ShowOff Presentation Software
=============================

ShowOff is a Sinatra web app that reads simple configuration files for a
presentation.  It is sort of like a Keynote web app engine - think S5 + 
Slidedown.  I am using it to do all my talks in 2010, because I have a deep 
hatred in my heart for Keynote and yet it is by far the best in the field.

The idea is that you setup your markdown slide files in section subdirectories
and then startup the showoff server in that directory.  It will read in your
showoff.json file for which sections go in which order and then will give 
you a URL to present from.

It can:

 * show simple text
 * show images
 * show syntax highlighted code
 * bullets with incremental advancing
 * re-enact command line interactions
 * call up a menu of sections/slides at any time to jump around

It might will can:

 * do simple transitions (instant, fade, slide in)
 * show a timer - elapsed / remaining
 * perform simple animations of images moving between keyframes
 * show syncronized, hidden notes on another browser (like an iphone)
 * show audience questions / comments (twitter or direct)
 * let audience members go back / catch up as you talk
 * let audience members vote on sections (?)
 * broadcast itself on Bonjour
 * let audience members download slides, code samples or other supplementary material

Some of the nice things are that you can easily version control it, you
can easily move sections between presentations, and you can rearrange or
remove sections easily.

Usage
====================

ShowOff is meant to be run in a ShowOff formatted repository - that means that
it has a showoff.json file and a number of sections (subdirectories) with markdown files for the slides you're presenting.

  $ gem install showoff
  $ git clone (showoff-repo)
  $ cd (showoff-repo)
  $ showoff serve

If you run 'showoff' in the ShowOff directory itself, it will show an example 
presentation from the 'example' subdirectory, so you can see what it's like.

Slide Format
====================

You can break your slides up into sections of however many subdirectories deep
you need.  ShowOff will recursively check all the directories mentioned in
your showoff.json file for any markdown files (.md).  Each markdown file can
have any number of slides in it, seperating each slide with the '!SLIDE'
keyword and optional slide styles.

For example, if you run 'showoff create my_new_pres' it will create a new 
starter presentation for you with one .md file at one/slide.md which will have
the following contents:

  !SLIDE

  # My Presentation #

  !SLIDE bullets incremental

  # Bullet Points #

  * first point
  * second point
  * third point

That represents two slides, one with just a large title and one with three
bullets that are incrementally updated when the slide is shown. In order for
ShowOff to see those slides, your showoff.json file needs to look something 
like this:

  [ 
    {"section":"one"} 
  ]

If you have multiple sections in your talk, you can make this json array 
include all the sections you want to show in which order you want to show 
them.

Some useful styles for each slide are:

* center - centers images on a slide
* bullets - sizes and seperates bullets properly (fits up to 5, generally)
* smbullets - sizes and seperates more bullets (smaller, closer together)
* subsection - creates a different background for titles
* command - monospaces h1 title slides
* commandline - for pasted commandline sections 
    (needs leading '$' for commands, then output on subsequent lines)
* code - monospaces everything on the slide
* incremental - can be used with 'bullets' and 'commandline' styles,
    will incrementally update elements on arrow key rather than switch slides
* small - make all slide text 80%
* smaller - make all slide text 70%

Check out the example directory included to see examples of most of these.

You can manage the presentation with the following keys:

 * space, cursor right: next slide
 * cursor left: previous slide
 * d: debug mode
 * c: table of contents (vi)
 * f: toggle footer
 * z: toggle help 

Real World Usage
====================

So far, ShowOff has been used in the following presentations:

* LinuxConf.au 2010 - Wrangling Git - Scott Chacon
  http://github.com/schacon/showoff-wrangling-git

* SF Ruby Meetup - Resque! - Chris Wanstrath
  http://github.com/defunkt/ruby-meetup-resque

If you use it for something, please let me know so I can add it.

Future Plans
====================

I really want this to evolve into a dynamic presentation software server,
that gives the audience a lot of interaction into the presentation -
helping them decide dynamically what the content of the presentation is,
ask questions without interupting the presenter, etc.  I want the audience
to be able to download a dynamically generated PDF of either the actual
talk that was given, or all the available slides, plus supplementary
material. And I want the presenter (me) to be able to push each
presentation to Heroku or GitHub pages for archiving super easily.

Why Not S5 or Slidy or Slidedown?
=================================

S5 and Slidy are really cool, and I was going to use them, but mainly I wanted
something more dynamic.  I wanted Slidy + Slidedown, where I could write my
slideshows in a structured format in sections, where the sections could easily
be moved around and between presentations and could be written in Markdown. I
also like the idea of having interactive presentation system and didn't need
half the features of S5/Slidy (style based print view, auto-scaling, themes,
etc).

Requirements
============

* Ruby (duh)
* Sinatra (and thus Rack)
* BlueCloth
* Nokogiri
* Firefox or Chrome to present