OUseful Info

feedshow Link Presenter - Getting There...

From time to time I give presentations based almost wholly around websites, or screenshots of websites, rather than a set of Powerpoint slides. This is particularly true whenever I do a "partial attention format" workshop, a typically hectic tour of preselected websites in which the audience are free to take notes, follow along with what I'm saying via the projector screen, or by visiting the sites under discussion on their own computers, or catch-up on their mail and feedreading if they've heard it all before ;-)

The feedshow link presenter has evolved to support this sort of presentation by providing a simple environment for stepping through a list of links delivered to the presenter app via an RSS feed. A typical source for such a feed might be a social bookmarking site such as delicious, for example; (links for each 'show' can be assigned a different tag). The actual sites - rather than screenshots - are displayed within the presenter, so they can be explored in real time during the presentation.

I've just popped a new version up at http://ouseful.open.ac.uk/feedshow, incorporating a couple of new features (with more on the way if next get a spare half hour... and loads more when I have a spare couple of hours...;-)

So what's new?

Firstly, the landing page.

As the app evolves, the link presenter is going to go through several versions, or variants, so the landing page will allow you to select between the currently available versions. At the moment, there are two flavours available:

- solo: the Solo Show is for use when you don't expect anyone to follow along, such as when no-one in the audience has access to a computer, or internet connection. (The presenter needs an internet connection for the app to work...But then, as the aim of the app is to help sequence a series of visits to third party websites, the network connection is more or less essential ;-) If someone does have access to a connected computer, you can splash them a URL so they can get access to the links in the link presenter environment, and click through them at their own speed.

- synch: the Synch Show allows members of the audience to run a version of the link presenter that can synch their view with that of the presenter. So if they drift off for a few 'slides' (i.e. sites), or wander off browsing elsewhere, they can easily synch with the main presentation view - and then start wandering off again on their own tack by clicking around the site under discussion ;-)

The "Reverse order" switch will reverse the order of links that are presented. This can be useful when feeding from sources like delicious, where it is easier to add links in the order you intend to use them, and which will then be in reverse (chronological addition date) order when pulled into the link presenter.

When you launch the slideshow, you are taken to the splash screen for the show:

The top menu bar is where the real action is (NB. the styling of the top bar still needs tweaking - it only displays properly in quite a wide aspect browser...)

At the moment, the control bars are different for the solo and synch shows:

Solo show controls:

Synch show controls:

Clicking on Splash will display a URL for audience members to follow along.

In the solo show, the link points to the version of the app that the person presenting the show is using. Audience members are in control of the app and there is no synchronisation between their browser and the person presenting.

In the synch show, the link points a client version of the application (the person presenting the show is running a master version). The client/audeince view in the synch version has a control bar that is cut down further still:

In all control bars, Back and Forward will point to the next and previous links/pages in the show. The sequence wraps round at each end of the show (next on the last link goes to the first link in the show, previous on the first goes to the last link in the show).

The show is started in sole and synch master views by clicking the 'Current' button. This will load the page corresponding to the first URL in the linkshow into the display area:

In the synch show, the number of the link is displayed in the control bar. If the Synch button is clicked in the synch client, the page display will be synchronised with the URL currently loaded in the master view. In this way, audience members can synch the state of their Feedshow page with that of the presenter - which can be handy if you've only been paying partial attention, and wandered off to explore an earlier site in detail...

Also in the synch show, the person giving the presentation can splash the URL of the page currently being displayed by clicking the URL button:

The text box - and the associated Go button - enable you to visit an arbitrary URL outside of the linkshow:

In the synch version, client users can synch with these out-of-show links by clicking the Synch button.

Back in the master view, the presenter can return to the current slide in the show by clicking on the Current button, or move on to the next item in the sequenced show by clicking Forward.

By loading actual pages into the main display area, rather than screenshots, sites can be explored in situ, within the context of the linkshow, whilst retaining the ability to go directly to the current, next or previous- bookmarked site in the show with a single click.

If you have a play and come across any problems at all, please, please, please mail me...

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Tags: feedshow, link presenter

Posted by ajh59 at February 4, 2008 04:58 PM