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RickZeeland31-Aug-23 8:34

RickZeeland

31-Aug-23 8:34

Maybe you can find some inspiration here:
Browse thousands of Ppt images for design inspiration | Dribbble[^]

MarkTJohnson31-Aug-23 8:58

MarkTJohnson

31-Aug-23 8:58

Start with:

It was a dark and stormy night . . .

I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.

OriginalGriff31-Aug-23 9:38

OriginalGriff

31-Aug-23 9:38

Call me Ishmael ... Big Grin | :-D

"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!

Daniel Pfeffer31-Aug-23 9:41

Daniel Pfeffer

31-Aug-23 9:41

The last man on Earth sat in a room. There was a knock on the door... Smile | :)

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.

raddevus31-Aug-23 10:36

raddevus

31-Aug-23 10:36

Are we doing first lines from stories? Here's mine:

"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."

Kind of describes my software dev life, too. Laugh | :laugh:

trønderen31-Aug-23 11:16

trønderen

31-Aug-23 11:16

The only first line I remember well: "Ain't nobody never loved me as I love myself".

I wish I knew the title of the novel, for picking it up and read it. I never read more than the first line.

raddevus31-Aug-23 11:24

raddevus

31-Aug-23 11:24

Looks like it was Jack Kerouac (ala Google Books search[^])

haughtonomous1-Sep-23 1:18

haughtonomous

1-Sep-23 1:18

I always open with "Last night I dreamt I went to Mandalay again". Perfect lead in; so many possibilities after that.

haughtonomous1-Sep-23 1:18

haughtonomous

1-Sep-23 1:18

I always open with "Last night I dreamt I went to Mandalay again". Perfect lead in; so many possibilities after that.

MarkTJohnson1-Sep-23 3:23

MarkTJohnson

1-Sep-23 3:23

Woo Hoo! Kent used my line for the Daily Insider!

Too bad I can't claim copyright. Big Grin | :-D

I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated.
I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.

Alister Morton1-Sep-23 5:15

Alister Morton

1-Sep-23 5:15

What's it going to be, then, eh?

As good an opener as I can think of.

modified 1-Sep-23 11:21am.

Marc Clifton31-Aug-23 9:52

Marc Clifton

31-Aug-23 9:52

Given it's a PPT:

Once upon a time there was an audience that could read the PPT slides themselves, and if they didn't have to all gather to listen to the presenter read the slides, they would live much more happily ever after.

Latest Articles:
A Lightweight Thread Safe In-Memory Keyed Generic Cache Collection Service
A Dynamic Where Implementation for Entity Framework

raddevus31-Aug-23 10:29

raddevus

31-Aug-23 10:29

Telling a good story is all about context.

Here's what I mean:

Try to memorize a list of 15 random things: gorilla, apples, tree, bulldozer, etc...
Average person can remember about 4 +/- 3 of the random things.

However, as soon as you make a story out of those 15 things (and especially if you create a bizarre story) then most people can remember them all.
Context generally provides things with meaning. The random list has no context or meaning and is easily forgotten.

From that, we have 3 good principles:
1. Whenever you present data, turn the data into a story.
2. When you tell a story, do your best to provide it with a context that relates to the audience and it will instantly be far more memorable.
3. When you provide a solid context to the audience the story will have meaning to them -- so consider what might be meaningful (to your specific audience) in the data that you are presenting.

Good luck!

Power Point?!

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov31-Aug-23 13:34

31-Aug-23 13:34

A while ago, I found a big article speculating that PowerPoint is created mainly to support people who work for a corporation, and who have nothing to say but want to make an impression of saying something.
The author was amused by the empty-minded content of most presentations and the fact that so many elements take up so much room giving no essential information. Exactly according to the previous statement. We even have a nickname for such people — “office plankton”. Smile | :)

Anyway, as I always had similar feelings, I took it pretty seriously and realized that I should permanently give up not only those commercial presentation tools but all kinds of Office products, not only Microsoft's. How could I work for corporates? Pretty easily, I must say. Moreover, I usually deliver many big presentations on a regular basis.

First, I realized that I could simply show a sequence of pictures, using what I already have. You need a good picture viewer, and you can find some. Later, I came up with a similar idea (first of all, the pictures you already have) to create a more advanced show.

These two noncommercial open-source products I offered to Code Project readers are alternatives, and they are similar. They show what one can create using just a Web browser and a pair of hands:

Web Presentation, an Application in a Single File, now with Video
Web Presentation, the Other Way Around

They provide Live Demo for both, so it would take a few seconds to find out what they are. This is one Life Demo, and this is the other one.
Enjoy! Smile | :)

Thank you.

—SA

Sergey A Kryukov

modified 1-Sep-23 2:18am.

Re: Power Point?!

Southmountain31-Aug-23 19:50

Southmountain

31-Aug-23 19:50

thanks for the great story Rose | [Rose]

diligent hands rule....

Re: Power Point?!

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov31-Aug-23 20:08

31-Aug-23 20:08

You are very welcome!

—SA

Sergey A Kryukov

Re: Power Point?!

