5 ms·

Show HN: 30-second Slideshows for Hackers

82 points by prezjordan 13y ago

nilliams 13y ago
Exactly. I've been looking out for (and possibly missed) a tool to make a Reveal.js-ish slideshow [1] from just markdown rather than 'HTML with optional markdown in each slide'. This is that. With Reveal.js you can do: <section data-markdown><script type="text/template"> #markdown slide here </script></section> But that's a bit of a hard-sell when I'm trying to open non-softie eyes to the benefits of markdown-everywhere (as they have to encounter HTML too). So yeah, I realise that a regex that replaces `---` with the above and hoicks it into a Reveal.js template is (almost) all that is needed to achieve what this project does, but I'm thankful for it all the same. Worth noting that I've also used the `slideshow` gem [2] back in the day. This does basically the same thing as this project, and with the Google HTML5 Rocks [3] theme it isn't bad as a 'just markdown to slideshow' tool, but it was a bit fiddly to get started and 1) that homepage is a big undersell with all the old crappy themes/defaults on it and 2) I think their version of the Google deck is now pretty outdated (was buggy when I used it). Still, worth looking into for Rubyists I think. [1] http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js [2] http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/ http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/ [3] http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/tutorial.html5.html#slide1 http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/tutorial.html5.html#slide1
- prezjordan 13y ago
  I would love to explore adding an optional to render a reveal.js slideshow, instead of using my "reinventing the wheel" approach. Shouldn't be terribly difficult, just a matter of adding a new template :)
prezjordan 13y ago
Hey HN, I recently started an Open Source club at my school, and one of the key aspects of the club is that I (along with a few others) give quick tech talks. I found that it took far too long to whip up a short slideshow, so I wrote this. Its entire purpose is to allow you to get something presentable and interactive out quickly. It's sort of a two-birds type deal because we'll be actively working on this project through the club :) I'd love to hear your feedback!
- adiM 13y ago
  How does it compare with Pandoc[1], which is the swiss-army knife of Markdown-to-foo converters, and also handles presentations. [1]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/
  - prezjordan 13y ago
    Just looking through the "HTML Slides" examples, seems like Pandodoc is more than capable of achieving what Cleaver does (and much, much more).
    - nsmartt 13y ago
      You didn't find a solution that met your precise needs, so you started building one. Don't let the fact that other solutions exist get you down.
      - Keyframe 13y ago
        I feel like this always happens when I'm either done or almost done with my projects as well.
    - dindresto 13y ago
      Being so lightweight makes Cleaver far cooler, since that makes it easier to hack on it, and customize it.
  - nborwankar 13y ago
    Also look at Asciidoc which outputs Slidy slideshows.
  - Pitarou 13y ago
    Pandoc does something pretty similar. But that doesn't mean there isn't room in the world for both projects. Pandoc strives to be a universal converter, and that means there are certain things it couldn't / shouldn't do. For example, you could add special kinds of slide effects or transitions to Cleaver's markdown dialect that wouldn't be appropriate for Pandoc.
imalolz 13y ago
Very nice. I would suggest adding url support to be able to go back and forth between slides (using browser's back/fwd button), emailing dirct link to certain slides, etc.
- preek 13y ago
  Good point, another similar tool p_slides[1] has just that. 1. https://github.com/munen/p_slides https://github.com/munen/p_slides
- prezjordan 13y ago
  I just merged an awesome PR that does exactly this [0]. It doesn't take over the forward/back buttons, which is a good thing in my opinion. [0]: https://github.com/jdan/cleaver/pull/25 https://github.com/jdan/cleaver/pull/25
tikhonj 13y ago
This is a nice project. I wrote my own version earlier, but it was not nearly as slick! I wanted fancy SVG-based animations, but never got it to a working state. Coincidentally, I think some subtle animation would be great--maybe just have the slides slide in or out. They are, after all, slides :P. I currently use a very similar tool written for Emacs's org-mode. Org-mode is incredible. I mostly use it for notes; the slideshows are just another nice feature. I think the results[1] are quite good, given that it's just as easy as this except better-integrated into Emacs. [1]: http://jelv.is/synthesis-slides.html http://jelv.is/synthesis-slides.html I put this presentation together at literally the last moment before speaking--I wrote the last slide just as the previous speaker was taking questions. Despite the bad timing, I think it worked reasonably well. It's great, but I do sometimes have to modify the CSS for certain slides by hand. Happily, this is very easy, and I have never needed anything complicated. I use a modified version of an elisp script written by some Googlers[2], but org-mode can output slides with a bunch of other backends[3] like Beamer or S5. You can even use Emacs itself to give the presentation! I've seen a presentation this way and while the aesthetics are questionable, it confers an undeniable hacker panache. [2]: https://gist.github.com/kinjo/509761 https://gist.github.com/kinjo/509761 [3]: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/non-beamer-presentations.html http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/non-beamer-presentatio...
khadim 13y ago
maybe can add export option viz to pdf
- preek 13y ago
  what you need is p_slides[1] - it supports export to pdf (via printing to pdf) as well as syntax highlighting 1. https://github.com/munen/p_slides https://github.com/munen/p_slides
qznc 13y ago
Why do hackers need this simplistic bullet point slides? Encouraging death by bullet point? I could understand features like code-highlighting for hackers.
- preek 13y ago
  p_slides[1] does just that. 1. https://github.com/munen/p_slides https://github.com/munen/p_slides
dergachev 13y ago
Seems similar to mdpress, a ruby script which I've used successfully. https://github.com/egonSchiele/mdpress https://github.com/egonSchiele/mdpress
sam152 13y ago
I had a play and it seems really neat, congratulations. I ran "watch -n0.2 cleaver presentation.md" to preview changes, but there is probably a better way to do it with some sort of filesystem watcher.
- prezjordan 13y ago
  I'll be sure to add a `make watch` command or something along those lines, seems like a no-brainer.
zmjones 13y ago
this needs mathjax

