Courtney O'Callaghan 4:53 pm on August 25, 2015
Tags: slides ( 36 )

Slides

WORK SO FAR

Perfect PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party (so far)
- accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility)
- backwards compatibility
- reuse
- minimal learning curve
- ability to use without internet
- design consistency between different sets of slides
- maintainability
- ease of updates
- ability to account for different aspect ratio displays
Slides formats we have tried
- Google slides
- Reveal

TO DO (add to comment section)

Plugin wish list
- Explain items already in list
- Add other dream feature requests
Explain Issues with external formats
- Google slides
- Reveal
Other formats (or plugins) we should try before WCUSA
- PDF – need lp to try

#slides

Courtney Engle Robertson 5:09 pm on August 25, 2015

It would be great if the slides could be downloaded locally for instances without internet connection. Possible formats could also include jpg and pdf, as those will open in most browsers.

Pro of Google Slides: can make a template that is submitted to their repository for others to use. Also, Google Slides are easily viewed online and offline, as well as exporting to image formats and pdf.

Con of Google slides: Needing to understand Slide templates if layout adjustments need to be made. Content cannot be auto-updated from Training Lesson Plan pages. Aspect ratios of 4:3 and 16:9 would require 2 different files.
Courtney Engle Robertson 4:11 pm on September 8, 2015

@courtneydawn what did you envision for the PDF? I’m wondering what system before PDF you might want that exported from. We have a few lesson plans that are in Keynote and Google Slides already, and I believe both can export to PDF. @melindahelt may have part of this started.
Mike Mueller 5:12 pm on September 8, 2015

I think I’m happy with the way it is right now. No additions or changes from me.
tlcbytara 9:09 pm on September 23, 2015

I recently read on a blog somewhere (can’t remember which one) about a WordPress pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party that does a good job with slides/presentations. Not sure which one it was, may have been https://wordpress.org/plugins/presenter/
I haven’t used these, but may solve the consistency/layout/compatibility issues? @courtneydawn
melindahelt 1:24 am on October 8, 2015

(my comments from yesterday’s meeting)
I agree that PDFs need to be provided somehow OR have an easy option for to make a fresh PDF of the lesson in case the presenter wants to hand it out.

One of the concerns with PDF is that it can’t be edited. Perhaps if we go with a slide pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party (that makes the slides HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. of some sort) is that it has an “export as PDF” option. That way if something is updated in the lesson plan, then the PDF will be updated when the presenter exports one as needed
bethsoderberg 1:40 am on October 12, 2015
Here is my attempt to explain the list of features that we’ve created that the slides need:
accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) – Slides can not be created using software that requires a license for someone to use the program and thus, the slides. This means that popular presentation software such as Keynote and PowerPoint won’t work for this project because we can’t expect contributors and presenters to have licenses for such software.

backwards compatibility – Slides need to be able to be viewed on very old computers that only have older software/browsers installed.

reuse – Slides need to be able to be used repeatedly by different presenters to present the same lesson plans. The content and format of the slides should not be unique to any one presenter.

minimal learning curve – The ability to create slides, modify them, or use them should all have a pretty low learning curve. This doesn’t mean that there can’t be a learning curve at all, but that anything we expect people to learn should be well documented. It would also be ideal if the user interface of whatever solution we end up with would have an intuitive user experience.

ability to use without internet – This one is self explanatory: we need anyone using the slides to be able to do so without access to the internet at the time of the presentation.

design consistency between different sets of slides – If someone goes to make a new set of slides, there shouldn’t be any questions about what those slides should look like. Within and between different slides and sets of slides all of the formatting should be as consistent as possible. Such consistency will make our materials look professional, will facilitate multiple lesson plans being strung together into workshops, and will enable those who do not have an eye for design to make slides that are just as presentable as anyone else.

maintainability – Slides can not rely on a process that involves a ton of manual work in order to make changes. We need to be able to update content/export to different aspect ratios/swap out screenshots without unnecessary steps to the process.

ease of updates – Contributors need to be able to update the slide decks as lesson plans evolve over time, regardless if they were the original author of the slides.

ability to account for different aspect ratio displays – There are lots of different aspect ratios that the slides might be displayed on depending on projectors, computer screens, etc. We need to make sure the slides.

