6 # Copyright (C) 2010 Red Hat Inc.
8 # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
9 # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
10 # the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
11 # (at your option) any later version.
13 # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
14 # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
15 # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
16 # GNU General Public License for more details.
18 # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
19 # along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
20 # Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
29 use Cwd qw(getcwd abs_path);
30 use Glib qw(TRUE FALSE);
38 techtalk-pse - superior technical demonstration software
42 cd /path/to/talk/; techtalk-pse
44 techtalk-pse /path/to/talk/
48 Tech Talk "Platinum Supreme Edition" (PSE) is Linux Presentation
49 Software designed by technical people to give technical software
50 demonstrations to other technical people. It is designed to be simple
51 to use (for people who know how to use an editor and the command line)
52 and powerful, so that you can create informative, technically accurate
53 and entertaining talks and demonstrations.
55 Tech Talk PSE is good at opening editors at the right place, opening
56 shell prompts with preloaded history, compiling and running things
57 during the demonstration, displaying text, photos, figures and video.
59 Tech Talk PSE is I<bad> at slide effects, chart junk and bullet
62 This manual page covers all the documentation you will need to use
63 Tech Talk PSE. The next section covers running the tool from the
64 command line. After that there is a L</TUTORIAL> section to get you
65 started. Then there is a detailed L</REFERENCE> section. Finally
66 there is a discussion on L<WHAT MAKES A GOOD TALK>.
68 =head1 RUNNING THE TOOL FROM THE COMMAND LINE
70 A Tech Talk PSE talk is not a single file, but a directory full of
71 files. (If you want to start a new talk, see the L</TUTORIAL> section
72 below). To display or run the talk, change into the directory
73 containing all those files and run the C<techtalk-pse> command:
75 cd /path/to/talk/; techtalk-pse
77 You can also run C<techtalk-pse> without changing directory, instead
78 specifying the path to the talk:
80 techtalk-pse /path/to/talk/
92 Display brief help and exit.
100 Start at the last slide.
102 You cannot use this with the B<-n> / B<--start> option.
108 =item B<-n SLIDE> | B<--start SLIDE>
110 Start at the named slide. I<SLIDE> is the shortest unique prefix of
111 the slide name, so to start at a slide named
112 I<00010-introduction.html>, you could use I<-n 00010> or I<-n 00010-intro>,
113 or give the full filename I<-n 00010-introduction.html>.
115 The default is to start at the first slide in the talk.
123 Don't display the initial "splash" screen which advertises Tech Talk
124 PSE to your audience. Just go straight into the talk.
132 Display verbose messages, useful for debugging or tracing
133 what the program is doing.
141 Display version number and exit.
149 GetOptions ("help|?" => \$help,
151 "mozembed" => \$mozembed,
152 "mozembed-first" => \$mozembed_first,
153 "mozembed-last" => \$mozembed_last,
155 "splash!" => \$splash,
156 "start=s" => \$start,
157 "verbose" => \$verbose,
158 "version" => \$version,
165 pod2usage (1) if $help;
167 print "@PACKAGE@ @VERSION@\n";
170 die "techtalk-pse: cannot use --start and --last options together\n"
171 if defined $last && defined $start;
173 # Run with --mozembed: see below.
174 run_mozembed () if $mozembed;
176 # Normal run of the program.
177 die "techtalk-pse: too many arguments\n" if @ARGV >= 2;
179 # Get the true name of the program.
186 chdir $d or die "techtalk-pse: chdir: $d: $!";
188 # XXX In future allow people to specify an archive and unpack
190 die "techtalk-pse: argument is not a directory"
194 # Get the talk directory and set environment variable $talkdir
195 # which is inherited by all the scripts.
196 my $talkdir = getcwd;
197 $ENV{talkdir} = $talkdir;
207 foreach (glob ("*")) {
208 if (/^(\d+)(?:-.*)\.(html|sh)$/) {
209 print STDERR "reading $_\n" if $verbose;
213 warn "techtalk-pse: $_: command file is not executable (+x)\n"
214 if $ext eq "sh" && ! -x $_;
216 my $h = { name => $_, seq => $1, ext => $2, i => $i };
221 print STDERR "ignoring $_\n" if $verbose;
226 $files[0]->{first} = 1;
227 $files[$#files]->{last} = 1;
231 print STDERR "read ", 0+@files, " files\n" if $verbose;
233 warn "techtalk-pse: no files found, continuing anyway ...\n"
236 # Work out what slide we're starting on.
