[PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Hello, On 11/13/2002 04:11 PM, Jeff Hatcher wrote: At PHP-CON most of the presenters were using a presentation tool built in PHP. It would convert html to PDF and several other cool functions. Is anyone familiar with this and where I can find it? If not, does anyone one know of a conversion tool built in php that converts html to PDF? I am fully aware of the pdf-lib. This is not what I am looking for. I suppose that is Rasmus presentation tool. Personally, last time that I loook, I found that tool limited and inadequate for most people's needs. One problem is that it is dependent on that you must serve the presentation from a server that has PHP installed. This is bad because if you want to provide just the HTML pages to the people for download, you can't do it with Rasmus tool. I believe that this is good for Rasmus presentations because he can show some PHP features interactively but most people (that does not present PHP specific things) does not need that. Another problem is that Rasmus tool lack from single stepping bulleted lists. This means that if you have a slide with a bulleted list, it will show the whole slide at once. This distracts the audience that instead of paying attention to the speaker, they start reading the whole slide. Alternatively I use Prestimel which is a tool that generates slide presentations in pure HTML (no PHP needed), so you can pack your presentation in .zip or .tar.gz archive that people can download and view offline like these: http://www.meta-language.net/metal/metal.zip http://www.meta-language.net/metal/metal.tar.gz It also single stepping support that as I mentioned is good to keep the audience focused on what the speaker is saying on the current item of the bulleted list. It generates several step slides that makes one bulletted item appear at once in an highlighted color. Brilliant feature. Very helpful for live presentations. See this in action here: http://www.meta-language.net/metal/15_1.html It also generates a table of contents page that shows the list of all slides divided in presentation sections. Table of contents can be accessed by clicking on the top title in the any presentation page. Here is an example: http://www.meta-language.net/metal/toc.html It can also generate TeX documents from which you can generate the presentation in several formats, including Postscript and PDF. From the Postscript you can make documents that can fit more than once slide per page with the usual n-up Postscript tools. Converting the Postscript to PDF is trivial with the existing tools. Here is the same presentation in PDF with 2 slides per page: http://www.meta-language.net/metal/metal.pdf Prestimel is Open Source and comes with some Linux distributions. Its home page is located here: http://oeh.tu-graz.ac.at/prestimel/ -- Regards, Manuel Lemos -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Manuel Lemos wrote: On 11/13/2002 04:11 PM, Jeff Hatcher wrote: At PHP-CON most of the presenters were using a presentation tool built in PHP. It would convert html to PDF and several other cool functions. Is anyone familiar with this and where I can find it? If not, does anyone one know of a conversion tool built in php that converts html to PDF? I am fully aware of the pdf-lib. This is not what I am looking for. I suppose that is Rasmus presentation tool. Personally, last time that I loook, I found that tool limited and inadequate for most people's needs. Of course you do. One problem is that it is dependent on that you must serve the presentation from a server that has PHP installed. This is bad because if you want to provide just the HTML pages to the people for download, you can't do it with Rasmus tool. I believe that this is good for Rasmus presentations because he can show some PHP features interactively but most people (that does not present PHP specific things) does not need that. You can generate plain html pages from it. Another problem is that Rasmus tool lack from single stepping bulleted lists. This means that if you have a slide with a bulleted list, it will show the whole slide at once. This distracts the audience that instead of paying attention to the speaker, they start reading the whole slide. Nope, it does bullet-by-bullet rendering. It will either slide in each bullet or just instantly pop each one up on each key press. It also generates a table of contents page that shows the list of all slides divided in presentation sections. Table of contents can be accessed by clicking on the top title in the any presentation page. Here is an example: So does does my presentation tool. And yes, this thing is very geared for live and interactive presentations, but it doesn't exclude other common features. Personally I find static bullet-point slides extremely painful to sit through. Show me some code, show me the result and show me how different inputs or small code changes affect that result. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Hello, On 11/13/2002 05:10 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: At PHP-CON most of the presenters were using a presentation tool built in PHP. It would convert html to PDF and several other cool functions. Is anyone familiar with this and where I can find it? If not, does anyone one know of a conversion tool built in php that converts html to PDF? I am fully aware of the pdf-lib. This is not what I am looking for. I suppose that is Rasmus presentation tool. Personally, last time that I loook, I found that tool limited and inadequate for most people's needs. Of course you do. I have evaluated I pile of presentation tools including yours before I decided that Prestimel was the best for me. See the points that I mentioned as opportunities to improve your tool in the direction of the needs of many people, if you want to improve of course. One problem is that it is dependent on that you must serve the presentation from a server that has PHP installed. This is bad because if you want to provide just the HTML pages to the people for download, you can't do it with Rasmus tool. I believe that this is good for Rasmus presentations because he can show some PHP features interactively but most people (that does not present PHP specific things) does not need that. You can generate plain html pages from it. It should be trivial, but it was not something possible when I tried it. Another problem is that Rasmus tool lack from single stepping bulleted lists. This means that if you have a slide with a bulleted list, it will show the whole slide at once. This distracts the audience that instead of paying attention to the speaker, they start reading the whole slide. Nope, it does bullet-by-bullet rendering. It will either slide in each bullet or just instantly pop each one up on each key press. I have tried lots of presentations generated with your tool and I could not see that working. Maybe it is not a feature that it is intuitive to use. Anyway, Prestimel generates bullet single steping even with just static HTML. I wonder if your tool can generate static HTML that you can single step and see the current bullet point in a highlight color. It also generates a table of contents page that shows the list of all slides divided in presentation sections. Table of contents can be accessed by clicking on the top title in the any presentation page. Here is an example: So does does my presentation tool. And yes, this thing is very geared for live and interactive presentations, but it doesn't exclude other common features. Personally I find static bullet-point slides extremely painful to sit through. Show me some code, show me the result and show me how different inputs or small code changes affect that result. I don't doubt that your presentation tool was taylored for your needs of presenting PHP code examples interactively in your talks. However, those are very specific needs of yours that a lot of people do not have nor is viable for them as they need to present things without the requirement of having a Web server to generate the presentation dynamically. Besides, as I mentioned I find highlighted bullet single stepping is much more productive than full slide dump because it helps me make people stay focused on the current point than I am presenting instead of getting distracted by the following points of the presentation that I have not talked about yet. -- Regards, Manuel Lemos -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Nope, it does bullet-by-bullet rendering. It will either slide in each bullet or just instantly pop each one up on each key press. I have tried lots of presentations generated with your tool and I could not see that working. Maybe it is not a feature that it is intuitive to use. You are simply about a year behind the times. If you had been to any recent conferences you would see the bullet code in use extensively. Sterling holds the world record for the most sliding bullet points in a single presentation. -R -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
On 11/13/2002 06:33 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: Nope, it does bullet-by-bullet rendering. It will either slide in each bullet or just instantly pop each one up on each key press. I have tried lots of presentations generated with your tool and I could not see that working. Maybe it is not a feature that it is intuitive to use. You are simply about a year behind the times. If you had been to any recent conferences you would see the bullet code in use extensively. Sterling holds the world record for the most sliding bullet points in a single presentation. I don't think you are understanding what I mean. For instance, takes this Sterling Hughes presentation of last July: http://conf.php.net/advphp-oscon2002 Sure it has bullet lists, but there seems to be no single stepping. Further more, it seems to depend on accessing to the server to present the each slide. What I meant is something like this that lets you present the same slide bullet by bullet, highlighting the current bullet. http://www.meta-language.net/metal/15_1.html Since this is all static HTML, with no need for PHP, Javascript or frames, it can be given away in a .tar.gz or .zip archive so people can present it anywhere without any Web server or even an Internet connection and it can in any HTML browser. If your presentation tool can generate single stepped bullet presentations with just static HTML independent of a Web server (or frames or Javascript for the matter) like Prestimel, may be you need to show me a better example than the above of Sterling Hughes that is of this year. -- Regards, Manuel Lemos -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