82 points by prezjordan 13y ago

Exactly. I've been looking out for (and possibly missed) a tool to make a Reveal.js-ish slideshow [1] from just markdown rather than 'HTML with optional markdown in each slide'. This is that. With Reveal.js you can do: <section data-markdown><script type="text/template"> #markdown slide here </script></section> But that's a bit of a hard-sell when I'm trying to open non-softie eyes to the benefits of markdown-everywhere (as they have to encounter HTML too). So yeah, I realise that a regex that replaces `---` with the above and hoicks it into a Reveal.js template is (almost) all that is needed to achieve what this project does, but I'm thankful for it all the same. Worth noting that I've also used the `slideshow` gem [2] back in the day. This does basically the same thing as this project, and with the Google HTML5 Rocks [3] theme it isn't bad as a 'just markdown to slideshow' tool, but it was a bit fiddly to get started and 1) that homepage is a big undersell with all the old crappy themes/defaults on it and 2) I think their version of the Google deck is now pretty outdated (was buggy when I used it). Still, worth looking into for Rubyists I think. [1] http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js [2] http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/ http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/ [3] http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/tutorial.html5.html#slide1 http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/tutorial.html5.html#slide1

prezjordan 13y ago
I would love to explore adding an optional to render a reveal.js slideshow, instead of using my "reinventing the wheel" approach. Shouldn't be terribly difficult, just a matter of adding a new template :)

prezjordan 13y ago

Hey HN, I recently started an Open Source club at my school, and one of the key aspects of the club is that I (along with a few others) give quick tech talks. I found that it took far too long to whip up a short slideshow, so I wrote this. Its entire purpose is to allow you to get something presentable and interactive out quickly. It's sort of a two-birds type deal because we'll be actively working on this project through the club :) I'd love to hear your feedback!

