Impress.js server

Impress-server enables you to share an impress.js presentation with other users. It is not a remote control but every user who opens the presentation while it is in presentation mode will have the state of the presentation synced in real time to his browser.

What problem does it solve ?

In our company we permanently have video conferences with customers. Whenever we want to run a presentation for them we have to do this via a screen sharing tool. Screen sharing is fine but the quality is poor and it uses a lot of bandwith. With impress-server you can run a remote presentation with nearly no bandwidth useage at all and in full impress.js quality.

How to use

First clone this repository to your local harddrive, change into the cloned directory, install NPM dependencies and then start the server.

git clone https://github.com/tompro/impress-server.git
cd impress-server
npm install
node index.js

To verify that everything is ok point your browser to: http://localhost:8080/example. This should show you the example presentation which is shipped with impress.js.

Adding a presentation

Impress-server lets you host multiple presentations. All presentations are located in the public directory. To add a presentation just add a directory to the public folder. Make shure your HTML file containing the presentation, is named index.html. All resources (e.g. CSS, images, ...) you need in your presentation should go into this directory as well.

You should not add impress.js itself as impress-server need a specific impress.js version to run presentation sharing. Instead change the impress script source to the server version and also include, socket.io and remote.events.js in your presentation.

<script src="/js/impress.js"></script>
<script src="/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>
<script src="/js/remote.events.js"></script>

Sharing a presentation

A presentation is not shared by default but only hosted. Every user visiting your presentation can navigate the presentation himself. If you like to switch to presentation mode, you currently have to hack your way in :) .

Open your browsers web developer tools (you should know how to do this if you can create impress.js presentations) and go to console. Type the following:

api.claimPresenter();

If everything works a short message should be shown, telling you that you are now in presentation mode. All current and future visitors will be in view only mode from now on. They have to view the slide your browser is currently showing. So you're in god mode now :) .

There are several other api commands you can use:

// stop presentation mode, all users can navigate on their own
api.releasePresenter();

// a user in view mode can exit view mode and navigate himself
api.ignorePresenter();

// a user who previously ignored the presenter can refollow the presentation
api.followPresenter();

// navigate the presentation
api.next();
api.prev();
api.goto(2);

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2012 Thomas Profelt <[email protected]>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.