238 if (defined $current) {
239 die "start slide not implemented yet XXX"
242 $current = $files[0];
244 # else $current is undefined
247 my $w = Gtk2::AboutDialog->new;
248 $w->set_authors ("Richard W.M. Jones");
250 "Superior technical demonstration software\n"
252 $w->set_program_name ("Tech Talk Platinum Supreme Edition (PSE)");
253 $w->set_version ("@VERSION@");
254 $w->set_website ("http://people.redhat.com/~rjones");
255 $w->set_license ("GNU General Public License v2 or above");
257 print STDERR "calling \$w->destroy on about dialog\n" if $verbose;
260 # The dialog doesn't really get destroyed here. We have
261 # to add this hack to really destroy it.
262 Glib::Idle->add (sub { Gtk2->main_quit; return FALSE; });
267 if (defined $current) {
268 my $go = show_slide ($current);
270 print STDERR "go = $go\n" if $verbose;
271 last MAIN if $go eq "QUIT";
273 my $i = $current->{i};
274 print STDERR "i = $i\n" if $verbose;
275 $i-- if $go eq "PREV" && $i > 0;
276 $i++ if $go eq "NEXT" && $i+1 < @files;
277 $current = $files[$i];
280 print "No slides found. Press any key to reload directory ...\n";
284 # Reread directory between slides.
287 if (defined $current && !exists $files{$current->{name}}) {
288 # Current slide was deleted.
290 $current = $files[0] if @files;
298 # Display an HTML page.
299 if ($slide->{ext} eq "html") {
300 # MozEmbed is incredibly crashy, so we run ourself as a
301 # subprocess, so when it segfaults we don't care.
302 my @cmd = ($0, "--mozembed");
303 push @cmd, "--mozembed-first" if exists $slide->{first};
304 push @cmd, "--mozembed-last" if exists $slide->{last};
305 my $url = "file://$talkdir/" . $slide->{name};
307 print STDERR "running subcommand: ", join (" ", @cmd), "\n"
310 die "failed to execute subcommand: ", join(" ", @cmd), ": $!\n"
313 # Subcommand probably segfaulted, just continue to next slide.
326 # Run a shell command.
327 elsif ($slide->{ext} eq "sh") {
329 # http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/perl/cookbook/ch10_17.htm
330 local *run_process = sub {
332 die "fork: $!" unless defined $pid;
336 exec ("./".$slide->{name});
337 die "failed to execute command: ", $slide->{name}, ": $!";
341 local *kill_process = sub {
342 print STDERR "sending TERM signal to process group $pid\n"
350 my $w = Gtk2::Window->new ();
352 my $s = $w->get_screen;
353 $w->set_default_size ($s->get_width, -1);
355 $w->set_decorated (0);
357 my $bbox = Gtk2::HButtonBox->new ();
358 $bbox->set_layout ('start');
360 my $bnext = Gtk2::Button->new ("Next slide");
361 $bnext->signal_connect (clicked => sub { $r = "NEXT"; $w->destroy });
362 $bnext->set_sensitive (!(exists $slide->{last}));
365 my $bback = Gtk2::Button->new ("Back");
366 $bback->signal_connect (clicked => sub { $r = "PREV"; $w->destroy });
367 $bback->set_sensitive (!(exists $slide->{first}));
370 my $brestart = Gtk2::Button->new ("Kill & restart");
371 $brestart->signal_connect (clicked => sub {
375 $bbox->add ($brestart);
377 my $bquit = Gtk2::Button->new ("Quit");
378 $bquit->signal_connect (clicked => sub { $r = "QUIT"; $w->destroy });
380 $bbox->set_child_secondary ($bquit, 1);
384 $w->signal_connect (destroy => sub {
393 print STDERR "returning r=$r\n" if $verbose;
398 # If invoked with the --mozembed parameter then we just display a
399 # single page. This is just to prevent crashes in MozEmbed from
400 # killing the whole program.
405 my $w = Gtk2::Window->new ();
406 my $vbox = Gtk2::VBox->new ();
407 my $moz = Gtk2::MozEmbed->new ();
409 my $bbox = Gtk2::HButtonBox->new ();
410 $bbox->set_layout ('start');
412 $vbox->pack_start ($bbox, 0, 0, 0);
415 #$w->set_default_size (640, 480);
418 my $bnext = Gtk2::Button->new ("Next slide");
419 $bnext->signal_connect (clicked => sub { $r = 0; $w->destroy });
420 $bnext->set_sensitive (!$mozembed_last);
423 my $bback = Gtk2::Button->new ("Back");
424 $bback->signal_connect (clicked => sub { $r = 1; $w->destroy });
425 $bback->set_sensitive (!$mozembed_first);
428 my $bquit = Gtk2::Button->new ("Quit");
429 $bquit->signal_connect (clicked => sub { $r = 2; $w->destroy });
431 $bbox->set_child_secondary ($bquit, 1);
433 $w->signal_connect (destroy => sub {
439 $moz->load_url ($ARGV[0]);
