I Hate Powerpoint!

I Hate Powerpoint!

Bruce Perens

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 20:03:28 PST

Open Source Software

Being forced to use PowerPoint cramps my style, and even OpenOffice Presenter gets in the way of my creativity for some reason. But sometimes the customer insists. So, I came up with a software solution - a translator from the simple, easy-to-write VIM Outliner file format to OpenOffice Presenter format, which can then be converted to PowerPoint, and another translator from VIM Outliner to the lighter-weight XOXO slide format as used with Eric Meyer's S5.
I need a simple tool while writing, one that doesn't get in the way of the creative process by making me focus on the visual appearance. VIM Outliner is about the simplest possible file format. Indentation is indicated by tabs, so that first-level headlings have no tabs before them, second-level headings start with one tab, etc. It's generated by a vimoutliner macro available for the VIM editor, a bells-and-whistles version of the old VI editor, but of course any text editor that handles tabs can produce the format. I especially like using it with gvim, the GNOME graphical version of VIM available as a ready-to-go package for Linux distributions (I use Debian, which has it in their main repository).

The software presently only translates outliner headings, not the outliner text that is indicated by ":" in vimoutliner. A slide show has a first-level heading for each slide, and some number of second-level (or third...) headings that will appear in a list on the slide.

The software is here. It's not yet up to release quality, but I thought some of you might want to try it. It'll take a bit of Ruby experience to install, as some Ruby gems are required.

Surprise! It's licensed under GPL 3. FSF will probably be annoyed - they haven't released GPL 3 yet. - Bruce

I Hate Powerpoint!

Mathinker

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 23:45:14 PST

> Surprise! It's licensed under GPL 3. FSF will probably be annoyed - they haven't released GPL 3 yet.

Uh, Bruce, IANAL, but IMHO you're just preventing anyone who does due dilligence on licensing issues from using your software. You don't specify any particular draft version of GPL 3, and therefore, since it's not officially released yet, you're not licensing the source in any substantive way that I can see. No license == no use.

WIth regards to presentation software, I understand you, but I always just write everything in text files and then copy/paste. I never write or organize the material initially inside the presentation software. Since in my eyes the use of presentation software means that the graphic layout and presentation are important, I feel that the extra work of a second manual pass is totally justified (not that I personally feel a great need for using such software --- but if I have to do something I like to do it "right").

I just finished two simple presentations at work in OO Impress and 30% of the work was creating the master (background, etc.) and 60% was deciding how to split the material into slides properly, and 10% was importing images and fixing their layout.

I Hate Powerpoint!

Bruce Perens

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 08:48:40 PST

IMHO you're just preventing anyone who does due dilligence on licensing issues from using your software.

Yes. You can consider it "not released as Open Source" at this point if you wish. Sometimes it's fun to tweak the anti-GPL3 crowd when it costs nothing to do so. I'll make a more clear license designation when the software is more ready.

I agree that a second manual pass is necessary. This tool won't keep your content from overflowing out of the bottom of the slide, for example, as currently written. But I tend to write in outlines (try it) and this just makes it easier to get started. One concern of mine of late is getting presentations done quickly, as I have a lot of them to make. So, I hope to get a good master slide that I can use long-term and have my secretary do some of the visual clean-up, and not concern myself with anything but the outline.

Thanks

Bruce

I Hate Powerpoint!

Peter

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:05:54 PST

I kind of understand the niche that Powerpoint filled while Microsoft ruled the planet, but at this point...isn't there a better web/database solution for this kind of thing? If you care about the weird transition stuff, you can even get ajax to do a lot of that now, but for simple Slide1-->Slide2-->Slide3 kinds of stuff, I could write you a Django application that could run that kind of slide presentation using a flat file with tabs or a database. It would take like 4 hours. You could even run it offline.

If you have internet connectivity where you're giving the presentation, I'd think it should be even simpler to host a webapp that handles this gracefully.

I Hate Powerpoint!

Bruce Perens

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 11:56:24 PST

Look at S5 (link above). It's written of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. My browser gets slow when S5 has more than 20 or so slides. Obviously, other similar hacks that would not try to wedge the entire presentation into the browser DOM are possible.

I could write a converter that output separate HTML files with links between them easily enough.

Thanks

Bruce

Presentation graphics

lars	Wed, 01 Nov 2006 23:32:48 PST

"I need a simple tool while writing, one that doesn't get in the way of the creative process by making me focus on the visual appearance."

1) For that, I generally use XHTML. I stopped using presentation graphics programs in 1996 because they distracted too much from the content of the presentation. I tried again in 1998, but gave up because it was too much of a f*king pain to carry around a stack of disks with one for each presentation+format, plus one in reserve on the web or via FTP. Each site seemed to have different, incompatible versions of presentation graphics. That in addition to the process of keeping all those updated when last minute changes or additions were needed was too much.
So for the rest of the time, HTML was a more practical choice. Plus when people asked when it would be available on the web, I could say that it already is and refer to the URL at the top of the screen in Mozilla or Opera.

Two days ago, I resumed using presentation graphics again for two reasons. One, it provides an excuse for me to plug in one of my own computers into a backwards environment and show modern technologies (e.g. Ubuntu or OS X) and to demo OpenOffice.org. The second reason is to get students/directors thinking about the implications of file formats and the risk the set themselves out for by choosing closed formats either voluntarily or involuntarily. Use of OpenDocument and/or PDF usually prompts a brief explanation of the benefits.

2) dixie cup, kleenex, xerox, hoover and now powerpoint are all terms that were once trademarks. Powerpoint has been used now for years , especially by non-English speakers, to refer to any presentation graphics and sometimes even any presentation done with a computer. I've even heard "Word" being used, again especially by those who are not native English speakers, in many countries to refer to word processing in general. I've even heard it after teaching/demoing OOo Writer.

Anyway, regarding the term "powerpoint" there is the choice to push it further and ensure that it's trademark status cannot return. Or the other choice is to try to bring back the term "presentation graphics". Either way, it should force attention to newer and better programs and/or storage formats.

Tags: VIM outliner powerpoint openoffice presenter