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Creating online Presentations, Slideshows, or Tours

First and foremost, be diligent in creating presentations that actually convey useful information. On the listening end, be critical in receiving presentations.

Browser-based

S5

Use S5 for creating presentations that are cross-browser, accessible, easy to maintain, and very flexible. S5 is an XHTML/CSS and JavaScript slideshow system. Various systems can interact with S5 including the "presentacular" (http://labs.cavorite.com/presentacular/ ) js library and http://script.aculo.us visual effects.

Using

The controls work just like OpenOffice Impress or Microsoft PowerPoint (Fullscreen, spacebar or click to advance, etc.) See more in the Intro and reference

Firefox users should press F11 to put their web browser into Fullscreen mode. Opera users must press F11 to see the slideshow mode Opera Show

The s5 website offers

  • A Basic Primer in Using S5 - pretty much what it sounds like.
  • S5 Reference - a full reference describing what markup is required, what is recommended, and what is optional in an S5 presentation file.
  • Minimal S5 Structure - a guide to the absolute bare minimum markup used in an S5 slide file.
  • S5 File Map - explains what files are where, and what each one does.
  • S5 FAQ - it may not answer all your questions, but it will answer the common ones. The uncommon ones you'll have to send in.


Slidy

There is another system similar to S5 created by Dave Raggett and others at the W3C called Slidy. http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy/

S5 Spin-offs

Ryan King's S5 Project site http://s5project.org/ - an object-oriented rewrite with MoochiKit js

Robert Nyman created a spin-off of S5 that already uses Ajax... except his implementation uses Ajax to retrieve the content (as XML) from the server rather than to create a controller. http://robertnyman.com/ajax-s/

S5 Reloaded by Christian Effenberger http://www.netzgesta.de/S5/references.php which adds auto-scaling of images, fading, sound, chart support, extended control panel and more.

S9 http://slideshow-s9.github.io/ Slide Show (S9) - A Free Web Alternative to PowerPoint and KeyNote in Ruby by Gerald Bauer who also rewrote the javascript part using jQuery and calls it "Easier to Understand and Extend S5 Rewrite using jQuery"

S6 (this one an acronym for Synchronized S5) by Carsten Bormann provides "remote control" through Prototype

S5 with MediaWiki

There are many ways to combine the power of MediaWiki with the slideshow concept. See MediaWiki/Slideshow

Office tools

With OpenOffice Impress, you can create a presentation that has your personal look and feel. See examples at

Web casting

There is a "slides" project hosted at sourceforge that creates a slideshow that you can share with an audience while the 'admin' or presenter controls the timing (employing Ajax). I suggested to the author that he could possibly create a "S5 remote control" instead of starting from scratch. He thought this was an excellent idea.

Third-party sites

Like YouTube, http://www.slideshare.net/ is a place to host your presentations. http://slimey.sourceforge.net/ is a place where you can author S5 slideshows. What's more, you can download the source. It's part of the OpenGoo online office suite, and is part of eyeOS