Jumbotron

Simple to use presentaiton software, built around a patched and extended version of reveal.js, designed with developers and workshops in mind.

Jumbotron provides a CLI (command line interface), built with Node.js, that you use to run your presentations, or helps you bundle your presentations for sharing and/or deployment. Some of the awesome features include:

• Support for all Reveal.js Syntax
• Syntax Highlighting by Default (using HighlightJS)
• Client-side extensions for better code presentaiton
• Master/follower presentation sharing (multiplex)
• PDF exporting
• Utilizes handlebars
• easy bundling for external deploys

Table of Contents

• Install
• Quick Start
• Configuration
• Displaying Code Blocks
• Master/Follower
• PDF Export
• Deploying/Bundling
• Command Line Usage
• In-Code Usage

Install

$ npm install -g jumbotron

This will add the jumbotron command to your system.

Quick Start

1. Create a Deck

First build some Reveal.js slides. If you are unfamiliar with Reveal.js, take a look at this tutorial, or find a tutorial that works for you.

Note you only need to put the section tags in the files. Jumbotron will wrap your sections in the right markup and include all the right JavaScript/CSS. Also, your files should use the .hbs file extension.

Example deckOne.hbs

<section>
  <h1>Example Deck</h1>
</section>
<section>
  <section>
    <h2>Sub section</h2>
  </section>
</section>

Anything you place in my-project/public will be available as static assets through the server. Use this public folder for images, fonts, etc.

2. Add a jumbotron.json

This configuration file is used to identify and load your presentations. The filenames and urls for each presentation can be inferred from the title you set, so sometimes thats all you need.

{
  "presentations": [
    {"title":"Deck One"},
    {"title":"Deck Two"}
  ]
}

You can find out more about the configuration file below.

View Your Presentations

Start the Jumbotron server

$ cd my-jumbo-project
$ jumbotron
...
info:    Jumbotron server listening on port 9209
info:    Version: 0.1.0

Your presentations will be available at localhost:9209 by default. The URL for each presentation will be an alphanumeric version of the title, with "-"s replacing the spaces. With the configuration above, the presentations would accessible via localhost:9209/deck-one and localhost:9209/deck-two.

Configuration

{
  // css file to load for every presentation
  // maps to "/public/css/myCSS.css" in your project directory
  "css": "myCSS"

  // the theme to use with HighlightJS
  // maps to "my-project/public/css/github.css"
  // https://github.com/isagalaev/highlight.js/tree/master/src/styles
  "hljsTheme": "github"

  presentations: [
    {
      "title": "My Slide Deck",

      // filename of the presentation file
      // maps from the root of the project directory
      // maps to "/my-project/mySlideDeck.hbs"
      "file": "mySlideDeck",

      // the url to associate with the presentation
      // no leading slash required
      "url": "my-slide-deck",

      // used to order the presentations array
      // no specific use yet
      "order": 2
    }
  ]
}

Displaying Code Blocks

Jumbotron extends the basic functionality of Reveal.js for code blocks. Each block gets its own footer that displays related information, such as the number of lines, language, and even a filename if provided.

Jumbotron also adds a few shortcuts and extras to make presenting code easy.

Code Language

Use the jt-code-lang attribute on the pre to set the lanaguage for the code in the block. This sets the language for HighlightJS and what is displayed in the block footer.

<pre jt-code-lang="javascript"><code>var thing = 'thing';</code></pre>

To disable sytax highlighting and remove the language from the footer, simply omit the jt-code-lang attribute.

Fragmented Blocks

Jumbotron allows you to break up your code blocks so you can display only some code at a time. It does this by aliasing some Reveal.js functionality. More specifically it makes it easier to use fragments for code blocks.

You split up your code using multiple code tags and adding the jt-code-fragment attribute to the parent pre tag. Don't forget the jt-code-lang tag.

<pre jt-code-lang="javascript" jt-code-fragment><code>var thing = 'thing';</code><code>

var funct = function() {
    return 'function called!';
};</code></pre>

On each code tag, you can set a jt-frag attribute that denotes the order in which the code will be displayed. This is useful for step-by-step instructions, as well as showing code in ways that make more sense than just thrown on a slide. The order does not have to be linear either. It is not required, but considered best practice to set ft-frag on an "all or none" basis.

The following code example will show the variable, then the function, then what is inside the function.

<pre jt-code-lang="javascript" jt-code-fragment><code jt-frag="0">var thing = 'thing';</code><code jt-frag="1">

var funct = function() {</code><code jt-frag="2">
    return 'function called!';</code><code jt-frag="1">
};</code></pre>

Jumbotron also allows you to highlight the currently presented code by "blurring" out the surrounding code. This makes it much easier to follow more complex code blocks. Simply replace the jt-code-fragment attribute with jt-code-blur.

