Picking a Topic for a Meetup Talk

Presentation for the San Diego JS speaker workshop about how to pick a topic for a talk.

Install dependencies

1. Install node.js.
2. Install node dependencies, with the command:

npm install

View the Presentation

npm run present

Develop the Presentation

• Edit the slides from slides folder (html or markdown or mixed)
• Check out the slide examples for more usage info
• If you need some assets, you can work in images, css, js, media folders and use includes.txt
• The slideshow is automatically built into build folder
• The slideshow is hosted and the browser is opened to localhost:9000
• Any change you make will rebuild and refresh the browser
• Oh, and a printer-friendly slides.pdf is automatically generated on any change too

Slides structure and format

• Slides and chapters are sorted by name.
• If a slide or a chapter name starts with a dot . (hidden), it will be skipped. (or use --keep-hidden)
• You can number your slides to ensure order by adding a "number-" prefix, it will be automagically stripped out.
• Each slide will have an id generated from filename (removing accents and spaces).
• If you use --sub-covers the title is the stripped name, accents and case remain untouched.

Sample structure

images/
js/
css/
slides/
  01-intro.md
  02-Chapter 1/
    01-hello-world.md
    02-bonjour-monde.md
  03-conclusion.md

The only required directory is slides. The other directories are for custom content.

Sample slide

# Slide's title

Content of the slide

note:

Your notes go here.

Complex (multiline, code samples, etc.) notes are really supported only with --such-notes.

Customize slide attributes

You can set per-slide properties like general style, background or transition by adding special lines at the head of your slides:

• Add class: $class:some class$
• Replace automatic id: $id:id$ If you set it to "none", it will remove any id on the slide
• Any other property will be added as a data-attribute, here are some examples supported by Reveal:
  • $background:/path/to/image.jpg$
  • $background-video:/path/to/video.webm$
  • $background-iframe:http://mysite.com$
  • $transition:zoom$
  • $transition-speed:fast$

Command Usage

• The dev script will open a browser window with the presentation and keep it updated as you make changes:

  npm run dev

• If you just want the build to stay current, use:

  npm run watch

• To just build the pdf, use:

  npm run print

Adjust Options

Under the covers, prez is used to build and serve the presentation. It offers several options to modify the presentation output. To use any of these options, add the option after npm run command -- . For example, to create more room for speaker notes, use this:

npm run present -- --such-notes

Configuration File

Alternatively, you can set the options in the .prezrc file.

Available options:

• -v, --version: show version and exit
• -s <dir>, --slides-dir=<dir>: customize name of the folder containing slides (default = slides)

Assets & slides

• --skip-reveal: do not copy reveal.js slides into target directory (useful if you want faster build over existing build)
• --skip-index: do not generate index.html in target (will remain untouched if already existing)
• --skip-user: do not include user assets
• --keep-hidden: render slides or chapters starting with a dot .
• --sub-covers: auto generate cover slides with the dir name as a h1 for each group of vertical slides

Meta

• --title=<title>: specify the title of your presentation (default = package.json name if found or Prez)
• --author=<author>: specify the author of your presentation (default = package.json author if found)
• --description=<description>: specify the description of your presentation (default = package.json description if found)

Theme

• --theme=<theme>: choose reveal theme (default = black)
• --highlight-theme=<theme>: choose highlight.js theme (default = monokai)
• --no-dynamic-theme: disable ability to change theme from query string
• --print-notes: enable special print layout with first-class notes
• --such-notes: focus on notes, which will enable a special print layout with notes as first-class content, and more space for them in the notes popup

Live server

• --serve[=<port>]: serve slideshow (you can specify port here or use --port)
• -p <port>, --port=<port>: modify http server port (default 9000), you can use value auto to use a random available port
• --no-live-reload: disable live-reload when serving slideshow
• --no-open-browser: do not open local browser automatically when serving slideshow

Print

• --print[=<file>]: print slideshow as pdf (requires --serve and phantomjs must be installed)
• --print-theme=<theme>: theme to be used for pdf output (default = no override)
• --phantomjs=<path to phantomjs>: path to phantomjs (default = phantomjs)

Misc

• --no-update-notifier: disable version checking

Initialize a Presentation

!!Caution!!

To generate a default presentation (and potentially blow away any work you have already done):

1. In package.json, modify the config object if necessary. By default source files will be in ./source, built files will go in ./build. If files exist in these directories, they will be overwritten.
2. From the command line:

npm run init