HTML Slides with notes(nbd.neocities.org)
88 points by Curiositry 30 days ago | 16 comments
articsputnik 30 days ago
I found Presenterm [1] to be optimal for me. Simple and works in the terminal, yet powerful to export to PDF and HTML. It supports Mermaid and images. I'm also collecting a list [2] with other Markdown-first presentation tools, and according to the git stars, reveal.js seems to be the most popular. Tough for me, it was too heavy.

[1] https://github.com/mfontanini/presenterm

[2] https://www.ssp.sh/brain/markdown-presentations-or-slides/

zenomt 29 days ago
i made a toolset i call "mdslides" for making pure HTML+CSS (no JavaScript) presentations in Markdown. it's just a CSS stylesheet and an 8 line Awk preprocessor for a slide delimiter, adding just enough HTML wrapping to work with the stylesheet. the stylesheet adds page breaks at each slide so you can get a PDF by asking your browser to print/save-as-PDF. it should work with any CommonMark Markdown formatter (i use "md2html" from the MD4C project).

presentation: https://zenomt.github.io/mdslides/mdslides.html

repo: https://github.com/zenomt/mdslides

nairadithya 30 days ago
There's also marp

https://marp.app/

Curiositry 29 days ago
I tried to use pandoc+revealJS, then tried presenterm (which was really nice but didn't give me enough control over font sizes), and then settled on Marp, which worked great.
fodkodrasz 30 days ago
I used https://revealjs.com/ in the past for this successfully. I have very good experience with that from circa 10 years ago.
chrismorgan 29 days ago
... in 22 lines of JavaScript?
fodkodrasz 28 days ago
Not, but in an actually useful way.

ps: one thing I like on HN is the many related projects linked for each interesting topic, which allow discovery of new tools.

hecanjog 30 days ago
I love it, but it was very disorienting to use `j` to move forward and `k` to move backward.
econ 29 days ago
The other day I was reminded how SketchUp was a 3D drawing application without a learning curve. Today we get a slide show that needs a manual.

I suppose the right key is to use the space bar. But then the html moves to the next page without any js. (Shift space to page back)

Presto even loaded the "next>" link if one pressed space at the end of the page.

chrisweekly 30 days ago
Fastmail uses these too, as does vim.
hecanjog 29 days ago
Ha, yeah I think it's my vim muscle memory that made it feel so weird. `j` going left instead of down and `k` going right instead of up. `h` and 'l` probably would have made me feel right at home though. (And in fairness, changing the keys is trivial in this case!) :-p
tbossanova 30 days ago
jk
moravak1984 30 days ago
lol yeah... "tell me you are lefty without telling me you are lefty"
Diti 30 days ago
Those are Vim bindings. The J key rests right under your index finger (and it’s easy to find it thanks to the nudge on your key), which enables you to spend little to no energy to “scroll down”; the K key is for scrolling up.
jgtrosh 30 days ago
A vimmer*
wosined 30 days ago
or just an evil emacs user
branor 30 days ago
not all emacs users are evil!
small_scombrus 30 days ago
This is really cute!

I have a special spot in my heart for tools that do a good job of explaining themselves using their own outputs.

I wonder how hard it would be to add the cute old PowerPoint style transitions using CSS

paulsmith 30 days ago
You can wrap the navigation event in document.startViewTransition() and get something basic out of the box:

https://codepen.io/pauladamsmith/pen/VYeJMMb

zazaulola 29 days ago
Which transitions in Powerpoint are special?

I haven't seen better slide transitions than here https://impress.js.org/

econ 29 days ago
nhinck2 30 days ago
Not too hard depending on the level of jankiness you're willing to endure.

Screen capture API > full screen canvas element > css animated clip mask and opacity

econ 29 days ago
This is my favorite size project. It allows us to be pedantic about every detail.

When the key press event is triggered current is to be increased or decreased if two conditions are met. One shouldn't check just one, take action then change it back if the other condition isn't met.

   if(e.key == 'j'){ cur++; }
   if(e.key == 'k'){ cur--; }
   if(cur < 0){ cur = 0; }
   if(cur >= sl.length){ cur = sl.length - 1; }
something like...

   if(cur<sl.length && e.key=='j'){ cur++ }
   else if(cur>0 && e.key=='k'){ cur-- }
The else is there because we don't need to check the other condition if the first is true.

Not that the original code doesn't work. I just want to execute instructions needed and avoid unnecessary ones if it is simple enough. The case where we try to increase beyond the array size would still trigger the second check. Even more correct would be:

   if(e.key == 'j'){ 
    if(cur < sl.length){
      cur++; 
    }
   }else if(e.key == 'k'){
    if(cur > 0){
      cur--;
    }
   }
   
To make it uglier the if can go...

   cur<sl.length && e.key=='j' && cur++;
   cur>0 && e.key=='k' && cur-- 
As it won't check the next condition if the first fails.

