3 ms·

My fear with this is that it will be less "bullet proof" than creating a PDF slidedeck. With this I'll have to worry about getting the fontsize correct on the

by jlgreco 13y ago

My fear with this is that it will be less "bullet proof" than creating a PDF slidedeck. With this I'll have to worry about getting the fontsize correct on the projector, which means I have to worry about getting a terminal set up on whichever computer I may be using for a presentation (hopefully my own, but I can't count on that) and (in the case that it isn't my own) I have to worry about networking too. With a PDF slidedeck I can have the PDF on my computer, on the network, and on a flashdrive, I don't have to worry about presentation software compatibility or installing Gvim+plugins or putty, I don't have to worry about font-size, etc. If I could be absolutely sure that the presentation was going to be given from my computer, then I think this would be great.

tybenz 13y ago
To be honest, when I made Vimdeck, it was mostly just-for-fun. I never really expected that other people would seriously consider using it for their presentations. Now that I've seen how many people are interested in it, though, I might spend some time adding more features to it to make it a more viable option. As you pointed out, there's not a great way to take this format and use it on someone else's machine. First, I'd like to point out that all Vimdeck is doing is generating files into a directory and opening them with VIM. There are a few VIM plugins as dependencies. Like markdown syntax highlighting, and SyntaxRange, but it's entirely possible that I could allow the users to bundle their presentation as a zip file, put it on a flash drive and open it on any other computer (most have VIM already installed). There's no Gvim necessary. Just a couple of plugins and the dynamically generated VIM script. Seems plausible to be able to bundle all that into a machine-agnostic format. VIM already runs everywhere. And as far as the font size goes, you're right. There's no way around it. You're going to have to increase/decrease the font size immediately before the presentation to get it just right. But there's often a chance for speakers to test that their slides work in the current environment any ways. I'm not saying text-only ASCII-art-ridden presentations are the best way to present information. But depending on the crowd and the speaker, it might be worth it.

by jlgreco 13y ago

tybenz 13y ago

To be honest, when I made Vimdeck, it was mostly just-for-fun. I never really expected that other people would seriously consider using it for their presentations. Now that I've seen how many people are interested in it, though, I might spend some time adding more features to it to make it a more viable option. As you pointed out, there's not a great way to take this format and use it on someone else's machine. First, I'd like to point out that all Vimdeck is doing is generating files into a directory and opening them with VIM. There are a few VIM plugins as dependencies. Like markdown syntax highlighting, and SyntaxRange, but it's entirely possible that I could allow the users to bundle their presentation as a zip file, put it on a flash drive and open it on any other computer (most have VIM already installed). There's no Gvim necessary. Just a couple of plugins and the dynamically generated VIM script. Seems plausible to be able to bundle all that into a machine-agnostic format. VIM already runs everywhere. And as far as the font size goes, you're right. There's no way around it. You're going to have to increase/decrease the font size immediately before the presentation to get it just right. But there's often a chance for speakers to test that their slides work in the current environment any ways. I'm not saying text-only ASCII-art-ridden presentations are the best way to present information. But depending on the crowd and the speaker, it might be worth it.