What Happens When A Python Hacker Gets P☃☎★♅d Off With GUI Presentation Tools
◦
Michael Hudson

I wanted to give a talk in the "one short sentence per slide" style.

Tried Open Office.

Aaarrgh!
(well, you know)

Tried a little to install Bruce.

Aaarrgh!
(not packaged)

Tried mgp.

Aaarrgh!
(random X errors)

Meanwhile had written the sentences I wanted to say in a text file.

So wrote a simple script that dug the sentences of the file and printed them one at a time.

| for slide in slides:   |
|     os.system('clear') |
|     print '\n'*10      |
|     print slide        |
|     raw_input()        |

Problem: couldn't go backwards.

Solution: terminal hacking!

(Obviously)

Stole scary code from my old pyrepl project.

For example:

| self.__svtermstate = \          |
|     tcgetattr(self.input_fd)    |
| raw = self.__svtermstate.copy() |
| raw.iflag &=~ \                 |
|  (termios.BRKINT|termios.INPCK| |
|   termios.ISTRIP|termios.IXON)  |
| raw.oflag &=~ (termios.OPOST)   |
| raw.cflag &=~ \                 |
|  (termios.CSIZE|termios.PARENB) |
| ...                             |
| tcsetattr(                      |
|  self.input_fd,                 |
|  termios.TCSADRAIN, raw)        |

Then

| i = 0                    |
| while i < len(slides):   |
|     show_slide(i)        |
|     e = get_event()      |
|     if e.name == 'left': |
|        i -= 1            |
|     else:                |
|        i += 1            |

From there, just a short step to dissolve transitions, etc.

(Background image courtesy of gnome-terminal).