You are simply not looking at the right presentation. You are looking at the pres1 version of Sterling's presentation. The pres2 version, the one he actually presented, has sliding bullets everywhere. Not sure it is online anywhere right now as we are moving servers around but that is what the question was about and that is the system everyone has been using lately. It is an XML-based system with the ability to render slides into a number of different formats. It has nothing in common with the pres1 system you have been talking about. -Rasmus On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Manuel Lemos wrote: On 11/13/2002 06:33 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: Nope, it does bullet-by-bullet rendering. It will either slide in each bullet or just instantly pop each one up on each key press. I have tried lots of presentations generated with your tool and I could not see that working. Maybe it is not a feature that it is intuitive to use. You are simply about a year behind the times. If you had been to any recent conferences you would see the bullet code in use extensively. Sterling holds the world record for the most sliding bullet points in a single presentation. I don't think you are understanding what I mean. For instance, takes this Sterling Hughes presentation of last July: http://conf.php.net/advphp-oscon2002 Sure it has bullet lists, but there seems to be no single stepping. Further more, it seems to depend on accessing to the server to present the each slide. What I meant is something like this that lets you present the same slide bullet by bullet, highlighting the current bullet. http://www.meta-language.net/metal/15_1.html Since this is all static HTML, with no need for PHP, Javascript or frames, it can be given away in a .tar.gz or .zip archive so people can present it anywhere without any Web server or even an Internet connection and it can in any HTML browser. If your presentation tool can generate single stepped bullet presentations with just static HTML independent of a Web server (or frames or Javascript for the matter) like Prestimel, may be you need to show me a better example than the above of Sterling Hughes that is of this year. -- Regards, Manuel Lemos -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Hello, On 11/13/2002 07:40 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: You are simply not looking at the right presentation. You are looking at the pres1 version of Sterling's presentation. The pres2 version, the one he actually presented, has sliding bullets everywhere. Not sure it is online anywhere right now as we are moving servers around but that is what the question was about and that is the system everyone has been using lately. It is an XML-based system with the ability to render slides into a number of different formats. It has nothing in common with the pres1 system you have been talking about. It is odd that you say that your current presentation tool is there for one year and that Sterling Hughues just use that, but the last presentation of of Sterling Hughes that is from July 2002 uses the version that you say that is old. You seem be contradicting yourself. Anyway, just like I suggested, if you have a better example, just point the URL, because it will be impossible to evaluate the current possibilities of your presentation tool otherwise. Regards, Manuel Lemos On 11/13/2002 06:33 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: Nope, it does bullet-by-bullet rendering. It will either slide in each bullet or just instantly pop each one up on each key press. I have tried lots of presentations generated with your tool and I could not see that working. Maybe it is not a feature that it is intuitive to use. You are simply about a year behind the times. If you had been to any recent conferences you would see the bullet code in use extensively. Sterling holds the world record for the most sliding bullet points in a single presentation. I don't think you are understanding what I mean. For instance, takes this Sterling Hughes presentation of last July: http://conf.php.net/advphp-oscon2002 Sure it has bullet lists, but there seems to be no single stepping. Further more, it seems to depend on accessing to the server to present the each slide. What I meant is something like this that lets you present the same slide bullet by bullet, highlighting the current bullet. http://www.meta-language.net/metal/15_1.html Since this is all static HTML, with no need for PHP, Javascript or frames, it can be given away in a .tar.gz or .zip archive so people can present it anywhere without any Web server or even an Internet connection and it can in any HTML browser. If your presentation tool can generate single stepped bullet presentations with just static HTML independent of a Web server (or frames or Javascript for the matter) like Prestimel, may be you need to show me a better example than the above of Sterling Hughes that is of this year. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
