Presentations

A Presentation consists of a sequence of Slides. Each Slide is in turn a set of Elements, that are laid out by a supplied layout object. Slides are typically created using the domain specific language. As such, this page will introduce the domain specific language along with the basics of the data representation for presentations.

This page focuses on the parts of the interface that are relevant to using the library. For details on all classes, the reader is encouraged to read the built-in documentation of the relevant classes.

The Presentation Class

The presentation represents an entire presentation. As mentioned above, a presentation consists of zero or more slides. In addition to the slides, the presentation contains a number of variables that specify general properties of the presentation. These are made available to components, so that it is possible to set default fonts once, and have the remaining components use them automatically.

The Presentation class contains the following variables:

The TextStyle type mentioned above is a class that specifies how text should look and be laid out. It contains a Font that specifies which font to use, a Brush that specifies the color of the text, and a Float named space that determines the default spacing after each text element.

Presentation Definitions

Presentations are defined using the presentation keyword at top-level: 

presentation <name> <title> {
    <contents>
}

The syntax above defines a function with the name <name> that creates a presentation with the title <title> (a string literal). The title will be used as the window title of the window that displays the presentation.

The <contents> of the definition may contain regular Basic Storm code. The code is executed in a context where the presentation to be created is bound to the name this. This means that member- variables and functions of the presentation object can be accessed as if they were in the current scope.

Most importantly, the presentation block allows creating slides with the slide keyword as follows: 

slide <layout>

or 

slide <intro> <intro-params> => <layout>

Where <layout> specifies the layout of the slide using a slight variant of the syntax from the layout library. The difference is that the presentation language introduces another syntax for specifying function- or constructor calls that do not require parentheses. As such, it is possible to specify a heading as follows: 

heading "My heading" {}

Additionally, whenever the name (e.g. heading) refers to a function, the presentation library also searches for an overload that accepts a Presentation object as its first parameter. It is thereby possible to create components that respect global configuration options that are present in the Presentation object.

The optional <intro> and <intro-params> specify an optional intro animation for the slide. The system searches for a call <intro>Intro (e.g. a class), and attaches it to the slide as an intro animation.

Since all syntax look up names using the regular Basic Storm name resolution rules, it is possible to add custom components simply by defining new classes or functions that implement the desired behavior.

The system automatically inserts a border around all slides. This can be inhibited by using the keyword borderless slide instead of just slide. Similarly, the background of a slide can be specified using the background keywword instead of the slide keyword.

For example, a simple presentation may look like this: 

use presentation;

presentation Simple "Simple presentation" {
    slide title "My presentation", "My name" {}

    slide FadeIn => content "First Slide" {
        list [ "First bullet", "Second bullet" ] {}
    }
}

Animations

In addition to intro animations for entire slides, it is also possible to animate individual elements. This is done by adding special properties to elements. This is only possible to do for elements that are drawn, not for elements that only exist in the layout hierarchy. The special element Group can be used to group multiple elements into one group to animate them as a unit.

The syntax for animation looks as follows: 

@<step>: <type>

or in general 

@<step>[+<time>][,<time>]: <type>

The <step> is an integer that specifies which step the animation should apply to. Step zero occurs when the slide is first shown, at the same time as any slide intro animation. The optional part +<time> that the animation shall be delayed by the specified time. The part ,<time> specifies the duration of the animation. Both times are expressions that evaluate to a Duration. Typically they are specified as 150 ms for example.

To illustrate how they can be used, consider the following example: 

use presentation;

presentation Simple "Simple presentation" {
    slide title "My presentation", "My name" {}

    slide FadeIn => content "First Slide" {
        ColumnLayout {
            par "A" { @1: FadeIn; }
            par "B" { @1+500ms: FadeIn; }
        }
    }
}

This creates two columns with two pieces of text. When the presenter advances the presentation, the A is first shown, followed 500 ms later by the text B.