Nelek31-Aug-23 21:06

31-Aug-23 21:06

Nice thing. I'll check it a bit more in depth when I get time for it, right now I am just bookmarking your post.
A small feedback from what I saw:

- In "life Demo" (the html one) you have a Typo in the slide after the bird video. You have "a" twice "A a cross platform..."

- In both demos:
No final slide, it is and endless loop (if intentionally done like this, then I say nothing)

Additionally... (In powerpoint) If a slide has presentations that might take time and you need to skip them because you are needing longar than needed, the first click makes the slide to its final form. The second click makes next.
If you click once in your presentations you jump to the next slide, without seeing the end slide and might miss things that should be shown.
Might be a worthy modification (maybe another shortcut for that?)

M.D.V.

If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

modified 1-Sep-23 3:16am.

Bugs and your advice

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov31-Aug-23 22:15

31-Aug-23 22:15

Hi Nelek,

Thank you very much for the advice and especially for reporting my typo. Speaking of which:

I. Ilf wrote:
It was decided to make it totally error-free. They produced twenty proofreading prints and nevertheless on the title page it was printed: "Encyclopidae Britannica".

I'll certainly fix it as soon as I get to it.

As to “no final slide”… you know, I've used it for many presentations already and never felt someone needed to know a final slide. Even an accidental step to the next round was perceived normally. And I did not quite understand how it was possible to miss something. Anyway, it looks like no concerns of this kind ever visited my head. However, there is something to think about — Thank you again.

—SA

Sergey A Kryukov

Re: Bugs and your advice

Nelek1-Sep-23 5:23

1-Sep-23 5:23

That with the final sleed is not so important. I would consider more the "skip presentation" option. That can really be helpfull for the users.

M.D.V.

Presentation follow-up

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov1-Sep-23 5:44

Re: Presentation follow-up

1-Sep-23 5:44

Nelek,

Thank you for sharing the ideas!

There can be many things to think about. The issue with skipping is that you need to have some information on what to skip. This information can be the presentation frame itself. Maybe you did not pay attention: such a frame can already be skipped at any time, even if a video, based on an external video file, is playing. I still don't want to get away from a single file conception (the system is a single file, and the other files belong to the user). I also don't want to get far away from having just a list of external files of different types in a directory. It should always remain a primary usage pattern, the most basic and quick one. Also, in case you are thinking of something more complicated than that: the presentation users always see the same screen the presenter works with, there is nothing hidden.

I am not at all trying to dismiss your suggestions. Just the opposite: I want to understand. I think the idea of the last frame (or first frame because you also can move backward) could be a valuable option. Perhaps, with the skipping, I haven't grasped the idea.

Thank you.

—SA

Sergey A Kryukov

Nelek1-Sep-23 8:59

1-Sep-23 8:59

Ok.

I now got it, the animation is actually an extern file (i.e. *.WebP) so you can't jump to "the last line" of it.

Forget it then...
-------------

The final slide would be more a sort of "BOOL execute once = TRUE", you don't need to make the "end slide" because this is responsibility of the user. But if I were going to use it, I would like to be sure that a not planed click doesn't start it over again... that could look a bit unprofessional depending on the audience. So the "execute once" would be a nice thing to avoid it.

M.D.V.

WebP and animation

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov1-Sep-23 9:47

1-Sep-23 9:47

Nelek,

Thank you for the clarification.

Nelek wrote:
the animation is actually an external file (i.e. *.WebP) so you can't jump to “the last line” of it...

Not quite. The animation comes in several ways: 1) animated bitmap file (for example, multi-layered (animated) .webp, 2) animated SVG, 3) just video, such as .WebP, that is, any media files, representable by a browser. If the video frame type is specified, it is done not directly, but by placing in a standard <video> element. Therefore, all these presentation frames (not to be confused with video frames) could be navigated to the next or previous presentation frame, at any time.

But that's not all. The presentation doesn't have to be an external file. Also, it could be some HTML section, identified by the system by some simple rules, and that HTML fragment can be either static or it can use CSS animation. But CSS-animated HTML content is nothing more than just a state of a Web page, so it also can be navigated to the next or previous presentation frame. In fact, during the presentation, no one can even see the difference in the nature of the presentation frames. The only exception is the characteristic look of a <video> element with its well-known controls, but only it is not operating in a full-screen mode.

I would say, all the power I see in this approach is its uniform behavior of all frames, no matter what is their nature.

Thank you for the discussion again. I'll greatly appreciate any notes, ideas, suggestions, and especially any criticism.

Thank you.

—SA

Sergey A Kryukov

Fixed, added Credit

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov4-Sep-23 5:07

4-Sep-23 5:07

Nelek,

Thank you again for the typo reporting!

It took time to find time for that, and it took 7 (!) GitHub commits to getting it right because the typo also infiltrated in several places: 1) in both presentations, 2) not only in text, but also in graphical objects, and 3) in both articles themselves:
Web Presentation, an Application in a Single File, now with Video
Web Presentation, the Other Way Around

I also credited your reporting in both articles.

Thank you.

—SA

Sergey A Kryukov

Re: Fixed, added Credit

Nelek4-Sep-23 9:04