449 =head2 START WRITING A TALK
451 [Before you start writing your real talk, I urge you to read
452 L</WHAT MAKES A GOOD TALK> below].
454 To start your talk, all you have to do is to make a new directory
460 A tech talk consists of HTML files ("slides") and shell scripts. The
461 filenames must start with a number, followed optionally by a
462 description, followed by the extension (C<.html> or C<.sh>). So to
463 start our talk with two slides:
465 echo "This is the introduction" > 0010-introduction.html
466 echo "This is the second slide" > 0020-second.html
468 To run it, run the command from within the talk directory:
472 Any other file in the directory is ignored, so if you want to add
473 Makefiles, version control files etc, just go ahead.
475 =head2 TIPS FOR WRITING HTML
477 You may have your own techniques and tools for writing HTML, so
478 this section is just to share my ideas. I start every
479 HTML file with a standard stylesheet and Javascript header:
481 <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css"/>
482 <script src="code.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
484 That just ensures that I can put common styling instructions for all
485 my slides in a single file (C<style.css>), and I have one place where
486 I can add all Javascript, if I need to use any (C<code.js>).
488 =head3 BACKGROUNDS, FONTS AND LOGOS
490 To add a common background and font size to all slides, put this in
495 background: url(background-image.jpg) no-repeat;
498 To add a logo in one corner:
501 background: url(logo.jpg) top right no-repeat;
504 =head3 SCALING AND CENTERING
506 Scaling slide text and images so that they appear at the same
507 proportionate size for any screen resolution can be done using
509 L<https://developer.mozilla.org/En/DOM/window.innerHeight>).
511 If you want to center text horizontally, use CSS, eg:
517 To center text vertically, CSS3 is supposed to offer a solution some
518 time, but while you're waiting for that try
519 L<http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/center#vertical>.
521 =head3 PREVIEWING HTML
523 I find it helpful to have Firefox open to display the HTML files and
524 styles as I edit them. Just start firefox in the talk directory:
526 firefox file://$(pwd) &
528 When you edit an HTML file, click the Firefox reload button to
529 immediately see your changes.
531 Tech Talk PSE uses Mozilla embedding to display HTML, which uses the
532 same Mozilla engine as Firefox, so what you should see in Firefox
533 should be identical to what Tech Talk PSE displays.
535 =head2 CREATING FIGURES
537 Use your favorite tool to draw the figure, convert it to an image (in
538 any format that the Mozilla engine can display) and include it using
539 an C<E<lt>imgE<gt>> tag, eg:
543 Suitable tools include: XFig, GnuPlot, GraphViz, and many TeX tools
544 such as PicTex and in particular TikZ.
546 =head2 EMBEDDING VIDEOS, ANIMATIONS, ETC.
548 Using HTML 5, embedding videos in the browser is easy. See:
549 L<https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_audio_and_video_in_Firefox>
551 For animations, you could try L<Haxe|http://haxe.org/> which has a
552 Javascript back-end. There are many other possibilities.
554 If you are B<sure> that the venue will have an internet connection,
555 why not embed a YouTube video.
557 =head2 DISPLAYING EXISTING WEB PAGES
559 Obviously you could just have an HTML file that contains a redirect to
562 <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; url=http://www.example.com/">
564 However if you want your talk to work offline, then it's better to
565 download the web page in advance, eg. using Firefox's "Save Page As
566 -E<gt> Web Page, complete" feature, into the talk directory, then
567 either rename or make a symbolic link to the slide name:
569 ln -s "haXe - Welcome to haXe.html" 0010-haxe-homepage.html
571 =head2 TIPS FOR WRITING SHELL SCRIPTS
573 Make sure each C<*.sh> file you write is executable, otherwise Tech
574 Talk PSE won't be able to run it. (The program gives a warning if you
577 A good idea is to start each script by sourcing some common functions.
578 All my scripts start with:
583 where C<functions> is another file (ignored by Tech Talk PSE) which
584 contains common functions for setting shell history and starting a
587 In C<functions>, I have:
589 # -*- shell-script -*-
591 # Place any local environment variables required in 'local'.
592 if [ -f local ]; then source local; fi
596 export HISTFILE=$talkdir/history
603 echo "$@" >> $HISTFILE
608 # Make $HISTFILE unwritable so the shell won't update it
612 # Run gnome-terminal.