<pre jt-code-lang="javascript" jt-code-blur><code jt-frag="0">var thing = 'thing';</code><code jt-frag="1">

var funct = function() {</code><code jt-frag="2">
    return 'function called!';</code><code jt-frag="1">
};</code></pre>

Try it all out for yourself to see how awesome it is.

Code Block Footers

Besides the language, you can also provide an arbitrary filename to display in the code block footer. Adding the jt-code-file attribute to the pre tag will set the filename to put in the footer. This attribute has no other significance beyond displaying text in the footer.

<pre jt-code-lang="javascript" jt-code-file="variable.js"><code>var thing = 'thing';</code></pre>

If you would like to hide the code footer altogether, you can use the jt-no-footer attribute on the pre tag. Keep in mind this will not disable syntax highlighting.

<pre jt-code-lang="javascript" jt-no-footer><code>var thing = 'thing';</code></pre>

You can also set some CSS for .reveal pre .code-footer to hide the footers globally, or to give it your own look if that is your sort of thing.

Using Master/Follower

Jumbotron allows you to share your presentations with others, in real-time, but control the navigation so your viewers can follow along as you present. This feature does not require any configuration or file changes, just some query parameters.

First you need to do is initalize a presentation as the master. You do this by adding master to the query string of the presentation URL, IE localhost:9209/deck-two?master. This will make this presentation instance the controller, and create a unique token which is used by the follower presentation instances. You can access/view the token by inspecting the Reveal.js initialization on the page (developer tools, etc.).

Inspecting the JavaScript of the page can be silly, so you can also add an id query parameter that will be used as the token, to make it easier to keep track of the token. Often, the full master URL will be something like localhost:9209/deck-two?master&id=12345.

For any presentation instances you want to follow the master, you simply add the follow and id query parameters, where the id matches the master's token. Here is an example follower URL localhost:9209/deck-two?follow&id=12345.

There is no limit to the number of followers a master can have. Just make sure all the ids match up.

PDF Export

Note: You must be using Google Chrome to use the PDF export.

To get your presentations as PDFs, simply add the print-pdf query parameter (localhost:9209/deck-two?print-pdf) to the URL and use the print to PDF print option.

Note: The styles of the slides will change a little, into a more "printable" style.

If you are having trouble, you can follow the instructions in the Reveal.js documentation. Jumbotron does not change any of it's functionality, so the instructions are applicable here.

Deploying/Bundling

The Jumbotron CLI allows you bundle your presentations in two ways. You can bundle them with a Jumbotron server for cloud deployment, or bundle them into portable HTML and JS files. You use the bundle command in both cases.

Jumbotron Server Deployment

jumbotron bundle

This will bundle the presentations, along with a jumbotron server, into a jumbotron-bundle directory wherever the command is run. The advantage of bundling with a Jumbotron server is maintaining the master/follower features, which can come in handy.

This bundle is also deployment ready (includes a package.json and server script), meaning you can take this bundle and deploy it via any Node.js PaaS.

Portable Bundle

jumbotron bundle -p

The -p (--portable) parameter will bundle your presentations into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This eliminates the need for a server or deployment, simply open one of the HTML files and you can view your presentation. However, while much easier to share, you loose any extra features beyond presentation displaying (master/follower, pdf exports, etc.).

Just like the normal bundlle, all the files will be saved to a jumbotron-bundle directory.

Command Line Usage

jumbotron <path>

Runs the path specified as a jumbotron project. If no path is given, the current working directory (IE where the command was run) is used.

jumbotron path/to/my/presentations

jumbotron bundle

Bundles your project for deployment to a remote server, or to share with others. By default your bundles will be saved to jumbotron-bundle in the directory your run the command. This directory is also cleared every time your run the command.

jumbotron bundle -p

Bundles the project as HTML, CSS, and client-side JavaScript only. This makes the bundle extremely portable, as all that is required to run the presentations is a Reveal.js supported browser.

This command will actually compile your handlebars files for you and output complete HTML files.

WARNING: the HTML outputted by this command may not be well-formatted.

jumbotron bundle -o

Sets the output directory of the bundle. Defaults to jumbotron-bundle.

jumbotron bundle -o jumbundle

In-Code Usage

You can also use Jumbotron in your own application. It is essentially a bootstrapped server. The module returns a server factory, which when called returns a new server instance. The factory method takes one argument, a directory.

var jumbotron = require('jumbotron'),
    server = jumbotron(__dirname);

The directory will be used as the project directory for the server, IE the directory where all the presentations are.

Once you have a server, all you have to do is call start.

var jumbotron = require('jumbotron'),
    server = jumbotron(__dirname);

server.start();

Boom! You have a Jumbotron server.

Documentation TODO

• Context available in handlebars files
• Running the Tests