adiM 13y ago
How does it compare with Pandoc[1], which is the swiss-army knife of Markdown-to-foo converters, and also handles presentations. [1]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/
- prezjordan 13y ago
  Just looking through the "HTML Slides" examples, seems like Pandodoc is more than capable of achieving what Cleaver does (and much, much more).
  - nsmartt 13y ago
    You didn't find a solution that met your precise needs, so you started building one. Don't let the fact that other solutions exist get you down.
    - Keyframe 13y ago
      I feel like this always happens when I'm either done or almost done with my projects as well.
  - dindresto 13y ago
    Being so lightweight makes Cleaver far cooler, since that makes it easier to hack on it, and customize it.
- nborwankar 13y ago
  Also look at Asciidoc which outputs Slidy slideshows.
- Pitarou 13y ago
  Pandoc does something pretty similar. But that doesn't mean there isn't room in the world for both projects. Pandoc strives to be a universal converter, and that means there are certain things it couldn't / shouldn't do. For example, you could add special kinds of slide effects or transitions to Cleaver's markdown dialect that wouldn't be appropriate for Pandoc.

imalolz 13y ago

Very nice. I would suggest adding url support to be able to go back and forth between slides (using browser's back/fwd button), emailing dirct link to certain slides, etc.

preek 13y ago
Good point, another similar tool p_slides[1] has just that. 1. https://github.com/munen/p_slides https://github.com/munen/p_slides
prezjordan 13y ago
I just merged an awesome PR that does exactly this [0]. It doesn't take over the forward/back buttons, which is a good thing in my opinion. [0]: https://github.com/jdan/cleaver/pull/25 https://github.com/jdan/cleaver/pull/25

tikhonj 13y ago

This is a nice project. I wrote my own version earlier, but it was not nearly as slick! I wanted fancy SVG-based animations, but never got it to a working state. Coincidentally, I think some subtle animation would be great--maybe just have the slides slide in or out. They are, after all, slides :P. I currently use a very similar tool written for Emacs's org-mode. Org-mode is incredible. I mostly use it for notes; the slideshows are just another nice feature. I think the results[1] are quite good, given that it's just as easy as this except better-integrated into Emacs. [1]: http://jelv.is/synthesis-slides.html http://jelv.is/synthesis-slides.html I put this presentation together at literally the last moment before speaking--I wrote the last slide just as the previous speaker was taking questions. Despite the bad timing, I think it worked reasonably well. It's great, but I do sometimes have to modify the CSS for certain slides by hand. Happily, this is very easy, and I have never needed anything complicated. I use a modified version of an elisp script written by some Googlers[2], but org-mode can output slides with a bunch of other backends[3] like Beamer or S5. You can even use Emacs itself to give the presentation! I've seen a presentation this way and while the aesthetics are questionable, it confers an undeniable hacker panache. [2]: https://gist.github.com/kinjo/509761 https://gist.github.com/kinjo/509761 [3]: http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/non-beamer-presentations.html http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/non-beamer-presentatio...

khadim 13y ago

maybe can add export option viz to pdf

preek 13y ago
what you need is p_slides[1] - it supports export to pdf (via printing to pdf) as well as syntax highlighting 1. https://github.com/munen/p_slides https://github.com/munen/p_slides

qznc 13y ago

Why do hackers need this simplistic bullet point slides? Encouraging death by bullet point? I could understand features like code-highlighting for hackers.

preek 13y ago
p_slides[1] does just that. 1. https://github.com/munen/p_slides https://github.com/munen/p_slides

dergachev 13y ago

Seems similar to mdpress, a ruby script which I've used successfully. https://github.com/egonSchiele/mdpress https://github.com/egonSchiele/mdpress

sam152 13y ago

I had a play and it seems really neat, congratulations. I ran "watch -n0.2 cleaver presentation.md" to preview changes, but there is probably a better way to do it with some sort of filesystem watcher.

prezjordan 13y ago
I'll be sure to add a `make watch` command or something along those lines, seems like a no-brainer.

zmjones 13y ago

this needs mathjax