Beyond PowerPoint: XML-based presentations

(2-hr advanced seminar)

Presentation ("slideshow") applications are one of the most popular uses of XML. This is partly because they are relatively easy to build; partly because slide shows make such interesting experiments in markup, transformation, presentation, functionality ... and partly because they can encourage the presenter to think beyond the "one-bullet-per-sentence" model!

There's nothing wrong with using a proprietary, application-based presentation format for a one-time presentation -- as a tutorial, conference talk or marketing pitch. But what if you also want to produce a handsome printed booklet? Or to re-use content and graphics you created two years ago? Or to represent the sections and subsections of your presentation? Or to use features that aren't included in the shrink-wrapped application?

XML is a data format that is ideal for:

• delivering the same information in multiple outputs
• repurposing content
• building and maintaining hierarchical structures
• attaching content to features of a rendering application

In this seminar we show how very easy it is to build a presentations system of your own, discuss some of the tradeoffs you might encounter, look at some XML presentation systems available on the Internet (including DocBook and TEI), and examine an unusual system that uses XML to produce complex presentation visuals in SVG.

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