It is odd that you say that your current presentation tool is there for one year and that Sterling Hughues just use that, but the last presentation of of Sterling Hughes that is from July 2002 uses the version that you say that is old. You seem be contradicting yourself. Would you please stop arguing with me. That particular presentation was done in both systems. He presented it using pres2 and you are looking at the pres1 version. Anyway, just like I suggested, if you have a better example, just point the URL, because it will be impossible to evaluate the current possibilities of your presentation tool otherwise. It's all in cvs under pres2/ The question was from someone asking about the pres2 system to which I responded with that exact info on how to get it. The least you could do was to actually go look at it before you start spewing crap without even having seen the system you are criticizing. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Hello, On 11/13/2002 07:54 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: It is odd that you say that your current presentation tool is there for one year and that Sterling Hughues just use that, but the last presentation of of Sterling Hughes that is from July 2002 uses the version that you say that is old. You seem be contradicting yourself. Would you please stop arguing with me. That particular presentation was done in both systems. He presented it using pres2 and you are looking at the pres1 version. Like many of us, I was not at his presentation, so we can only see what is available online. If only the presentation done with the old system is online we can't evaluate the possibilities of the new version. Anyway, just like I suggested, if you have a better example, just point the URL, because it will be impossible to evaluate the current possibilities of your presentation tool otherwise. It's all in cvs under pres2/ The question was from someone asking about the pres2 system to which I responded with that exact info on how to get it. The least you could do was to actually go look at it before you start spewing crap without even having seen the system you are criticizing. I only asked for an example of a generated presentation. I am not interested in the code until I see an example because trying the code by myself will make me spend a lot of time guessing how everything works. If you do not have an example online to show, we can't evaluate it. -- Regards, Manuel Lemos -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
I only asked for an example of a generated presentation. I am not interested in the code until I see an example because trying the code by myself will make me spend a lot of time guessing how everything works. If you do not have an example online to show, we can't evaluate it. I couldn't care less if you can evaluate it or not. The original question in this thread was simply asking for where to find it. Nothing more. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Hello, On 11/13/2002 08:16 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: I only asked for an example of a generated presentation. I am not interested in the code until I see an example because trying the code by myself will make me spend a lot of time guessing how everything works. If you do not have an example online to show, we can't evaluate it. I couldn't care less if you can evaluate it or not. The original question in this thread was simply asking for where to find it. Nothing more. If you don't care that I (or anybody else) can evaluate the presentations generated by your tool why did you bother to follow up my message in the thread when I exposed my evaluation of presentation tools comparing your tool with Prestimel? If you go to the Prestimel site you can evaluate the presentations generated by it here: http://oeh.tu-graz.ac.at/prestimel/example.html I think you should have at least of few examples of presentation generated by your tool so people can evaluate it and maybe start using it, but that is just my opinion of course. -- Regards, Manuel Lemos -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
If you don't care that I (or anybody else) can evaluate the presentations generated by your tool why did you bother to follow up my message in the thread when I exposed my evaluation of presentation tools comparing your tool with Prestimel? Because you compared the wrong damn tool. And I already explained why it isn't online anywhere. We lost our VA server and are in the process of rebuilding things on a new server. -Rasmus -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Hello, On 11/13/2002 08:28 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: If you don't care that I (or anybody else) can evaluate the presentations generated by your tool why did you bother to follow up my message in the thread when I exposed my evaluation of presentation tools comparing your tool with Prestimel? Because you compared the wrong damn tool. And I already explained why it isn't online anywhere. We lost our VA server and are in the process of rebuilding things on a new server. Ok, I'll keep an eye in http://conf.php.net/ . Is there an extimation of when new presentations generated with the new version will be available there? -- Regards, Manuel Lemos -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Ok, I'll keep an eye in http://conf.php.net/ . Is there an extimation of when new presentations generated with the new version will be available there? Nope -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Re: Open Source Presentation Tool
Did all this really have to be sent to the list? On Wed, 2002-11-13 at 22:28, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: If you don't care that I (or anybody else) can evaluate the presentations generated by your tool why did you bother to follow up my message in the thread when I exposed my evaluation of presentation tools comparing your tool with Prestimel? Because you compared the wrong damn tool. And I already explained why it isn't online anywhere. We lost our VA server and are in the process of rebuilding things on a new server. -Rasmus -- .: B i g D o g :. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
