Usage

Prezoom plugin usage

An example source file of a presentation is provided here.

As with any flash animation, preparing a presentation is a cycle which alternates between two phases:

• Creation time. The user creates the presentation using the flash authoring tool. In this mode, the Prezoom plugin automates adding new slides and frames to the presentation, and ordering them in a tree-like structure.

• Presentation time. The user views the presentation. In this mode, the user operates the presentation via the Prezoom plugin, which based on user actions (e.g. keystrokes) triggers transitions between slides or frames, in accordance to the structure created during presentation time.

Below, we describe the usage of the plugin during creation time, sometimes referring to the resulting behavior of the presentation during presentation time.

The Prezoom plugin window looks roughly like this:

Presentation tree

In the main part, the plugin displays the presentation tree.
This tree consists of three types of nodes (apart from the root node), described below.
During presentation time, the tree is processed in a DFS fashion.
Each type of node involves a specific behavior during presentation time.

• Slide nodes.
  Slides are "containers" for presentation content. This is why in the presentation tree, slide nodes may have children nodes. To view the children nodes, click on the small triangle on the left from a slide node.
  Each slide has a corresponding movie clip in Flash.
  The behavior related to a slide node is to move the current view to
  the area occupied by the movie clip.

• Frame nodes.
  Frames correspond to the subsequent stages of a single slide.
  Roughly, each frame corresponds to a frame of the movie clip of the containing slide.
  The behavior related to a frame node is to play the movie clip corresponding to the parent slide, up to the specified frame, and then wait for the user to press a key.

• Alpha slides.
  An alpha slide is a slide which is initially transparent, and only becomes visible
  upon first entrance. A slide can be converted to an alpha slide (and vice versa) by
  using the context menu, obtained by right-clicking the node.

Control buttons

Below the presentation tree are the control buttons.
Three of them create new nodes in the presentation tree.
The new node will be created as the next node in the presentation, if the currently selected node is a frame or a is closed slide node. If the currently selected node is an open slide node, the new node will be created as its last child.

The buttons are, from left to right:

• New slide.
  Creates a new slide in the presentation tree.
  The user must enter the name of the slide.
  Creates a corresponding movie clip. The movie clip automatically obtains
  a title, corresponding to the provided name.

• New frame.
  Creates a new frame in the presentation tree. Creates automatically a new layer in the parent slide, and creates a keyframe for this new layer at a corresponding moment of the timeline.

• New alpha slide.
  The feature of creating alpha nodes via the plugin is available from version 0.5. An alpha slide is initially transparent, and becomes visible upon first entrance.

• Remove.
  Remove removes a selected node from the presentation tree.
  In case of a slide, the corresponding movie clip remains on the scene and in the library.
  In case of a frame, the corresponding layer is removed from the parent slide.

• Reload.
  Reload updates the presentation tree, basing on the commands which are contained in the timeline. To learn more about these commands, see [Advanced].

• Test presentation.
  This button runs the presentation, starting from the currently selected node.

Navigation

Double-clicking on a node in the presentation tree navigates the Flash environment to a corresponding slide or frame.