SlideMagic Blog

Slowly, slowly, I am starting up overhaul my website and branding once more. The custom presentation design business site has been taken down, marketing for SlideMagic 1.0 has been hidden in a menu, and I started to display alanding page for SlideMagic 2.0.

Sunsetting 2 businesses on which you have worked for years (even more than a decade) feels a bit strange, I remember worrying about SEO and other things, while I am now switching off the whole thing in one click.

All to make space for 2.0.

The update server is back up, now with improved security. Beta testers will have version 2.1.17 installed automatically, with bug fixes and improved stability.

I am beefing up the security and code protection of SlideMagic 2.0, and have temporarily taken down the automatic update server. Beta testers who want to get their hands on the latest version should log in with their account at cloud.slidemagic.com/beta and download the latest version manually. I am working hard to get everything back up soon.

I am focusing on increasing the template database and in the process encounter more ways to make working with SlideMagic faster, and slides prettier. After the past days:

• Various bug fixes, and code cleanups. I can now laugh at some of the code I wrote at the very beginning of this project, what was I thinking…
• A proper way to deal with text overflow in boxes, things look professional now when font sizes are getting to big
• The grid bars now light up when you select shapes
• A allowed bolding of text with CTRL-CMD B, unlike bullet points, I think this actually does add something to the slide (not yet reflected in PowerPoint and PDF conversions, I might have to write a text block parser to make this happen).
• Building on bold text, I made the overall font thinner
• And I added slide subtitles as a fixed feature to each slide template.

To be continued

SlideMagic 2.0 beta users will have their app updated over the coming days with a few tweaks and improvements, mostly the result of me now using the app in earnest for the expansion of the template database.

• I gave up on insisting that you cannot change the layout of the title page of the presentation. Page 1 still looks like it did before out of the box, but you can now change it, delete it, move it, like any other slide in the presentation. Whatever you do to it, the design will be 100% consistent with the other slides in the deck though. Page one is important to brand your presentation, and I was imposing too many restrictions on my users. The side effect of this is that removing the need to distinguish between page 1 and regular pages I could simplify the app code massively (= deleting many, many lines of code). Legacy SlideMagic 1.0 presentations will be converted automatically.
• I removed the ability to edit slide titles in story mode. Initially I thought it would be a useful way to edit headlines of your slides all together. Now in use, I found that it actually confuses the story user interface.
• I perfected drag and drop of slides, now also across multiple presentation windows (something that is hard to do in browser-based applications such as Google Slides). As result the clipboard in story view was no longer needed. You can now also drag, copy, delete, move slides in the small thumbnail strip at the side of the main edit screen. There is still work to do here (dragging multiple slides for example)
• I implemented right-click context menus throughout the presentation, enabling me to declutter the user interface by removing icons that are no longer needed.
• Popup menus enable you to work with very fine grids now, as I no longer need to render lots of icons.
• Popups also solve user interface conflicts between drawing connector arrows and combining/splitting shapes

They key concept in drawing in perspective is the vanishing point: every line in your slide should disappear in it (see an earlier blog post). It turns out I got the concept slightly wrong all the time. Because of the curve in the Earth’s surface, the real vanishing point for someone standing at sea level is actually below the horizon. A vanishing point that sits on the horizon, would require the radius of the Earth to be 64x as large. (For comparison, the Sun as a radius about 109x that of Earth.

Vanishing point at a planet with a radius 64x that of Earth

The accurate vanishing point

With this new knowledge, will I change my approach to slide design? Not sure.

Based on an article in NRC Handelsblad. Simulation images by Siebren van der Werf.

A question I got from a SlideMagic 2.0 beta tester.

The answer: there aren’t any. I am trying to create a presentation design tool that changes people’s design habits. SlideMagic does not have built-in bullet point formatting options. It is meant to be that buzzer that reminds you to find an alternative design solution the moment you are about to fall back to your old habits.

It is possible to create lists in SlideMagic though. Below a screen shot from a template search in the (still very small) slide library. If you need to make a list as a conscious design decision, you can, if you want to fill a box quickly with a number of bullet points, you can’t.

Maybe I am pushing things too far here, but I am not yet ready to give in.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Tel Aviv VC TLV Partners has updated their funding playbook with a set of PowerPoint and Excel templates to prepare a Board presentation. Board meetings should be productive, and preparing for them should be as efficient as possible (there are other things that a startup needs to do). You can save time by investing less in graphical polishing, and set up smart links between Excel and PowerPoint to copy data across. Maybe you will find these templates useful.

I was not involved in the preparation of these documents.

Photo by Startaê Team on Unsplash

I just returned from a wonderful trip to show my kids California (apologies for the silence here on the blog). To find places to stay I had to browse AirBnB and hotel web sites, basically online sales presentations for real estate. I was struck by the images most places used. They could have been better:

• Real estate people like to show features: close up pictures of washing machines, wide angle shots of living rooms, bed rooms. But I think most short term tenants look more at the atmosphere of a place… Few features, more ambience.
• Related to this: lighting. Super bright flood lighting, flash, makes all the objects in the property visible, but kill the ambience of the photo. Everything looks like a high school canteen. Add images that actually highlight the outisde view through the windows, not the inside. Take pictures in the early morning or around sunset for softer light.
• Think of the sequence of the slide show: your best shots upfront, but don’t forget the last ones as well. Spread out the washing machines and ironing boards in between more atmospheric shots of the property.

Sales presentations are everywhere.

Some designers have a distinct look & feel that you can recognise instantly. Recently, I started to see “SlideMagic-type” visuals on the Internet (boxy grid-based slides with one strong colour). Not by people I recognise immediately (Twitter followers, blog readers, SlideMagic users, etc.), and these were not direct copies of my designs: new charts in the spirit of SlideMagic

I consider this a great compliment. SlideMagic is a culture change in business presentation design. The style, the approach, everything is open source. As a side effect I hope to create a financially viable business by offering a tool that makes it even easier to spread the culture to everyone who needs it.

Photo by Moss on Unsplash