I have released impress.js v1.0. Impress.js is a framework for creating awesome 3D presentations with standard HTML5 and CSS. (Similar to Prezi + 3D and open source.)

From the release notes:

• New plugin based architecture allows adding more features without bloating core src/impress.js file
• Source files are in src/ and compiled into js/impress.js with npm run build. End users should continue to use js/impress.js as before.
• 19 new plugins
• Integrates impressConsole.js by default (press 'P' to open speaker console)
• Markdown support for those that are too much in a hurry to type HTML

A common and IMO cool way to create impress.js presentations, is to use some large background image for the entire presentation, then layout each slide over it. One of my first impress.js presentation was Selling Open Source 101 for Oscon 101. The presentation is inside a picture of a woman selling all kinds of stuff in a bazaar.

Next week I will present something about EC2 at HighLoad++ conference, and my presentation is flying over some clouds, of course.

It's been almost a year since my last update on features I've added to the impress.js presentation framework. Already a year ago I had pretty much merged or implemented all of the open backlog for the project. But at the end of the post I still listed two popular requests I hadn't implemented: Support sub-steps and 2D navigation.

It's been a while since the last time I blogged about impress.js. That's because after I completed adding a batch of long outstanding feature requests and pull requests, I felt somewhat content with the status of my impress.js fork.

The compelling feature of impress.js is to animate your presentations in a 3D space. Earlier this year I spent some time trying to move from placing my slides in a 2D plane to doing something really cool and 3D. But I never really got beyond some simple tilts and turns, like you see at the end of the official demo as well. Somehow I couldn't figure out the logic of simple rotations around x, y, and z axes.

During June-July I had pretty much completed adding the features that I myself had in mind impress.js (as you might have read on this blog back then). Some of those features of course had been asked for multiple times by others as well, in particular the ability to define slide positions relative to the previous slide, was a popular request, with several pull requests proposing it as well. Now that I've added such a plugin, I have to say it is indeed much more convenient way of authoring presentations.

With the Euro Cup 2016 done, evenings can again be spent contributing to my favorite open source project: The impress.js presentation framework. In the series of blog posts about my additions to it, it is now time to unveil a feature I added by popular request: Markdown support.

Thanks again to the power of open source, this was easy to add. By integrating Markdown.js as an extra addon, you can now type Markdown instead of HTML in each impress.js step:

This is the third post in my series of blog posts on Impress.js. As I've already mentioned, I've also written some new code to impress.js. Now I want to finally present the new features I've added (currently available in my github fork).

Prologue

Last month I wrote about impress.js, and how I've started using it for my presentations. This has been going well, and during the past month I've actually given 2 more presentations using impress.js:

Dreams and fears of a database consultant
MongoDB and GIS

(You really have to click those links, embedding these presentations wouldn't make them justice!)

In terms of using an open source desktop, Sun releasing OpenOffice some 15 (?) years ago was an important milestone, comparable to Mozilla finally managing to produce a working browser in Firefox. It provided essentially feature parity with Microsoft office, and most importantly, decent compatibility with Microsoft's own proprietary file formats.

I've used OpenOffice, and now LibreOffice, for lots of non-trivial tasks, including writing a complete book. Sure, the UI toolkit was stuck in the 90's, and Sun wasn't really a good steward in pushing the code base into this century, but it did work.