This hideous bit...

   b+=("j"==d)-("k"==d)
Could be slightly less ugly and one character shorter

   b+=d=="j";b-=d=="k"
Then we can shovel the other conditions inthere too!

   b+=d=="j"&&b<l;b-=d=="k"&&b>0
You see, with just a little effort we may improve nothing.
asplake 30 days ago
Could add clicker support (which I have done previously). Note however that clickers vary between Up/Down and PgUp/PgDown. Enabling the former was potentially annoying if you like to use the arrow keys to scroll, so I made that configurable. Alternatively you configure mappings per device outside the browser.
jakegmaths 30 days ago
I find it infuriating when clickers say they send page up/down but actually send regular up/down key events.
chrismorgan 30 days ago

  (i = slide.nextElementSibling)?.className == "slidenote" ? i : slide
  ]),
An alternative approach:

  slide.querySelector(":scope+.slidenote") ?? slide
(|| would work just as well as ??, but ?? feels more appropriate.)
econ 29 days ago
You could also make the notes mandatory.
chrismorgan 29 days ago
Or put the notes inside the slide, and then CSS is enough, the JavaScript doesn’t even need to know about notes:

  Notes:
  <label><input type=radio name=notes id=notes-hide checked> Hide</label>
  <label><input type=radio name=notes id=notes-inline> Inline</label>
  <label><input type=radio name=notes id=notes-only> Only</label>

  <section>
      Slide

      <aside>
          Notes
      </aside>
  </section>

  <style>
      section {
          position: relative;
      }

      aside {
          background: #feb;
          padding: 1em;

          body:has(#notes-only:checked) & {
              position: absolute;
              inset: 0;
          }

          body:has(#notes-inline:checked) & {
              margin-top: auto; /* concept: if the slide uses flex, notes can try sticking to the bottom */
          }

          body:has(#notes-hide:checked) & {
              display: none;
          }
      }
  </style>
econ 28 days ago
I think one would want either slides or notes?

This seems perfectly heretical.

    <script>
    document.write(`
    <style>
    .${location.search.replace(/\W/g, '')}{
      display:none
    }
    </style>
    `)
    </script>
lukaslukas 30 days ago
Haha, I see people talking about slides everywhere, from specific moment in my life... that's when I started coding slidepicker.com!

Anyway, nice work! I created something similar for our product (a list of divs that switch visibility based on keyboard input).

xiphias2 30 days ago
The original code is really nice:

  // golfed minslides, 173 bytes
  let a=document.getElementsByClassName("slide"),b=0,c=a.length-1;
  document.addEventListener("keypress",({key:d})=>{b+=("j"==d)-("k"==d),b=0>b?0:b>l?l:b,a[b].scrollIntoView()})
fjfaase 30 days ago
I use HTML for my presentations and publish them online mentioning the URL at the top, such that people can open them on their device, which is often a smart phone. I take that into account for the interactive parts of the presentation.
econ 29 days ago
The backend could be just...

    if( is_numeric($_GET['current']) ){
      file_put_contents( 'current.txt',$_GET['current']);
    }
Then could post it it when the clock advances by a second, shortly before the slide advances on the main screen. Aggressively poll it on the clients to figure out how many ms after the whole second to poll.

All the screens would advance simultaneously which would impress the developers.

If someone in the audience has a question they can press a button to have their face and audio streamed to the big screen. Modified by LLM of course, or it would be pointless to have.

cachius 30 days ago
I find the notes mode confusing. You can't tell if you're viewing a note or a slide.

Why would you use it? In PowerPoint the point of notes is to have an aside view for the presenter for extra info. Here all is revealed to the viewer.

sunnyam 30 days ago
You could share a screen with the slides and have the notes visible to yourself. Also the notes mode has a dashed border around it.

This is just a simple demo but it's really cool how simple and easy it is in practice.

jy14898 30 days ago
Open the page in two windows, with one that has note mode enabled
cachius 27 days ago
Thanks, I totally missed that the site is intended to be opened in multiple windows/tabs! That lede is buried in the code.

Wasn't familiar with BroadcastChannel, which allows communication between different ... windows and tabs ... of the same origin

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BroadcastCh...

Jotalea 30 days ago
one thing that I immediately noticed is that this site has no mobile support at all.

that's why I will link this presentation I made, in just a few hours, for a school project. it has mobile support, automatic fullscreen, and is still lightweight. unfortunately, I lost the code for the engine alone, so I only have the "exported product".

https://jotalea.com.ar/tests/tpanticx

jeromechoo 30 days ago
I’m sure this is great on desktop but lack of mobile support today is kindof a bummer. It doesn’t even degrade gracefully.
econ 29 days ago
Having the notes on a phone seems useful.
mbo 30 days ago
self plug: one of my articles also has its own slide infrastructure (exposed to the reader as well!): https://maxbo.me/a-html-file-is-all-you-need.html#:~:text=Sl...
virajk_31 30 days ago
Nice, I hv been working on engine that renders pptx (without compromising original styles) in web browsers...
TheSilva 30 days ago
Have you check https://pitch.com/ ?
virajk_31 27 days ago
nope, however my use case requires high level of customization so I had to build it from scratch...
wosined 30 days ago
Maybe it would be easy to add the shortcuts g - jump to first slide G - jump to last slide