616 --geometry=+100+100 \
619 -e '/bin/bash --norc' \
623 By initializing the shell history, during your talk you can rapidly
624 recall commands to start parts of the demonstration just by hitting
625 the Up arrow. A complete shell script from one of my talks would look
630 add_history guestfish -i debian.img
631 terminal --title="Examining a Debian guest image in guestfish"
633 This is just a starting point for your own scripts. You may want to
634 use a different terminal, such as xterm, and you may want to adjust
639 =head2 ORDER OF FILES
641 Tech Talk PSE displays the slides in the directory in lexicographic
642 order (the same order as C<LANG=C ls -1>). Only files matching the
643 following regexp are considered:
645 ^(\d+)(?:-.*)\.(html|sh)$
647 For future compatibility, you should ensure that every slide has a
648 unique numeric part (ie. I<don't> have C<0010-aaa.html> and
649 C<0010-bbb.html>). This is because in future we want to have the
650 ability to display multiple files side by side.
652 Also for future compatibility, I<don't> use file names that have an
653 uppercase letter immediately after the numeric part. This is because
654 in future we want to allow placement hints using filenames like
655 C<0010L-on-the-left.html> and C<0010R-on-the-right.html>.
657 =head2 BASE URL AND CURRENT DIRECTORY
659 The base URL is set to the be the directory containing the talk files.
660 Thus you should use relative paths, eg:
664 You can also place assets into subdirectories, because subdirectories
665 are ignored by Tech Talk PSE, eg:
667 <img src="images/fig1.gif">
669 When running shell scripts, the current directory is also set to be
670 the directory containing the talk files, so the same rules about using
671 relative paths apply there too.
673 The environment variable C<$talkdir> is exported to scripts and it
674 contains the absolute path of the directory containing the talk files.
675 When a script is run, the current directory is the same as
676 C<$talkdir>, but if your script changes directory (eg. into a
677 subdirectory containing supporting files) then it can be useful to use
678 C<$talkdir> to refer back to the original directory.
680 =head1 WHAT MAKES A GOOD TALK
682 I like what Edward Tufte writes, for example his evisceration of
683 PowerPoint use at NASA here:
684 L<http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB>
686 However it is sometimes hard to translate his ideas into clear
687 presentations, and not all of that is the fault of the tools. Here
688 are my thoughts and rules on how to deliver a good talk.
690 B<First, most important rule:> Before you start drawing any slides at
691 all, write your talk as a short essay.
693 This is the number one mistake that presenters make, and it is partly
694 a tool fault, because PowerPoint, OpenOffice, even Tech Talk PSE, all
695 open up on an initial blank slide, inviting you to write a title and
696 some bullet points. If you start that way, you will end up using the
697 program as a kind of clumsy outlining tool, and then reading that
698 outline to your audience. That's boring and a waste of time for you
699 and your audience. (It would be quicker for them just to download the
700 talk and read it at home).
702 B<Secondly:> How long do you want to spend preparing the talk? A good
703 talk, with a sound essay behind it, well thought out diagrams and
704 figures, and interesting demonstrations, takes many hours to prepare.
705 How many hours? I would suggest thinking about how many hours of
706 effort your audience are putting in. Even just 20 people sitting
707 there for half an hour is 10 man-hours of attention, and that is a
708 very small talk, and doesn't include all the extra time and hassle
709 that it took to get them all in one place.
711 I don't think you can get away with spending less than two full days
712 preparing a talk, if you want to master the topic and draw up accurate
713 slides. Steve Jobs is reputed to spend weeks preparing his annual
714 sales talk to the Apple faithful.
716 B<Thirdly:> Now that you're going to write your talk as an essay, what
717 should go in the slides? I would say that you should consider
718 delivering the essay, I<not> the slides, to people who don't make the
719 talk. An essay can be turned into an article or blog posting, whereas
720 even "read-out-the-bullet-point" slides have a low information
721 density, large size, and end-user compatibility problems (*.pptx
724 What, then, goes on the slides? Anything you cannot just say:
725 diagrams, graphs, videos, animations, and of course (only with Tech
726 Talk PSE!) demonstrations.
728 B<Lastly:> Once you've got your talk as an essay and slides, practice,
729 practice and practice again. Deliver the talk to yourself in the
730 mirror, to your colleagues. Practice going backwards and forwards
731 through the slides, using your actual laptop and the software so you
732 know what to click and what keys to press. Partly memorize what you
733 are going to say (but use short notes written on paper if you need
738 The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, Tufte, Edward R.
742 Richard W.M. Jones L<http://people.redhat.com/~rjones/>
746 Copyright (C) 2010 Red Hat Inc.
748 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
749 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
750 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
751 (at your option) any later version.
753 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
754 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
755 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
756 GNU General Public License for more details.
758 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
759 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
760 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.