Presentation Mode [->OT]

[mark d smith]

> On Thursday, January 31, 2002, at 11:17 AM, Todd Thomas wrote:
>
>> Didn't Aaron of the Big Nerd Ranch write a Presentation tool?
>> Perhaps it'd work. http://www.bignerdranch.com/Resources/
>>
>> todd

Bruce replied:

> Yes, but it's not even close to sufficient, as I'm sure he'd admit.
> You have to write XML code to get it to display, and there are no
> transition effects, graphics, etc.  Imagine, on the other hand,  the
> editing capabilities of OO, plus the graphics capabilities of OG!  I
> already use PowerPoint; I want something better!

OK, on transition effects you have a point but are they necessary ? For 
me they are not. I like BigShow (Aaron's program) a lot and have used 
it for all my presentations since moving to OS X. The XML you need for 
BigShow can be learnt in 30 minutes even if you don't have any previous 
knowledge of HTML or XML or even markup in general. With what other 
tool can you simply type text into an editor with one or two escape 
sequences and (providing you can remember the names and locations of 
your graphics) end up with a top notch presentation that is: 


- clean
- scalable
- fast and
- devoid of all the tell-tale powerpoint trademarks that make one look 
like an insurance salesman 


It really does display and combine beautiful antialiased text and pdf 
(or other) graphics with minimal fuss. I suppose it wouldn't take much 
to enable it to display QuickTime movies too. What more could you want 
?.. 


...yes I know, a way for BigShow (or another presentation app), OO and 
OG to work together. If Omni and Aaron got together on this I am sure 
we could soon have a program built on top of the BigShow framework(s) 
that worked something like UPresent but with the usual Omni magic. Now 
I'd buy that. Twice. 


Maybe now that Aaron has finished his excellent Cocoa book, he might be 
thinking about doing a bit more on BigShow. 


mark.