristle.com wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> PLUG members, Cloud Computing fans, and Local Friends of Fred,
>>>>
>>>> Havong trouble getting to the next slide in my slideshow?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Fred, there are something like 40+ slide show systems published, so I'm
>>> trying to understand
>>> what your new HTML slide system has over the others:
>>>
>>> List of slide show systems: http://www.miwie.org/presentations/html/
>>>
>>>
>>> S5 seems popular, and it also includes incremental bullet points:
>>>
>>> S5: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/
>>> S5 examples: http://4aero.com/static/talks/PLUG_bacula/
>>>
>>>
>>> There is also an updated version called S5 Reloaded:
>>>
>>> S5 Reload: http://www.netzgesta.de/S5/
>>> Samples: http://4aero.com/static/talks/PLUG_perforce/
>>>
>>> There is a new version now called S9 for Ruby fans that uses Wiki markup.
>>>
>>> http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/
>>>
>>>
>>> Lee
>>>
>>> ___________________________________________________________________________
>>> Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
>>> Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
>>> General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> ___________________________________________________________________________
>> Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
>> Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
>> General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>
>>
>
>
>
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
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