As for actual solutions in terms of what format we could use to make slides, I’m arranging my thoughts by each proposed format we’ve thought of thus far:

PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party
benefits:
- updates could be made from within the post for each lesson plan
- updates to slides could be automated
- slides could potentially be in more than one format to account for different displays/aspect ratios/browsers
- the format of the slides could be programmatic and therefore account for backwards compatibility of the slides in various browsers
issues:
- what we’re envisioning would require a lot of very detailed custom coding expertise to be functional
- we’d need to account for a variety of slide formats and may not be able to make custom one of a kind slides if needed
- I’m a little concerned about
Google Slides
benefits:
- freely available program
- platform is similar to something many are familiar with as it’s much like PPT or Keynote
- presentations are downloadable as .pdf, .ppt, .svg, .jpg, or .txt files
- can make a template that would be available through their repository
- allows offline mode and downloading of PDF versions
issues:
- reliance on Google to make sure the slides software and slides themselves are indefinitely available
- understanding the template system is required if a formatting adjustment needs to be made
- no way to import the lesson plan content automatically as updates occur
- requires fixed aspect ratio for slides
- keeping design consistency from slide to slide, even with the master template, seems impossible to control with lots of people editing since you can just drag and drop elements on each slide
- I think that Google Slides are hard to use/understand
Reveal
benefits:
- adjusts to a variety of screen sizes
- code that underlays the system is freely available on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/
- possible to export to .pdf
- visual elements are coming from a theme, which means that updates to this theme could be pushed to all sets of slides that share the same
- since it is code based could theoretically be integrated with a plugin
issues:
- requires some level of knowledge of HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. to add content
- does not support browsers below IE7 (potentially OK due to ability to export as PDF) and has a modified experience for IE8 (see https://github.com/hakimel/reveal.js/wiki/Browser-Support)
- we’d need to find a location to house the slides (perhaps GitHub?)
- knowledge of how to use GitHub might be a barrier to entry for creating slides in this way
PDF
benefits:
- wouldn’t rely on a browser of any kind
- wouldn’t rely on access to internet
issues:
- may have issues with aspect ratio
- I can’t think of a way to create PDFs that doesn’t use one of the slide frameworks mentioned here and does not utilize proprietary software
- would be impossible to edit once output as PDF format
Things we’ve considered before, but that we’ve basically dropped as options:
Static HTML/CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site.
benefits:
- anyone who knows HTML can update
- a common stylesheet would allow for updates across multiple plans at once
- keeping the technology to just plan HTML and CSS would ensure as much backwards compatibility in terms of platforms as possible
issues:
- impossible to control the vertical height of slides to account for different aspect ratios without using JS
Using the Lesson Plan Page and Scrolling Through
benefits:
- this is what we already have
- screenshots can be embedded in the text between sections of the script
- can send workshop participants to a link for reference
issues:
- confusing to viewers to have so much text in between screenshots/sections
- text is going to end up being pretty small regardless of the size of the projector/screen
melindahelt 2:18 pm on October 13, 2015

A few extra thoughts to Beth’s comments above:

Slide Software: there are open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. options for slide software. I’ve been using Open Office for Mac for years, though admittedly I haven’t done much with their presentation model. I’ve had very few problems with Word and Excel. I’m not necessarily suggesting we go this route (asking someone to download a new software application isn’t the best approach either) but just throwing it out there. If we want to test Open Office’s Presentation features, I would be glad to do so.

Reveal: I have not used this before, but looking at the pro and con list, I have a few thoughts. Regarding HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. knowledge — would it be fair to say that most plan writers would know some HTML (no idea if that’s true)? Plan presenters can use the slides as-is so they will not necessarily have to edit them. Or, is it something were if a lesson plan writer doesn’t know HTML, that another team member could pair up to create the slides? If we end up going this direction, I would be glad to help non-technical people make slides if needed.
Courtney Engle Robertson 6:03 pm on November 3, 2015

See the long-standing discussion around slides: https://make.wordpress.org/training/tag/slides/
CamWebDev 1:25 pm on November 13, 2015

Hi there, I’m brand new here so please forgive me if this has been mentioned or is not an option, but what if there was just a .zip file of different formats? Like PowerPoint, PDF, Google Slides – each made for their own quirks so trainers can pick the best one for them? I’d be glad to help!
- bethsoderberg 10:22 pm on November 22, 2015
  
  hey @CamWebDev! We’ve talked about creating different formats for different folks, but there are a few issues with it around accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) to software and maintaining so many different versions of the same slides. For a small number of lesson plans I agree that this idea could work in a lot of ways. Since we ultimately are going to have dozens of lesson plans and are going to have to maintain all of that information over time with very limited resources we need to have one set of slides per plan, which is why this conversation is such a tricky one.
Julie Kuehl 4:33 pm on November 17, 2015

Has anyone considered using/modifying a slider pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party?

Are our requirements too stringent and preventing us from moving forward? Should we prioritize them?

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