

Show HN: 30-second Slideshows for Hackers - prezjordan
http://jdan.github.io/cleaver/

======
prezjordan
Hey HN,

I recently started an Open Source club at my school, and one of the key
aspects of the club is that I (along with a few others) give quick tech talks.
I found that it took far too long to whip up a short slideshow, so I wrote
this. Its entire purpose is to allow you to get something presentable and
interactive out quickly.

It's sort of a two-birds type deal because we'll be actively working on this
project through the club :)

I'd love to hear your feedback!

~~~
adiM
How does it compare with Pandoc[1], which is the swiss-army knife of Markdown-
to-foo converters, and also handles presentations.

[1]: [http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/](http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/)

~~~
prezjordan
Just looking through the "HTML Slides" examples, seems like Pandodoc is more
than capable of achieving what Cleaver does (and much, much more).

~~~
nsmartt
You didn't find a solution that met your precise needs, so you started
building one. Don't let the fact that other solutions exist get you down.

~~~
Keyframe
I feel like this always happens when I'm either done or almost done with my
projects as well.

------
nilliams
Exactly. I've been looking out for (and possibly missed) a tool to make a
Reveal.js-ish slideshow [1] from _just markdown_ rather than _' HTML with
optional markdown in each slide'_. This is that.

With Reveal.js you can do:

    
    
      <section data-markdown><script type="text/template">
        #markdown slide here
      </script></section>
    

But that's a bit of a hard-sell when I'm trying to open non-softie eyes to the
benefits of markdown-everywhere (as they have to encounter HTML too). So yeah,
I realise that a regex that replaces `---` with the above and hoicks it into a
Reveal.js template is (almost) all that is needed to achieve what this project
does, but I'm thankful for it all the same.

Worth noting that I've also used the `slideshow` gem [2] back in the day. This
does basically the same thing as this project, and with the Google HTML5 Rocks
[3] theme it isn't bad as a 'just markdown to slideshow' tool, but it was a
bit fiddly to get started and 1) that homepage is a big undersell with all the
old crappy themes/defaults on it and 2) I think their version of the Google
deck is now pretty outdated (was buggy when I used it). Still, worth looking
into for Rubyists I think.

[1] [http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js](http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js)

[2] [http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/](http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/)

[3]
[http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/tutorial.html5.html#slide1](http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/tutorial.html5.html#slide1)

~~~
prezjordan
I would love to explore adding an optional to render a reveal.js slideshow,
instead of using my "reinventing the wheel" approach. Shouldn't be terribly
difficult, just a matter of adding a new template :)

------
tikhonj
This is a nice project. I wrote my own version earlier, but it was not nearly
as slick! I wanted fancy SVG-based animations, but never got it to a working
state.

Coincidentally, I think some _subtle_ animation would be great--maybe just
have the slides slide in or out. They are, after all, _slides_ :P.

I currently use a very similar tool written for Emacs's org-mode. Org-mode is
incredible. I mostly use it for notes; the slideshows are just another nice
feature. I think the results[1] are quite good, given that it's just as easy
as this except better-integrated into Emacs.

[1]: [http://jelv.is/synthesis-slides.html](http://jelv.is/synthesis-
slides.html)

I put this presentation together at _literally_ the last moment before
speaking--I wrote the last slide just as the previous speaker was taking
questions. Despite the bad timing, I think it worked reasonably well.

It's great, but I do sometimes have to modify the CSS for certain slides by
hand. Happily, this is very easy, and I have never needed anything
complicated.

I use a modified version of an elisp script written by some Googlers[2], but
org-mode can output slides with a bunch of other backends[3] like Beamer or
S5. You can even use Emacs itself to give the presentation! I've seen a
presentation this way and while the aesthetics are questionable, it confers an
undeniable hacker panache.

[2]:
[https://gist.github.com/kinjo/509761](https://gist.github.com/kinjo/509761)

[3]: [http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/non-beamer-
presentatio...](http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/non-beamer-
presentations.html)

------
sam152
I had a play and it seems really neat, congratulations. I ran "watch -n0.2
cleaver presentation.md" to preview changes, but there is probably a better
way to do it with some sort of filesystem watcher.

~~~
prezjordan
I'll be sure to add a `make watch` command or something along those lines,
seems like a no-brainer.

------
dergachev
Seems similar to mdpress, a ruby script which I've used successfully.

[https://github.com/egonSchiele/mdpress](https://github.com/egonSchiele/mdpress)

------
imalolz
Very nice. I would suggest adding url support to be able to go back and forth
between slides (using browser's back/fwd button), emailing dirct link to
certain slides, etc.

~~~
prezjordan
I just merged an awesome PR that does exactly this [0]. It doesn't take over
the forward/back buttons, which is a good thing in my opinion.

[0]:
[https://github.com/jdan/cleaver/pull/25](https://github.com/jdan/cleaver/pull/25)

------
qznc
Why do hackers need this simplistic bullet point slides? Encouraging death by
bullet point?

I could understand features like code-highlighting for hackers.

~~~
preek
p_slides[1] does just that.

1\. [https://github.com/munen/p_slides](https://github.com/munen/p_slides)

------
khadim
maybe can add export option viz to pdf

~~~
preek
what you need is p_slides[1] - it supports export to pdf (via printing to pdf)
as well as syntax highlighting

1\. [https://github.com/munen/p_slides](https://github.com/munen/p_slides)

------
zmjones
this needs mathjax

