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diff --git a/_posts/2014-12-14-showoff.md b/_posts/2014-12-14-showoff.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d84352 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2014-12-14-showoff.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +--- +title: Using Showoff for Markdown Presentations +description: > + Use Showoff to make slideshows and presentations in Markdown with awesome + audience interactivity. +--- + +Recently, I had to give a presentation and decided to do some research on using +Markdown. By coincidence, I had also been looking into +[Puppet](https://puppetlabs.com), a flexible and powerful configuration manager, +when I stumbled across [Showoff](https://github.com/puppetlabs/showoff), another +Puppet Labs project. + +<!--more--> + +Showoff is a Ruby application that takes a Markdown file with some [special +formatting](https://github.com/puppetlabs/showoff/blob/master/documentation/AUTHORING.rdoc) +and transforms it into a web-accessible slideshow. As expected, you can open up +a presenter view in your browser. You can also easily open up a second window to +use on your projector in full screen. You can even give your audience the +address for the server so they can follow along on their own screens. + +There are also some nice audience interactivity features, like the ability to +ask questions through the web interface. These questions will be shown on the +presenter's screen. Audience members also have the ability to indicate whether +the presenter is moving too quickly or too slowly so that an adjustment can be +made accordingly. + +Finally, Showoff is designed with software presentations in mind, with the +ability to dynamically run Ruby, JavaScript, or Coffeescript code included in +your slides. You can attach other files or labs to your slides, so audience +members following along on their own devices can easily access reference +materials at the appropriate time. + +For a small presentation like the one I was doing, a lot of the more advanced +features of Showoff would have been overkill, but it still made an awesome +presentation method. It was also really neat to be able to say that the slides +were available on Github if anyone wanted to look at them afterwards. |